Why We Worship With Our Children
Lord's Day Exhortation
One of the glorious things about our Lord’s Day worship is that all of God’s people are present and participating.
We don’t send our children off to children’s church or Sunday School, but we keep them where God’s people belong – in the assembly of worship. Our children belong here because they are Christians, but just like us, they need to be here because they are still growing in Christ. They are little disciples who need to be taught the basics of our faith and practice. So if the goal is for our children to grow into adults who love God and Lord’s Day worship, then we need to help them along. We need to teach them, by word and example, to have joyful reverence during our worship services.
This includes helping them participate in our acts of worship, such as kneeling for confession, standing for the reading of Scripture, listening to the sermon, and partaking of communion if they are baptized. This also includes other aspects that fall under the category of etiquette. We, of course, don’t have a list of rules, but items to keep in mind would be keeping talk to whispers, timing restroom and water fountain visits, and not running wild when the service ends.
All of this makes Sunday morning hard work, which is why you must keep an eye on the goal. The goal is not simply to have children who sit still and are quiet. While good, that is only part of the process, but not the end. What you need to imagine is the fruit you are hoping to see—by faith—one or two decades from now: Your grown children gathered with the church on this same sacred day, faithfully worshiping the God of their fathers, with their own little ones at their side.
That reward makes every difficult Sunday morning worth it, and will be the answer to every tired prayer you have uttered.
And so in the words of Psalm 100, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise… For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness is to all generations.”
This exhortation was given on June 22, AD 2025 at King’s Cross Church in Moscow, Idaho.