Children In The Service

Family integrated corporate worship is one of the basic principles of our congregation. We believe that as members of the covenant body, children are to be included in the worship of God’s people, including the reading and preaching of the Word of God. There is ample scriptural evidence to back up this belief. Consider for instance that when Moses gave his farewell sermon to the people of Israel--a vast congregation--all the people were gathered together: men, women, leaders, officers, proselytes, wives, servants, and the children (literally "little ones"--Deut. 29:10-13). Likewise when Moses instructed God's people to come before the Lord every seventh year to hear the Word of God read, the children were to be present as well as adults (Deut. 31:12-13). Given that Deuteronomy places a high emphasis upon trans-generational faithfulness through the instruction of our children in the Word of the Lord (Deut. 6:7; 11:19), it comes as no surprise that children were expected to be participants in corporate worship right alongside the rest of the adult congregation of Israel. To have excluded them would have been to treat the "little ones" as Canaanites. Additional passages to consider are these:  Joshua 8:35; Exodus 10:2; 12:12-28; Ezra 8:1; Jer. 10:25; 1 Tim. 1:5; 2 Tim. 3:15 and Eph. 6:1.

Historically, it was the standard practice of the Church for centuries to include children in corporate worship. Children’s church, Sunday school and youth programs are fairly recent creations of the modern evangelical church, designed originally to lure the un-churched into the congregation. These evangelistic techniques arose alongside of social Darwinism and its philosophy-of-education spinoff: age-segregation. They are destructive to Christian families and the long term health of congregations because they substitute a humanistic alternative for God's plan for the family. We however are striving to recapture the blessings which come from the full and biblical inclusion of our little ones in the worship of God’s people, blessings which were once taken for granted.  

Family-Integrated Worship Takes Practice

As we seek to train our children to sit and participate in the Lord’s Service, we should be considerate of the rest of the congregation. Please remember that no one wants your children in worship more than we do. With that said, we also do not want crying children to interrupt worship on the Lord’s Day. Brief cries and whimpers are acceptable, but sustained outbursts should be dealt with. We provide a cry room so that parents may remove upset children from the service temporarily. Once they have calmed down, they are welcome back into the service. Discipline should also be administered discretely away from the sanctuary and the congregation. A separate cry room is maintained downstairs from our sanctuary in addition to a private room adjacent to the narthex for nursing mothers.

It takes time and patience to train little ones to sit through the service. We know and understand this and are available to assist families with young children. Training our little ones to worship with God's people on the Lord's Day begins at home with learning to worship the Lord during family devotions. Feel free to speak to our pastor or to one of the elders if you would like our help.

Children At The Table

Jesus said, ""Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:14). In obedience to our Lord's command, our congregation practices covenant communion, admitting all baptized Christians who are members in good standing of a Bible believing church  to the Lord's Table, without distinction due to age or mental ability. Covenant communion refers to what we understand to be the singular criterion for access to the Table: Membership within the New Covenant (see Hebrews 8:6f). With respect to children, the practice is known more popularly as paedocommunion: the giving of the Lord's Supper to baptized children, apart from a coming-of-age ritual such as confirmation or profession of faith. But the implications of covenant communion go beyond our children. Covenant communion is inclusive of both the mentally handicapped and the elderly suffering from dementia. Because the Spirit gives faith to whom He will, and because faith is a gift, not something we generate from within ourselves (Eph. 2:8), the benefits of the Lord's Table are received solely on the basis of God's gracious provision for the weak and the beggarly: Christ Jesus our Lord, not upon the condition of someone's mental horsepower.