The best place to start training children is at home through family devotion. Children learn from the attitude parents have on Saturday evening before the Sunday worship service. This article discusses ways of training your children so that they understand how to worship in church.

Source: Faith in Focus, 2012. 3 pages.

Training Children to Worship

Mummy, what are we doing today? We are going to church. What are we going to do? We are going to worship God.

All of us as Christian parents want our children to grow up to love and serve the Lord. Most of us realise that this does not just happen. It takes a con­sistent, conscious effort on our part to train them. One of the places this train­ing occurs is in church. Our family has grown up but we are blessed to be in a church which has 40 children under five. They make up one fifth of the church membership. We are now watching the next generation of parents seeking to train their children, with the struggles and success that accompany this. We are also grandparents and want to do the best we can for our grandchildren.

Most of us would agree that when we go to worship it would be nice to concentrate on the service rather than on our children. However that is not possible. Children can be noisy and dis­tracting. Sometimes they are an embar­rassment to us. For those of us who have raised or are raising children we know that parenting in the pew is hard work.

We could be tempted to give up, stay home, or put our children in crèche till they are ten! However this will not teach them anything except that church is not the place to be. Instead we want them to pay attention to God, so we can too. This is for their spiritual growth, no matter what age they are. We want them to love God and worship him.

To do this requires consistent training, week after week. It is not enough just to be quiet and still in church. That is a passive response. We and our children need to be actively listening and paying attention. We want a heart change. All of this requires hard work on both our part and that of our children, and a work of God’s grace.

In Your Home🔗

We cannot expect our children to worship God in church if they have not learnt to pray and concentrate on Bible readings at home. Training begins first and foremost in your own home. Children learn best by copying us. We need to set the example. They will copy us out of habit to start with, and then by God’s grace, out of a response from their own hearts.

Children do not struggle with faith the same way that adults sometimes do. Many of you will have heard your three year old say that they believe in God. Build on that child-like faith. As children grow older they will ask more questions; that is good – it shows a searching heart and we have the Scriptures to give them the answers.

Saturday Night🔗

How we handle the Sunday is affected by what we do on Saturday and particu­larly Saturday night. I often think that that is why the Jews held their Sabbath from sundown onwards. If Saturday night was not a party night, movie night, so­cialise late night, extended family night, would we and our children cope better in church? We all know the answer to that. Our whole week, but particular­ly our Saturdays, should work towards putting us in the right frame of mind for Sunday.

As adults we also set our minds for worship with our preparations. This includes preparing food, ironing clothes, polishing shoes and so on. It will certainly take the pressure off Sunday mornings and remove the work from that day, so that we can focus on worship.

Sunday Morning🔗

If we are prepared and get up on time, we will not have to hurry everyone and then get stressed when the children are on a go-slow. How many of us have been angry with our children at home because we are trying to rush them out of the door?

We can set the right mood by playing hymns, both at home and as we travel to church in the car. How can you prepare yourself to worship God when you listen to popular songs on the radio? How can you get yourself into the right frame of mind when you are late and scrambling to find seats? How can you parent your children when your family can’t sit together?

One further matter to attend to before we sit in the pew is to organise a toilet stop. How often have you seen 12 year olds, and even older, leaving church part way during the service because they have to go to the toilet? That it happens once I can understand. When it happens week after week the parents are neglecting this aspect of training. These same children can watch a two hour movie without a stop. Remind your children that their going in and out of church is not helping their worship, or the worship of others.

Another aspect of worship is our giving. We encouraged our children to tithe. When they were young and received 50 cents pocket money they brought their five cents to church. (Ob­viously this was done when the 5 cent coin existed.) This too encourages our children in a heart response to their possessions. Our children thought of this as being so normal that there never was a negative response – train them young and they will follow this when they get older.

Worship🔗

Many churches view children as a dis­traction in worship and want to remove them to a children’s church. I understand that it can be difficult to have children in church, but the churches that do this miss out on having the covenant commu­nity worship together. Isn’t it wonderful to see three and even four generations praising God?

Those of us not raising children can be a help and encouragement to young families. A grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling or friend can take a child and teach one-on-one while Dad and Mum care for the other children. You can en­courage the parents by praying for them and their children, particularly when you see a family struggle. It would also help if you could give an encouraging smile when the long suffering parent takes out his “little-miss-muffet” for the fourth time during that service. A glaring look from you is the last thing the parent needs. You could also give some helpful ideas if you think the parent would be recep­tive to this.

Years ago we visited an old church in the country and I had taken some toys to church to keep my one and two year old occupied. I had not taken into account wooden pews and wooden floors. The sounds were amplified on the hard surfaces and I was embarrassed by the noise we made. One elder came to me after church and very kindly told me that soft toys and books are often a better option in church than metal cars. I fully agreed with him, he did not make me feel bad, and toy cars remained at home.

When we pray, our children need to pray. Folding their hands and closing their eyes tells them we want the focus to be on the words being spoken to God, not on everything around them. When we sing, they sing. Have an old hymn book for your child until they are ready to hold an adult one with care and respect. Little children can have a child’s Bible book until they are old enough to read a Bible themselves. If we are happy to be at church it is likely our children will be happy to be there. Whether you are a couple, or on your own, the model­ling should be the same.

The sermon is one of the hardest parts of the service for a child to listen to, and yet it is possible. Some parents let their children write notes or draw pictures. We permitted our children to do this, but the pictures were not to be of the pastor in caricature! They had to illus­trate what was spoken. After the service we would ask our children what they could remember from the sermon and they could explain that using their note­books. We were often amazed at what they had remembered and learnt. As the children get older you can question them more fully. Children will listen a lot better when they know they are going to be quizzed about the sermon and service afterwards. Of course that means that as parents we have to listen too!

If you are interested in further reading on this subject I have just finished reading a book called Parenting in the Pew, by Robbie Castleman. It is a very well-written book and I agree with most of it. We are a covenant people and all of us are to help each other, through prayer, through godly advice and by our example. May God use us to help our covenant children grow in their ability to worship him and may he work a change in their hearts for his glory.

Add new comment

(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.
(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.