On Palm Sunday last year I wrote a post about children in worship, because many articles had been making the rounds touting their opinions one way or the other. While the author of those articles raised some good points, my reasoning for having children experience worship is multivalent, and not just about the "theology" and the Jesus stuff, as we sometimes call it.
I decided, since many articles have started to make the rounds again with Lent almost upon us to amend my original post, and add another piece I have been reflecting on, #9 LITURGY.
My experience as a child in church comes from belonging to a small intergenerational church filled with supportive adults who became family. My context is not everyone's context, but that is the point of view I am writing from.
As I noted above, some of these things just helped my formation as a human being.
Things I Learned Staying In Worship
(and I believe children can still learn today...)
1. PATIENCE
Worship is filled with reflection and quiet times, listening to others, and a lot of time that is essentially not about YOU. That practice in and of itself teaches patience and in our device and screen driven age fights against the loss of our attention spans. The fruit of the spirit is...
2. READING
No kidding. The bulletin, the hymnal, and the corporate prayers are scaffolded reading instruction every Sunday, without the child knowing it. You cannot be a literate Christian without being able to read and interpret the Bible on your own. Critical readers are in short supply, and this skill is KEY to their success in the church and in LIFE.
3. MUSIC
I learned to read music in church from the hymnal. I learned to love music in worship. The first time I sang in front of people was in church. Hymns also present theology in repetitive ways that stay in our minds and hearts in ways we may not realize until we mature.
4. ACCEPTANCE
Everyone at my home church did not act the same, talk the same, dress the same. I came to find out as an adolescent that some of the adults in my church had developmental disabilities. As a child I didn't really care about that. They were part of my church family, and no one treated them differently so neither did I. Talk about the Gospel without words. Actions are so important to children, and they notice them even when we think they aren't.
5. THEOLOGY
Yes, really. While this came a little later than toddlerhood, I can still remember sermons preached when I was a child, and not just children's sermons. They are vague, but certainly formational.
6. DIVERSITY of LEADERSHIP
In my home church everyone read scripture (all genders) and we had male and female pastors during my childhood. This sent me the subliminal message that the pulpit was open to me from the time I was aware of that being an option. Children notice these things, and here I am 25 years later getting an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary. In one of my classes last semester a professor had those of us who had a female pastor as our only pastor (solo) or head of staff during some time as a child/teenager stand on one side of the room, and everyone else stand on the other side. 4 of us out of 60 stood on the female pastor side. That is powerful. The messages our children see in the leadership of the church matter. Whether or not we offer them leadership roles as children matter.
7. HOW to PRAY
My home church had corporate Prayers of the People where anyone could raise Joys and Concerns. The pastors would turn those into the Pastoral Prayer. While prayer is personal, it was a starting place of "how to pray" on my own. These examples have made me comfortable with extemporaneous prayer when leading worship and creating prayers on the spot in ways I wouldn't have been if they weren't "seeped into my soul" from childhood.
8. THE LORD's PRAYER and the NICENE CREED
Memorized, not on purpose, just from being in worship.
9. LITURGY
Recently I served as pulpit supply preacher at a church that had a "snafu" with their copier, had no bulletins for the those in the congregation (which was small) and I found out ten minutes before the service that I needed to come up with liturgy that was responsive on the spot. The liturgy that had been imbedded in my mind and heart and the scripture passages I knew from childhood could be responsive without a bulletin served me well that Sunday.
What did you learn from being in worship as a child?
