Why Kids In Worship? Its Not All About Them

Welcome to another Homes Devoted minute…Hi. I’m Jonathan Cronkhite.  We are discussing the reasons our kids should attend worship services with their parents.

How do we want our children to view church worship?  Church worship should be about giving God our best, giving Him the glory, setting aside time to worship together and encourage each other, and it’s about growing closer and connecting to God through prayer and learning His Word.

Unfortunately, when our children ONLY go to the children’s program or youth Sunday School, they grow up thinking that coloring, crafts and hanging out with friends is what happens at church.  In short: church is fun.  If I can be honest: It’s a lot more entertaining than reverent.  But what happens when it’s not fun anymore?  Even on Sunday mornings, lots of parents are too concerned about trying to meet their children’s needs [keep them entertained] and therefore feel guilty for bringing them into church, because it’s too boring.

Then they grow up and become teenagers (or we wait until they are in college) and we expect them to go to a worship service; to sit still, listen, to be reverent, respectful, hear the word of God taught and possibly take notes!  Then the battle begins!  I constantly hear parents complain, “My kids don’t want to go to worship.”   It’s because we have trained our kids to grow up thinking that church is all about them.  Which means we have not instilled a reverence for God; we have just brought the world’s attitude into the church that “it has to meet my needs or I’m out.”

Our job as parents isn’t to be their entertainment directors.  It’s to raise children who love and serve and respect and honor God.  We have to train our kids that sometimes learning about God and worshiping Him is not all fun and games; it’s not all about us.  Where in the Bible does it say that following God is full of fun times? Actually, it says we will face trials of many kinds.

Maybe if we trained our kids to sacrifice for God, trained them to lay down their lives for Him, they might experience a God that does come through for them.

Let’s impress our faith at home so our kids see how awesome God is and lets help our kids see how God is at work and how He answers prayers, how He protects and how He provides, so that when we come to worship they are also compelled to worship!  God deserves our reverence, our service, our worship.  He deserves an hour of our week where we surround ourselves with singing and reading the word and applying His Word to our lives.

Here are a few questions:

• Why do you go to church?
• Do you complain about church when it doesn’t meet your needs? (If parents discuss the entertainment value of the message and music, this contributes to the child’s thinking worship is to entertain them.)
• When do you want your kids to start learning the real reason we go to church?

Written by Jonathan

Rev. Jonathan Cronkhite has been serving youth and families for the last 28 years. With the heart of a pastor, he encourages and equips families to have Homes Devoted, through conferences, workshops, coaching, and writing. Married to Carrie for 25 years, they have 5 children, three of whom are young adults. Jonathan enjoys working alongside and discipling his teenage sons and their friends, renovating and flipping homes. He supports Carrie as she leads a home school co-op, and together they practice hospitality and serve in the community.