Final: Children in the Worshiping Community
Well I finished reading the book Children in the Worshiping Community and I found the first three chapters to be the most helpful. It is strange to think that most of the groups that write about children in the community are mostly liturgical in nature, be they Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican, etc.
Much of the rest of the book focuses on an educational approach to worship for children in teaching them parts of the liturgical service and including them partially based on age group. Like many other books on the subject it starts off with a forward looking progressive approach to a great idea, and then it digresses into ancient forms of academic approaches to make the idea come to life.
From my perspective it turns the worship service into an extension of the classroom for most children. Yes it’s entertaining, yes it’s academic, but I find it hard to believe that this approach is the one we are looking for that will include our children in the gathering without boring them to death.
It’s okay though, we knew that this would not be an easy journey. Some departing thoughts from Chapter 6 that seem like good things to remember are:
– The response of Christian worship is always the work of God. We do not create or control this response.
– Instruction is never a substitute for joining with those who worship. Worshiping with others is the indispensable means of nurture. (81)
So it would seem that the book focuses pretty much on the need to create an environment for children to learn and worship while in the midst of their worshiping community as opposed to in a classroom.
I am okay with this presupposition; however it is clear that we as an indie community will have to find our own expressions of worship and community that are easily combined with the younger members of our group.
I think that this has to involve a dramatic change in the way we do things on Sunday. Our gathering has to engage all members regardless of age. All age groups must feel welcome, all must feel included, all must feel that they are contributing; all must feel as if they touched the hand of God, and all must walk away from our gathering feeling as if their time spent there was worthwhile.
I know it’s a huge goal. We have begun to think differently in regards to our musical worship on this matter already by intentionally doing things to include our children. I think that we need to progress a baby step at a time as we feel out how exactly to transform our total worship experience into an all inclusive event.
When we are actually able to invite our children into the community discussion we are halfway there. In the mean time, we must read and research and learn ourselves how we can become more open to regular interactions with people of all age groups – not just folks our own age.
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Notes:
Ng, David and Virginia Thomas. Children in the Worshiping Community. Atlanta: John Knox Press. 1981.
Jesus loves me, this I know…
I suspect everyone knows that song as most, church going or otherwise have heard that simple tune, but we would not dare sing iy in our gathering. But why?
It is not worshipful; it is only for the little ones; it is not suitable for adult worship? That, I believe is the challenge. We want children to worship more like us. So we resort to “schooling” them on church. We will teach them how to be proper church going people (little adults?). If we want to bring children into the gathering, we must move toward them and not ask them to be like us.
When a couple brings a newborn into the world, they great the baby with baby talk – the soft voice, simple words, etc. When kids come to church, we give them a few songs to “bang” along with but most likely the lyrics are not familiar to them. So we dismiss them to a place that will be focused on them and will allow us to be in grown-up class. If we want them in our gathering, we need to move toward them and not expect them to move toward us.
I do not think it is that hard, the question is, do we want our Gathering to be more like a Sunday School class?
Kevin
13 Sep 08 at 10:54 am
I think there is another way besides dummying down the gathering for kids. I am talking about something different. It’s not Sunday School and its not business as usual.
What it is exactly I am not sure, but I am going to try to stay positive and open minded about this as I continue to learn more. I am also not going to rush this.
It has already been proven that children can worship much like adults, with adult songs and lyrics. They do need consistency, however. Kids catch on to a lot more than we give them credit for.
So, I don’t see the need to replace worship with some kind of sing-a-long. But, in the same sense we need consistency in worship, and we need to do songs that kids like as well as adults.
This will also take cooporation from parents at home and with their kids. Worship is not something that just occurs at the church building. Maybe it means putting our songs on a CD for kids to listen to at home and in their play time.
Through repetition we can teach our kids songs that are useful to worship. By inclusion we can get them to sing and play instruments with us. By collaborative efforts we can make our gathering something that we do together with our kids.
Maybe not all of it. Maybe we do give them something more interesting (for them) to do during the discussion (30 minutes). Maybe not. Again, we should all be thinking about this idea and how it looks for us. Maybe we join with them for prayer and ministry time, and they join with us for worship time.
Again, maybe not.
John
13 Sep 08 at 5:36 pm
I do not mean to imply we must dumb down the gathering, but as you said we do need consistency. I whole heartedly agree – the use of repetition is essential as well as reinforcement at home. Also, some Sunday School classes are cool! Some might argue that our discussion time is more like an adult SS class than true church (not the enlightened ones of course).
I think all of this begins with letting the kids know that worship is not just song time, but rather show them the reason for worship – God loves us and we love Him. It seems simplistic to define it that way, but at its core, is worship not just the expression of our love for one another?
As for how, why not just try something and get everyones imput on it?
Kevin
14 Sep 08 at 10:46 am
I think that that is definately something that is in our future. I mean experimentation and all. But, I would like a little more planning and aforethought. I also want to make sure that we are ALL on board with what we are doing and that we are working to make the home connection work with us.
For instance, we could simply start by recording our worship and giving it to the kids to liten to. Maybe just have one long recording session with all of our worship leaders present.
That would be kind of cool. You are right, worship is a way of life, not just song singing, but I think its good to start with our song singing worship.
Thanks for the good input Kevin. I feel like I am sitting on your couch conversing with you…
John
14 Sep 08 at 12:44 pm
I kind of agree with both of you.
For young kids, they need to know what’s going on – they can’t read things, so they need to know the words or have someone explain or read stuff to them. Older kids want to understand everything and so will tend to tune out if there is too much they don’t understand unless they are comfortable in the particular situation to ask for an explanation. These are challenges but not insurmountable and definitely singing simple repetitive songs is not the only answer – although I think there is always a place for that in worship.
It’s really important for at least the parents and the kids to know what’s happening before we do something. Note that, for example, because I know you should not assume that I’ve had chance to discuss it with the rest of the family!
That said, I think we could try something – call it an all-age gathering, see what works, invite comments and go from there…we don’t have to switch over all of a sudden and never go back.
I’m imagining that I’m dropping in on you two ‘conversing’ – John’s already had a couple of beers and started using weird words and Kevin’s wondering if he’s ever going to stop and go home…
Martin
15 Sep 08 at 10:09 pm
“John’s already had a couple of beers and started using weird words and Kevin’s wondering if he’s ever going to stop and go home… ”
You know the last time I had a few beers I was at your house… Makes me wonder if I went on too long… lol
I think this is all good food for thought. Next thing to do then is to take this to our “sometime in October” meeting (where everyone is present).
John
15 Sep 08 at 10:23 pm
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John
15 Sep 08 at 11:02 pm
I think that, at least partially, the answer to inter-generational worship is going to come from breaking out of the box that we’ve put ourselves in (ie: music) and finding other ways to worship together on a Sunday evening (or whenever).
Rather than simply trying to tailor our music to be more accessible to the kids (which by the way is a GREAT idea and I totally want to do that) I think we need to brainstorm what worship COULD be and even ask our kids what they like to do and figure out how that could be part of our worship…
Curtis Klope
17 Sep 08 at 2:04 pm