I didn’t grow up with a regular children’s sermon. Sometimes, we’d be brought up to the front two pews and there was something, maybe it was a children’s sermon…I know we had picture books. Dad likes to read picture books to the children sometimes. That usually is after finding some new ones at Barnes & Noble.

Most often, there was just an announcement that the kids were welcome to leave for Sunday school. If we were already at the front, we were led out of the worship space from there. Otherwise, there would be a brief carousing as the kids would walk or run up to the front. The worship would pause there in the middle of the service before continuing after the door closed. The children would reappear from the back, flowing to the pews favored by the parents (the back) just in time to rejoin us for communion.

 

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In some places, a more established practice of a weekly children’s sermon or children’s moment is written into the congregation’s DNA. Here the preaching is geared directly to the kids, done at their level, and in a way that will (hopefully) be meaningful.

Rarely is this the Sermon, however. It is most often a pre-sermon. Like the pausing of liturgy to let the children leave, so that now we can get down to business. I have the same feeling with the children’s sermon. That it isn’t “the real sermon”. It’s a fake. It’s less than. Perhaps a token.

The Pageant Syndrome

Many educators in the church grimace at the way we treat children in our worship. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the Christmas Pageant.

Most of us who have grown up in the church know the pitfalls of the Christmas Pageant. Often done on a Sunday before Christmas or on Christmas Eve, preferably at the “family service,” the Christmas Pageant is an opportunity to get our children involved in worship, practicing and rehearsing songs and dressing up our 3 and 4 year-olds in lamb costumes. They really are quite adorable. I am a huge fan of creative, performative opportunities in worship and am genuinely excited for this year’s untraditional pageant at St. Stephen’s.

The pitfalls for the church have virtually nothing to do with whether or not these are good for our children, because they are! The struggle is with the adults.

Jake, our little ham cuts up in front of us and we laugh. Or our sweet Isabel sings so beautifully, we just have to stand up to get a better picture or recording of her. And all the parents flood the front few pews to get the best seat for the performance. Our children are sharing the gospel with us as an offering to GOD and there is little worship in our hearts.

It seems too much the case that we don’t treat the children in our worship like full participants, or as worship leaders, like musicians or readers, but as performers for us. I’ve learned from professional educators not to laugh or clap for the individuals, not because anyone is doing anything wrong, but because this isn’t teaching our children what worship is, we’re teaching them to perform for us. And this is deeply counterproductive for our own faith development and theirs.

Full Worship

There is a legitimate question about engaging our children in worship. Teaching them about worship and how we have come to worship is actually a good thing. And many children do struggle to keep a sustained appreciation for our worship for 45-90 minutes at a time. That is certainly beyond most 4 year-olds’ attention spans.

And for as much as I would love for us to strip everything down and overhaul our liturgical expression to meet our children’s needs (which is pretty much what I asked for yesterday), few of us are going to do this because we have way more adults than children. And some of us come from pretty adult-oriented traditions. This may be a bridge too far for most.

There is something, however, to making our worship more experiential and directly engaging.

High liturgical churches know that children are far more engaged by the symbols of our faith. The sight and smell of incense, processions with crosses, flinging water from a tree branch. When there is movement to watch, unique scents to smell, and things for all of us to do (besides standing and kneeling), our children are way more involved.

Low liturgical churches know that inviting children to sing songs at their level (ie. not so much four-part harmony) that are repetitive and catchy give them an easy way into worship. And preaching, not just directly to them, but in an interactive way can engage their responsiveness.

Both of these approaches engage the whole congregation, no matter the age, in a worshipful and natural liturgical expression. These aren’t pauses or separations within the liturgy. These aren’t carved out moments for one constituent group or another. They are meaningful and ultimately serve different members of the gathered congregation in different ways, but do so in a singular, unifying practice. We have enough division in our lives. Let’s strive for truly inclusive worship.

It seems to me that the best way to make children actually feel included is to make the whole worship more accessible for them. And the challenge for us, then, is to do so while making it also feel accessible for us.

Ask Yourself

How do we support our children in service? And how do we make sure that we serve them?

In what ways do we explore the possibility of our liturgy in light of all of our needs, but especially the needs of our children? How do we take this task seriously and see it not as an outside influence, but from a deep place of love?

In what ways are we making sure our children already are included? In what ways are separating them in worship? And how might we help them feel fully a part of the community?

What do our adults need to hear about dealing with children? How can we help all of our people begin to meet the needs of our children?

How are we preaching to our children now? How are our children preaching to us?

 

[This is Day 14 of How to start deconstructing church. The next in the series is “Adult Formation”. To start from the beginning, read the introduction here.]