Nancy Oliver wants you to forget perfection and know that your messy, faithful presence is shaping your children’s faith and blessing your whole church community
For an alternative view see here.
I am mum to three children. Since they were born, we have taken them to church. We have taken them whether there was a creche/Sunday kids programme or not.
At one point in our lives, we had three children under the age of four. That’s a baby and two toddlers. I drove a double pushchair smeared with ice-cream which dispensed a trail of crumbs from the underneath basket. There were things living in there that I had no idea about. I also drove it at about 0.0000000001mph as, while at the wheel, I was also holding the hand of a toddler who walked like she was an Olympic figure skater. We would explode into the church and proceed to ooze over the entire front row.
If you want your children to be part of church, you have to do something about it, just like weaning and potty training
Many, many times I asked myself if it was worth it. As I sat there, breast feeding a baby and wiping apple out of my hair, with my toddlers screaming the house down, I asked it through gritted teeth. Many times, I walked home crying. Many times, I cried in the church toilets. And I say this to you not so you feel sorry for me, it was my choice to bring them, but so you can understand this …
Bringing children to church is hard
Because…
Children aren’t born knowing how to be part of church, we have to train up our children in the way they should go. (Proverbs 22:6)
No child sits well behaved and awash in God’s word from the very beginning. If you want your children to be part of church, you have to do something about it, just like weaning and potty training.
So, here are three questions to ask yourself in this fight (and let’s face it sometimes it is a literal fight). There are no right or wrong answers but having answers to these will help you win!
1. What’s your goal?
The goal of church whatever your age is this - that we worship God together and serve one another. So fundamentally, we go to church not to be served but to serve.
Hebrews 10: 24-25 tells us to “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Knowing why you’re bringing them helps you to focus on the task in hand and not get side tracked by other people or blind panic when it all goes wrong
So, why have you brought your kids? There are a whole host of reasons you bring your tiny human to church - at base level, they’re too little to leave at home alone. But the reasons can extend beyond this to fulfil the bigger goal of church above; reasons might include:
It’s something we do as a family / I want to teach them to be part of church / I want to listen to the sermon.
What’s important is you identify this sub-goal (why have you brought them) from the off, because this is what’s going to get you through the tough weeks; it will help you when other people don’t like what you’re doing (let’s not pretend this isn’t a factor, it is). Knowing why you’re bringing them helps you to focus on the task in hand and not get side tracked by other people or blind panic when it all goes wrong.
For example:
Our sub-goal was that our children learned to engage with church. They needed the skills to ‘do church’, things like sitting through a sermon, listening, singing, quietness and being other people centred.
Read more:
A sense of belonging to the local church is vital for our kids’ discipleship
5 steps parents can take to make church work for children with trauma
2. How are you going to achieve that?
Whatever your sub-goal is, it isn’t just going to happen by you simply turning up. Yes, it might have been a good two hours of fighting your way out the house and into the front door of your church, but it’s not over there I’m afraid.
I rarely heard the sermon. I often felt (wrongly) judged. It got out of hand most weeks. But the goal kept me going
What are you going to do during the service to bring you closer to your sub-goal and so fulfil the bigger goal? If your sub-goal is for you to listen to the sermon, then what’s your child going to do so you can do that? If it’s to worship as a family, how are you going to get a child who can’t read or sit still for more than 3 seconds to do that? What’s your rule on toys in the service, or books, or iPads or phones? Can your child sit with someone else? All these things need thinking about BEFORE you leave home.
For example:
Our general principle was they joined in whatever everyone else was doing. If everyone else was standing and singing, they were too. If everyone else was sat with their eyes closed praying, they were too. If everyone was listening to sermon, they were too (usually with enough snacks to achieve this.)
It will go wrong. All your thinking and planning and snacks will not be enough. At some point, your child will kick off, big time!
I make no bones about this, executing this was a nightmare. I rarely heard the sermon. I often felt (wrongly) judged. It got out of hand most weeks. But the goal kept me going.
3. What happens when it all goes wrong?
It will go wrong. All your thinking and planning and snacks will not be enough. At some point, your child will kick off, big time! And while this is normal it does impact on the bigger goal and purpose of church - to worship God together and serve others - so what are you going to do when that happens? Where do you take them when they scream so loud you can’t hear the preacher anymore? If you take them out, is that just teaching them they can kick off and go somewhere nicer to play instead of being in church? What happens when they fight your good intentions?
Children misbehaving is absolutely going to happen in church because they are little sinners not little cherubs!
You need a plan, one you can stick to. Children misbehaving is absolutely going to happen in church because they are little sinners not little cherubs! Your job is to glorify God and serve others on a Sunday morning so when others can’t worship because of your little one, what are you going to do?
For example:
When our kids kicked off, they were taken out of the main hall for a time out and then brought back into the service to re-join church. This is probably a good time to tell you that my husband is the pastor of our church and so I would be in the Toddler Wrestling Zone solo, giving me the eternal conundrum of what to do with the other two well behaved toddlers when the third toddler kicked off.
It is worth the fight, and your own tear-stained face appearing week after week
(Which brings me to a sub point - you can ask for help from someone else. It took me a long time to realise this - I don’t know why. Tell them your goal, tell them what you need them to do, and I can guarantee they would love to help - because they are there to do just that, glorify God and serve others.)
There are no magic answers to bringing kids to church - the only way out of this is to not bring them to church and your church will be the worse off for that decision. Again, I say to you, your child SHOULD be in church. It is a joy and blessing to have their gorgeous smiling, tear-stained face peering over you from the pew in front. It is worth the fight, and your own tear-stained face appearing week after week. There is nothing greater than showing your child the wonderful Saviour who loves them. Nothing greater than seeing them understand and experience that love more and more. There is nothing greater than hearing them sing and pray and worship Jesus. Keep dragging them down the aisle, please.
