Your children will grow up not segregated from public worship and the means of grace. They’ll grow up a part of the community of the redeemed and watching baptisms. They’ll see the supper administered and they’ll ask, “When can I have it?” They’ll hear the Law and the Gospel and they’ll grow up knowing that this is their identity….

In Christian congregations across the Western world, at a certain point during the worship service small children are dismissed to what is often called “children’s church.” I can understand why evangelicals (without a direct connection to or confession of the Reformed faith) and others, who do not have a covenantal theology, would send out their children during public worship but I do not understand why so many ostensibly Reformed congregations have adopted the practice of dismissing their covenant children from the service to “children’s church.” After all, we confess that God has promised to be a God to us and to our children.

As a pastor, I understand the practical problems. Parents want to be able to concentrate on worship and children can be distraction from worship. At least some of the same congregations that have this practice also do not set aside time outside of the worship service for Christian instruction or catechism. So, it seems, they’re holding catechism during the worship service. I guess that the reason that there’s no additional time for catechism is that the parents won’t make time and the church won’t make them make time. So, congregations are making due. Sometimes the bulletin explains that the children are sent out of public worship in order to “prepare them to worship.” At first glance this seems like an attractive option: it seems to provide for a way for children to be taught while parents get a break and are refreshed in worship.

It’s hard to know where to start with this complex of problems. Obviously there is a question about the nature of the Sabbath. There’s a questions about the nature of worship. There’s a question of the nature of baptismal vows and church membership. There’s a question of Christian nurture and there’s a question of the nature of Christian parenting.

Obviously, to address all these questions would require more than a short essay. Nevertheless, if we think about the creational pattern (Gen 1-2) we see that, in the beginning, before Moses, God set aside one day in seven for rest and worship (Ex 20:8). Our children are to participate in both rest and worship. If children are sent out of public worship for something other than worship then they are not really participating in the divinely intended pattern for human and especially redeemed life (Deut 5).

In our time we tend to think that worship is chiefly about our experience and we expect worship to be edifying (as it should be) and even uplifting. It’s true that having children in church means that it may be slightly less edifying (because the parent will be more distracted). It also means that it may be less emotionally moving. It’s a little harder to concentrate when your child is fidgeting next to you or someone else’s is wailing in your left ear. That’s okay. You might not have the same experience this week as you did when there was children’s church. That’s okay. Experience isn’t the most important thing in worship. It’s about hearing God and responding appropriately, according to His Word.

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