Parenting in the Pew

Introduction

I believe it necessary to begin a post like this with a couple of qualifiers—well, maybe just one. It would be one thing to write a post declaring all these principles and best practices of keeping your little ones engaged during corporate worship and the preaching of the word from a high perch of superiority—as if I could just say, “Look at my family and just do what we do!” However, this would be obviously dishonest to anyone with two ears and two eyes. I, like all of us who commit to having our children with us during the Sunday gathering, have good days and bad days. So please take what follows not as commands from an expert—rather, comments from a fellow traveler who has gleaned some helpful counsel from older saints.

To that end, I have recently read a very helpful book entitled Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship by Robbie Castleman (1)—a pastor's wife with decades of experience. Although originally written in 1993, this little book has plenty of wisdom for our modern, technological, easily distracted age.

First Principles

An understandable objection to keeping your squirmy little ones in the service with you is that they present a serious challenge to your ability to pay attention. “Besides,” it is said, “they’re not getting anything out of it anyway. Wouldn’t it be better for them to go somewhere to get ‘age-appropriate’ teaching (aka child care) and then join us when they’re ready?”

Again, this is an understandable question. But I believe it misses the point by asking the wrong question. If the primary goal of the Sunday gathering is to “get stuff out of it”, then yes, little kids are a massive distraction. But we are not the primary focus of Sunday mornings. God is. The Lord is whom we glorify and bless whenever we gather (Ps 34:1–3; Ps 103:1–5), so it is not what we get out of the service, but what does God get (25)? And he makes clear that children do not interfere with the worship of him at all (Matt 18:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16). Even the squirmy ones.

Also, embedded in that objection is an assumption that children are incapable of worshiping or participating with the grown ups until they reach some age where they “graduate” to sitting in the service and have somehow, overnight, achieved the ability and know-how to participate in the gathering.

The problem with this is that it does not reflect how any of us learn anything. I did not magically learn to speak, read, or swing a golf club. We learn by doing. We learn by seeing, being trained, imitating, and practicing, and practicing, and practicing. So children will learn to worship—by worshiping. And they will learn that through participation, practice, and patience. More on that later.

Worship is primarily for God’s glory and not our benefit. The goal is not just for our children to sit quietly, but to engage with the worship of a holy and gracious and merciful and wondrous God! And this must be forefront in our minds and motivations as we seek to parent in the pew. 

It depends on who we are and how we see ourselves. Do we sit with our children in “church” or in “worship”? Too many adults who learned how to be quiet in church are still doing just that. And many of them are passing this along to their children. A family can learn to sit still very well, but be unmoved by the holy presence of God. (pg. 31)

One further point on this—the above philosophy has been a conviction of ours at Emmaus Road Church. This is why we don’t offer “children’s church”, but we do recognize that there is a developmental window (roughly 15 months to 4 years old) where kids are in a particularly squirmy stage. For this group, we have made child care available during the sermon only. But, as Castlemen says, anything that takes children out of the service should be structured to train them to go back in to participate (38). That is why we’ve taken steps to structure that time for children in Emmaus Road Kids to support parents as they seek to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—and participating in corporate worship being a critical component of that.

Getting Practical

That’s all well and good—but how do we get from lofty idealism to little butts in the chairs who are quiet, attentive, and worshipful? Below I’ve listed a couple tips that my family are going to strive to implement over the coming months and years.

Sunday starts on Saturday.

“Sunday morning should be a time of joyous expectation for a family who loves the Lord. But too often it is a morning riddled with strife and filled with anger (41).” This rings true for our home. And if we’re being honest, the strife and frustration we feel trying to get out the door is likely a result of not planning well. In other words, Sunday mornings don’t start when we walk into church, but well before in our preparations.

These preparations could begin on Saturday night as you’re tucking your kids into bed, reminding them of the sweet joy it is to be able to be with the people of God at church the next morning! After the kids are down, use that time to organize the things that take up so much time in the morning (i.e. pick out outfits, gather church bags, fill water bottles, etc.). In the morning, if you are stressed and frustrated, your children will be too. So seek to make the home a warm, joyous place in preparation of going to the house of the Lord (Ps 122:1)!

Simplify Sundays.

A part of this Sunday morning routine could just be keeping things simple. Having started the preparations on Saturday night, what could it look like for your little ones to wake up in preparation to be with the people of God? It doesn’t have to be extravagant, but part of honoring the Sabbath (Ex 20:8–11) is resting in the finished work of Christ. So make a simple breakfast. Play some simple music. Keep your lunch plans simple and flexible so that you might be able to gather with or host others and commune with the body of Christ after the gathering.

Limit the distractions.

This tip might seem the hardest to implement. In chapter 5 of Castleman’s book, she makes a plea to parents to limit the amount of toys, books, and pencils you give to your children. I’ll be the first to object by saying, “But how am I to keep them busy in order to keep them quiet?” And all the moms say “Amen”.

But again, Castleman pushes us to ask different questions in order to achieve different goals. We are not primarily aimed at training our children to be quiet—we are training our children to worship!

Training children to worship means that they are asked to pay attention and are helped to do so. Being quiet comes as they learn to listen and worship, not as they are entertained by games and kept quiet with gum. (pg. 65)

Castleman is quick to add that this is not a hard and fast rule, and every parent will need to make decisions based on each of their different children, but whatever we do, participation in worship should be the goal. (2)

Teach them to love God’s word.

The charge to parents, and in particular fathers, is that we are responsible for inculcating the Gospel message and Gospel culture into our children (Eph 6:4). This is a sobering reality. So we need to have faith-filled perspectives as we seek to raise our little ones in that Gospel culture. What is needed is faithfulness over the long haul. And at the heart of our discipling must be the word of God. 

Think of how we interact with newborns—we speak to them regularly with words we know they don’t understand. And we don’t expect them to. However, it is that very immersion in the English language that our children learn to speak. And the same principle applies to our children learning to hear and obey the word of God. They must be immersed. And that immersion begins in our homes, around the dinner table or by bedsides, and culminates on Sunday mornings when the gathered people of God sit under the preaching of his word. Our children are watching us, and they will be excited about what we are excited about and will love what we love. So instill in your children the infinite value and preciousness of the Scriptures.

Last Words

It’s worth repeating here that these are not laws from on high, and my aim in this post is not to heap guilt and shame on you. But we parents of little ones have been given an incredible blessing in our children. Take heart—you are not doing this alone! When you are feeling discouraged, remind yourself that they will not always be little forever, and that in Christ we have been given all that we need to be faithful, and to resolve with the Psalmist: 

We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

– Psalm 78:4

footnotes:

1 - Castleman, Robbie, Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 1993.

2 - Chapter 5 and 8 in particular have a lot of helpful tips for how to keep your children engaged in the service, particularly the sermon.