Worship is very important to our family and we love going to the house of our Lord every Sunday to sit under the preaching of the Word and to fellowship with our fellow saints. Our church has a small nursery that is intended for the little ones under 3 years old. Blake has been in there regularly since 5 months old, when he started to get very vocal and later on, active. He has never had a problem with being in the nursery and always enjoys playing with his best friend Graham but in recent months he would cry about going back into the nursery for morning worship after had had just been in there for Sunday School.
Blake was becoming older and could understand how to be quiet so I thought he might be ready to start joining us for part of the worship service. Plus I would always explain to him on Saturday night that we would be going to church in the morning to worship God but then he never ended up actually "worshipping" God as he stayed in the nursery the whole time and I felt that was a bit odd. To tell your kid you will go as a family to the Lord's house and yet exclude him from the actual worship part. I had no problem with leaving him in nursery when he was younger and couldn't really understand because he just wasn't ready but I felt as though he was showing signs of being ready to join us. So I discussed it with James and we decided to bring him in with us for the first half of the service (songs and prayers) and then bring him back to the nursery for the last half (sermon, final song, offering, close) as a way to build him up to eventually stay throughout the whole service. Other families in our church have done the same thing and tend to start around 2-2 1/2 years old with the goal of being completely out of nursery by age 3. I think its a good system and felt as though Blake could start a little bit earlier just because of his personality and the fact that he was showing signs of being ready.
Also once the new baby is here, he will be with me in worship for a while and I didn't want Blake to feel excluded that he had to stay behind in nursery while his baby brother joined Mommy and Daddy in the service. We have brought Blake in for both morning and evening service for the month of October and so far he has been doing great! He is able to sit quietly for the first 15-20 minutes before we bring him back to the nursery to play for the remainder of the service. I love that now, when I explain to him how we are going to worship God, that he actually gets to be a part of that!
Training up your children to love the Lord and to worship Him wholeheartedly is such an important task as parents. Every church, family, and child is different in how they approach this matter, especially when it comes to children in the worship service, but it is a very important issue. I'm glad that Blake is able to join us at this age and look forward to continuing to train him in this matter. I'm sure we will have frustrations and some not-so-perfect Sundays in the weeks and months ahead but its so important for us to do this! If any of you experienced parents have any advice on this (good or bad experiences), I'd love to hear them! We are in the early stages of this training and have a long way to go. But really, how privileged are we to be able to even do this, to freely and wholeheartedly worship our Lord and Savior because of HIS love and mercy for us. He enables us to do this and INVITES us to worship with Him. Its a wonderful thing indeed!
*Note: I was given "Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship" by Robbie Castleman by my mother-in-law and its been a very helpful book to read in regards to this issue. Check it out if you don't have it and if you have any other resources that you found helpful then let me know!
4 comments:
That's awesome you feel you can go ahead and start bringing Blake in the worship service with you. I hope he continues to do well and can stay throughout the whole service soon! Most of the kids in our church stay in the service the entire time but there is at least one little girl (almost 2 I would guess) who is just too noisy and would be a huge distraction so I'm glad we have a nursery for kids that are just not ready to keep quiet during the service. And I agree, praise God we can worship Him freely every Sunday without fear of persecution here and that He blesses us so richly during our worship!
I've heard some good things about that book, although I haven't read it yet. (Still reading books on sleep and fussy babies.) I'm glad he's able and willing to sit through part of the service at his age! That's great!
Yay for worship training. We never had a method, we just kept them with us from the beginning since there is no nursery at church. We used the cry room when needed. Thankfully the earlier you teach them the smoother it is. He'll be a pro in no time at sitting quietly. :)
Both of our girls were too clingy to ever like being in the nursery, so in a way, it was a blessing in desguise that they were always in worship with us. Sometimes its still hard for Sophia to be quiet for an hour, but we never had to do the "transistion" from nursery to worship. I think its harder to take them from a "fun" place to a "must be quiet" place once they get old enough to understand that. Also... we have worship first and sunday school after... this has helped the kids in our congregation SO MUCH. Its so hard to calm down after sunday school and then go sit for another hour and be quiet.
Cant wait to see you guys in December!!!
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