Pew parenting

Have you ever heard of this book called Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman? I've just about finished reading it and let me just give you a hearty recommendation for this book, if you're a church-goer. It is excellent.

The book is about teaching children how to worship. As most of my readers know, I somewhat recently (2 years ago) graduated from seminary with a degree in educational ministries. My personal interest was- and is- for children's ministry, but actually might be more appropriately categorized parent-and-toddler-ministry. I'm very interested in faith formation from birth to age 5, which mostly happens in context of the parent-child relationship.

Over the two years I spent working on that degree, one idea in particular kept being taught and reinforced and-well- pounded- into me: the idea that children are members of our covenant communities today. They aren't "members in training" or potential worshipers; they fully belong right now because- from infants to teenagers- God wants the worship of our children. 

After spending those years exploring this idea, I could not wait to have a child of my own. Mostly because of the joy in showing Jesus to a child, but also because having a child gives you more authority to share on the subject. Understandably so. I remember once in a conversation with a number of women from my church, I mentioned the idea of keeping children in the pew (or chair aisle in our case) for the entire worship service and hearing crickets followed by comments like well that's an interesting idea. Like a scrolling marquee, I could read the look in their eyes as just wait until she has children. 

As you know, I did wait. And now the time has come to put my classroom learnings into practice to see how they actually function in real life. This is why I've been devouring that Parenting in the Pew book: because I'm convinced that God wants Arie's worship and it's my job to teach Arie how to worship.

Castleman's recommendation is that children stay in the worship service for the entire thing- sermon and all- from birth to about age one and then again from about age two-and-a-half or three, onward. Since Arie's already past the 2.5 mark, we've started parenting in the... chair aisle... already. The first couple Sundays weren't too hard because Arie was so overwhelmed by the experience he kept fairly quiet. Now, however, he's acting more like a typical two-year-old in a worship service and getting a little squirrely. Plus I have the added- somewhat humorous- challenge of getting him not to yell out, "PAPA!" every time John goes forward to speak!

A few of the goals I've set for our family as we begin this amazing journey of teaching our son how to worship are:

Participate in the singing: I want to encourage Arie to make a joyful noise when we sing! He can't read the lyrics and in our church we don't sing the same songs often enough for him to learn them by heart, but he loves to sing even when he doesn't know the words! I love this about him and want him to know that his "singing" is lovely to the Lord's ears.
Differentiate between"being quiet" vs. worshiping: While these are not mutually exclusive, they are not the same thing. A child can be quiet without learning how to worship. I anticipate teaching him this will be my personal biggest challenge!
Create a sermon activity: I want to create a type of children's program/coloring page for him to use during the sermon. I don't expect him to listen to the whole sermon at his age, but I want to give him something sermon-related to do during that time. Right now he usually plays with a lift-the-flap book or little cars, which works, but I think we can (eventually) do better.
Learn the liturgy: I want to get Arie to the point where he knows the liturgical elements (the worship elements that happen every Sunday) of our service. We do not use high liturgy in our church, but we have some recurring elements like the pastor's greeting, mutual greeting, Lord's prayer recitation, and the blessing/benediction.
Develop a love for church: Perhaps above all, I want Arie to know in his head and his heart that we are so blessed to be able to worship God. I want church to be a good place for him; a place where he comes to know himself most fully in the light of God's glory and grace.

At our church we also have a children's program which most young children participate in during the second half of the worship service. Since we have two identical morning worship services at our church, logistically we have the potential to attend one service and send Arie to this program for the second service. While I like the idea of having him learn about God from loving members in our congregation, I'm not sure if we would be able to make it through that long of a morning at church. I've done it before myself and am exhausted for the remainder of the day. I had a college professor who, when addressing the topic of honoring the sabbath, would always say we should never rest to the exclusion of worship nor should we worship to the exclusion of rest. So, I'm still trying to figure out if a four hour morning at church would be worshiping to the exclusion of rest.

(Duck prints on a frozen lake.)

Lastly I just want to share three things I've learned both in the last few weeks and few years that challenged the way I view children in church. First, I've learned that a little noise in the sanctuary doesn't ruin God's experience of our worship. It might be annoying for me- or humiliating for me if it's my child who had a sudden outburst- but it doesn't ruin God's experience. He wants the worship of young children (let the little children come to me, anyone?) and it's okay if my worship experience suffers a little as a result.  If I have to leave the sanctuary for a moment with my child, it's okay. It's all part of the learning process and it's not about me, right?

Second, I've learned that I have to be concerned about bringing my family before God in worship, not before others. Like most people, I don't like to cause a disturbance in a quiet room or deal with nasty looks being shot in my direction. However, I can't forgo the privilege and responsibility I have to teach Arie how to worship just because someone else might not be happy with having a young child in the room. God gives parents the job of impressing his law onto the hearts of our children and I'm the one who will have to answer for the job I did, not that other family across the row.



Third, the fact that I get to teach my son how to worship is a great privilege and a great joy. Just like parenting, it will be awful at times. I'm sure he will infuriate me at least a handful of times in the worship service before he even turns five, but that's just sort of how parenting goes, isn't it? You love a lot, you laugh a lot, you get proud, you get frustrated, you feel like you failed, you try again, you feel better, and then one day you child is a grown up and you pray that God's grace overrode your failures. Pew parenting and everyday parenting are going to have a lot in common.

I only know one other family who are attempting anything like this in their parenting journey, so I've decided to return to this subject on my blog from time to time to share successes and failures. My guess is that most families do church the "traditional" kids-out way just because that's how it's always done and they- like me- never really considered doing it another way. This will be my small attempt to get the word out there about this counter-cultural move. If you're doing any sort of pew-parenting in your family I'd love to hear more about it! Please leave me a comment of encouragement (or warning I suppose!).

xo