Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship*
The Manassas Church of Christ is committed to worshipping God as a diverse community - people of various cultures, background and ages. As a parent, you have the joy and responsibility of helping your children learn to be a part of this community's corporate worship. The following are some ideas that will help with this awesome, yet rewarding, responsibility.
- Children should sit with parents or a trusted adult friend/mentor who will help to guide them through the worship service.
- Sitting near the front will help children of all ages see, hear and focus on the content of the service.
- Prepare your children for worship in advance. Help children go to bed at an reasonable time on Saturday night, have breakfast Sunday morning, and go to the bathroom before the service starts! Before the service talk with your children about how God has blessed us with the opportunity to worship.
- Instead of feeling that you must distract your children so that they will stay quiet, try to creatively involve your children in the service. Whispers between children and adults are far preferable to silent children who are not understanding the worship service! There are many ways to help children understand and participate in worship.
- Have your children join in the activities of worship - stand when the congregation stands, sing when the congregation sings, pray when the congregation prays, follow along with the scriptures readings, pass the communion trays and place coins in the collection plate.
- Quietly ask your children questions about the worship experience. For example, ask younger children, "Can you find the word 'love' in this scripture?" Ask older children, "How so you think the disciples felt when Jesus said this?"
- Wait until the sermon begins to give children coloring or reading materials. While younger children can learn to color quietly during the sermon, older children can listen to the sermon and participate in activities that correspond to the sermon's theme. For example, they might list and draw the fruit of the spirit, or draw a cartoon that illustrates the meaning of the word "mercy."
- Parents may feel that it will be "distracting" to help their children worship. While this may be true at times, the inconvenience is far outweighed by the value of worshiping God as a family. Additionally, parents will be blessed by the opportunity to see worship through the eyes of their children. We remember Jesus' words, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 18:3)