Emmaus Church Distinctives: Children and Worship

[Editorial Preface: This talk was given on October 13, 2019 at a church planting vision meeting for Emmaus Church, White Bear Lake. The text below is an outline of the actual talk—not a full manuscript. Any mention of “we believe” is a reference to the leadership of Emmaus Church, and it is not necessarily fully agreed upon by the core team. If you have any questions about the talk or Emmaus Church, please contact Tom Boyer at Tom.Boyer@Bethlehem.Church]

Introduction:

What I hope to do tonight is lead us in a discussion pertaining to children and corporate worship. What I am offering tonight are guiding principles and ideas. We don’t have exact Sunday School curriculum or precise Sunday School plans—much is still in flux. We want your thoughts on the specifics, and we want your help in the implementation as we prepare to begin worshipping together. But these guiding principles are meant to help shape what worship looks like for children and families. Our actually implementation of children’s ministries will be shaped by these core principles.

1.  This topic concerns the whole body of believers—not just people with young kids. The presence of children in corporate worship is a communal blessing.

1.    Singles, married couples without children, adults with children out of the home—this concerns you too. This is a communal effort.

2.    We all have the same hope for these children—we want to see them flourish in their faith and in their lives.

3.    We believe that noise in the midst of corporate worship is normal. We aim for ‘undistracting excellence’ but not at the expense of age segregation. What do I mean by that? I mean that we desire our corporate gatherings to be beautiful, clear, and undistracting times of worship. However, we don’t want to manipulate reality (children do make noise) by removing certain populations from the church. We want to invite families to worship together. At the same time, I do confess that there is a balance here. There are times that it is fully appropriate and loving toward our neighbors for a parent to remove a child from service due to elevated noises. Our primary thrust here is that some noise is absolutely normal, and the congregations should seek to be comfortable with such noise.

2.  We believe children should be part of the corporate gathering as early as possible.

1.    We believe this, because we view corporate worship as a unique and special time in the week.

2.    We believe this was the model of the early church (see Ephesians) and such a practice has been the norm throughout church history. 

3.    There is a modern tendency to make church ‘attractional.’ This has resulted in numerous dangers.

a.    First, Sunday School programing has become an advertising scheme to get people in the church doors. Those attractional Sunday School models rely more on gimmicks than the gospel. Thus children are not being properly taught in these highly attractional Sunday Schools.

b.    Second, to make church attractive to kids, Sunday School programming often is extended well beyond adolescence. Children are essentially segregated from the church until they are adults.

4.    When we postpone bringing our children into corporate worship, we are essentially trying to teach our kids to be Christians without a concept of Church. That in itself is problematic. But I’d say the actual result is worse! We as a Christian society have tried to create unchurched Christians. But instead, we’ve made agnostics who see little need for the church or the people of God. 

5.    As Christians, we need children to see earnestness and hardship, that is just not present in a flashy Sunday School classroom. We hope such earnestness and realities are put on display in the corporate gathering.

6.    Going back to point 1, we believe that children are a blessing to the rest of the gathered body. Inviting children into worship blesses them and it blesses the rest of the worshipping. 

3.  We believe children’s Sunday School should be meaningful, and intentionally shaped for the children.

1.    We will run adult Sunday School concurrent with children’s Sunday School, but the overall time parameters will actually be gauged to assist the children and children’s volunteers. For many churches, the Sunday School program is structured around the ‘adult worship service.’ We believe that is poor prioritization.

2.    We aim to make Sunday School more than a flashy time filler. We want to make the time spent meaningful—through song, memorization, teaching, service, and art. We don’t simply want to ‘get through’ the Sunday School hour. No, we want to make much of it, and let the time serve the children for the long-term.

3.    We believe that public service could and should be an element in Sunday School. This may be done through making crafts for a nursing home in the area or bagging certain meals for the homeless. We want to model and teach service to our children, and we want to offer them an outlet to join us in serving the people of God and the wider community.

4.    Peer-to-peer relationships matter. We assume that children in our Sunday School classrooms will come from different schooling environments: public school, private school, co-ops, and homeschool. We want to let these children grow together as friends. We believe Sunday School offers an unique time for these children to interact.

4.  We believe that children can learn deep content.

1.    If we win them with flashy things, then they are going to constantly expect flashy things! There is a common misunderstanding that kids can only be entertained by television and electronic gimmicks. We believe that children are generally smarter than we give them credit. We want to challenge children to think, we don’t want to patronize them by assuming they are incapable of learning.

2.    We believe liturgy touches the heart of worshipers, even if they don’t entirely understand the full meaning behind the actions. Children who are in corporate worship may have numerous things go over their head, but they are still able to learn and benefit from the service.

5.  We believe that parents are the primary disciplers in their own children’s lives, but the entire church ought to partner alongside them.

1.    The church longs to serve parents and families, but ultimately, the parents are the primary disciplers. The church should not be expected to parent children. That is not God’s design. Thus parental involvement is essential.

2.    We believe Sunday School volunteers should be able to take breaks and attend adult Sunday School classes. We want joyful and fresh volunteers, not volunteers who are annually forced to volunteer under compulsion. Thus we aim to rotate volunteers semi-regularly (each semester), in order to give breaks and in order to give other opportunities to serve in other capacities.

3.   Families that attend corporate worship together will naturally have post-service conversations about church. Worship together will lead to shared experiences, shared questions, and fruitful conversations.