WEEKLY ARTICLE

Question and Answer: Should My Kids Go to Church?

by the Rev. Matt Kennedy

  Weekly Article

September 14th 2006

Question: Should parents bring their kids to church even if they don't want to go?

Answer: Yes

During the sixties and seventies the conventional wisdom was that parents ought to let children make their own personal decisions regarding matters of faith. A common sentiment was, “If your child decides not to go to church, don't require him to do so. If you do you might hinder his personal faith journey.”

One problem with this idea (aside from the fact that it is manifestly unbiblical) is that children simply don't have the life-experience or wisdom to make such decisions.

That's why God made parents.

And, as it turned out, most kids, given the choice, decided not to go. And as they grew up, they continued not to go. Churches emptied.

As a result, forty years later we are experiencing the dramatic and inevitable cultural/moral decay of a largely un-churched, post-Christian society.

Children naturally choose to do what feels good. It feels much better to eat donuts than to eat peas. It feels much better to sit in front of a playstation than to do homework. It feels much better to sleep in every morning than to get up and go to school.

And yet, would you allow your child make the final decision about whether or not to attend school?

Of course not.

School attendance is necessary for your son or daughter to grow and mature. As a parent who knows what is good and wise, you don't ask your children whether they would like to go to school. You just send them.

This tells the child that education is important.

What does it communicate to your child, when you let him make his own decisions about church attendance on Sunday mornings?

It says that God is not important.

In fact we are taught throughout the scriptures to actively and intentionally pass our faith on to our children.

In the book of Deuteronomy, God gives parents the following instructions:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates… In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt , but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness." (Deuteronomy 6:6-25)

The book of Proverbs teaches:

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6)

And in the book of Hebrews, God commands believers to actively and regularly participate in the community of believers:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23-25).

In their wonderful book, Building a Home Full of Grace, the Rev. Dr. John Yates, rector of the Falls Church in Falls Church Virginia and his wife Susan devote an entire section to the importance of church attendance and they directly address the question of bored and unmotivated children:

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Regular corporate worship with the church family is an important part of our life with God. The church is Christ's creation, and however imperfect it is, it plays an important role in his purposes for our world. It is our spiritual family. It is composed of people of all ages, races, backgrounds, and interests. It is a community that ministers to us from birth to death, providing continuity from one generation to the next.

Staying away from church and staying home or pursuing leisure outings on Sunday can become easy, but we really do need the church and we really do need worship. We need to be meeting with the whole body of Christ to worship and praise God. Our children need to be a part of something that includes believers of all ages and backgrounds and lasts longer than this Bible club or that youth activity.

Worship is not always stimulating for us or for our children. We may have an idea that worship is for us and that if it does not give us warm feelings and happy thoughts, it is not effective. Worship should certainly connect with us emotionally and intellectually, but worship is not primarily for us. It is first and foremost for God, who desires, requests, and expects our adoration, praise and attention. God, in fact, inhabits the praise of his people (Psalm 22:3 KJV). Something very special takes place as the body of Christ comes together weekly to praise God, to pray to God, to listen to his Word, and to be challenged and conformed. Worship lifts us up out of ourselves and reminds us of who God is. Adoration is a truly unselfish experience.

But what about the child who says, “Church is just boring, Mom”? Most children will say that at some point, but I'm hard pressed to discern where boredom is found to be wrong. In fact, there is nothing wrong with being bored every so often.

School can be boring, yet when our children complain, we don't allow them to skip school, because we know it's important. When we allow our children to skip church but not school, we are communicating that school is more important than church. As children, my husband and I were both expected to be in church on Sundays. Both of us often found it somewhat boring and felt it was a waste of time. But both of us found, in our own ways, that the old hymns and prayers we had unconsciously memorized in our youth came back to us bringing comfort and joy. We began to realize that we missed not being regularly involved in worship. When so many things are changing in our lives, we find comfort in being in church on Sunday, where we are reminded that we are part of a worldwide family in Christ. Worship reminds us that we are part of something so much greater than just those gathered in a particular building, for all over the world people are meeting to worship the same God.

When we make a priority of worship as a family, it communicates to our children that all of us are willing to set aside our own time in order to come together with other believers and join in praise to God. This tells our children that we understand that the almighty God is much more important than we are.

Worship, vision, fellowship, prayer, the Scriptures—all these things are important ingredients for growing in faith. Becoming a family of faith is a journey in which all of us are involved. We must not wait until we “achieve” maturity and then teach our children. We will never “arrive” ourselves for we are always people in process. But as we honestly share our own experience of God and our journey of faith with our children, we will be growing together in the goodness and greatness of God and in the awareness of our constant need for him in our lives. (John and Susan Yates Building a Home Full of Grace pp 145-146)

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At Good Shepherd, we do our best to make worship stimulating and invigorating. At the same time, at the end of the day we must all remember that the Sabbath is the Lord's day, not ours.

The focus is not on our entertainment but God's glory.

And we must always remember that great biblical truth: when you lose your life, you find it.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

When you give yourself to God and put him first, you actually find yourself.

This is especially true when it comes to worship.

So long as the focus is on what you can get out of it, your experience will never satisfy. But if your focus is on God and giving him praise and glory, then you will inevitably find the joyful and nourishing experience you seek.

We know these things not only because of what the bible teaches but also because we have experienced them.

Let's not deny our children that same experience. Let's take our kids to church.

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