Posted in Train Up A Child Thursday
Well, it's still Thursday for another hour and a half, so I'm going to try one more time to do this!Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise
Give thanks to Him and bless His name
Psalm 100:4
I've mentioned before that I'm extremely blessed to be part of a church that advocates family worship. It's a great idea, but for people like me, who grew up in a church that practiced the typical Sunday School, Jr. Church ,Youth Group design, it's one thing to say "let's all worship together!", and it's another thing to figure out how to DO that so that each member of the family can be involved! Thankfully, there are many good resources out there to point us in the right direction! One excellent book is by Robbie Castleman. She wrote"Parenting in the Pew" which is full of great ideas. Here is what we are doing at the moment to train our children to participate in worship and fellowship with the body on Sunday mornings.
Daniel and Aria are the youngest members of our family. At 20 months and almost 4, they are learning to sit still, face forward and not stick gum in the hair of the lady sitting in front of us. (that's a joke...) Daniel can sit on my lap for about 45 minutes before he starts to get antsy. At that point, i usually give in and put him in his stroller and pace the back of the room with him. We're working on stretching him into longer sit times.
Aria is learning to hold her song book and her bible the right way (i.e.not upside down) and to "sing" along with us, standing and sitting at the right times. She has a tiny new testament that won't make too much of a thump if she accidently drops it on the floor in the middle of communion. She hands it to me when we are instructed to open our bibles, to make sure that she's in the right spot
. Most of the time, she remembers not to ask me (in a loooud stage whisper) if it's time to go, if Daddy is "awmost" done, what happend to the hair on the top of that man's head or if she can go potty. She's learning to keep her feet still, to not stand on the back of the chair in front of her, and to not poke her neighbor. In short, she's learning to think of others first and to consider the preciousness of others!Trinty, Eden and Lukas have mastered those skills (well, ostensibly), so they are now learning to actually HEAR what's being said from the pulpit. One of Mrs. Castleman's great ideas was to ask the pastor ahead of time for key words that we can listen for during the sermon. Since their Daddy is the pastor, I usually remember to ask him (as he's on is way up to the pulpit...) for one or two of these. Last week we were in the book of John, the key words were "door" and "shepherd." Trinity is supposed to write tally marks under each word for every time she hears one. She's really good at this, although she sometimes loses steam during the last 15 minutes or so. (As a side note, this really helps me remember what the sermon is about as well since I can't take notes with Daniel sitting on my lap!)
Eden has a blank book, she's supposed to also keep track of the key words with tally marks and write down any scripture references. She's less enthusiastic about this, she tends to get distracted with the pen in her hand and starts to draw pictures instead. She usually looses the freedom to have her pen at that point, so if she is sitting beside me, I'll hold her hand and we see who can squeeze first when we hear a key word. (The only problem with this is that she gets giggly when she beats me to the squeeze!)
Lukas also has a blank book, he's old enough that he should be writing down scripture references and taking simple notes. Alas and alak, he is rarely sitting next to me (we sit in the back row for obvious reasons, but sometimes he sits in the front row, he likes to be right in front of his dad), so I've not been as diligent about training him in this area. However, he always has a good answer when I ask them after church to "tell me one thing from the sermon today", so I know he's paying attention.
This is just one aspect of training our children in worship. Other aspects involve training them to think correctly about worship (who is it for, to please ourselves or our Lord) and to prepare for corporate worship. But those are for other posts!
My biggest desire in all of this goes back to training their appetites. We have such a consumer mentality, even in the church (especially?), we want everything to be fun and interesting. While I don't want my children to grow up thinking church is dull and boring, I want them to learn to really enjoy it for the right reasons and not have to be entertained by clever sunday school programs and neat reward systems. I want them to learn to die to self, not indulge the self. Church should not be a fun and games social time, it should be a very sacred and special time where we go to hear from the Lord and to "bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord." Jer. 33:11
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