July 8, 2002  

THE ABC's of WORSHIP

What would we like our children to experience in our worship services? I can think of three things:

(1) First, we don't want them to have a negative experience, so that they're turned off church later on in their lives. This doesn't sound like a very high goal, but it's in keeping with the medical professions's Hippocratic Oath, "First of all, do no harm." We don't want early worship impressions to be boring, irrelevant, dull.

(2) Second, we want children to feel God's presence and to develop a positive picture of him as awesome yet approachable, all-knowing yet loving and forgiving. They may not understand many of the ideas they hear in the worship service, but their overall impression of God will help shape a lifelong relationship with him.

(3) Third, we want them to think of the church as home and its people as family. We want them to know it as a comfortable and secure place to be, so that they will come to their spiritual home and family during critical moments throughout their lives.

What do our children actually experience in our worship services? I'll share a drawing with you so that you can gain some insight about this. It was drawn on the back of an offering envelope by 7 year-old Eddie Jackson during a Sunday morning service sometime in June. I've checked with him on the identity of the figures.

Here are some of the things Eddie noticed and reproduced:

The Celebration Band – lots of people singing; they're all young, mixed male and female; they're all smiling, and they have their hands raised in praise.

The technical equipment used in worship – mikes in front of the singers, the two amplifiers (marked EV, for Electrovoice). This probably shows that he's part of the new electronically-aware generation.

The musical instruments – the drums and guitar have been moved up to the front (center and right); the organ covered with a drape (left) may reveal something as well.

Symbols – The cross hanging in the baptistry looms over the singers. This symbol is central in Eddie's mind as it has been for previous generations.

Esthetics – trees (artificial) are pictured in the center and the right, toward the front. Even to a young eye, a decorative touch helps make worship pleasant.

What's missing in Eddie's picture? There is no pulpit, no communion table, no Bible, no preacher. Some of this may be explained by the fact that Eddie leaves for Children's Church before the sermon time. But that's why we have Children's Church. We know that an adult-oriented, complex, verbal (rather than visual) proclamation from behind a pulpit is usually a turn-off to children. We don't want them to suffer through a sermon and be left with bad memories about worship.

Clearly, some things adults value as central to worship—reading of Scripture, preaching, teaching—don't communicate well to children. Eddie's drawing tells us some of the things that do—upbeat music with amplified instruments and voices, enthusiastic young adults, the expression of shared happy feelings.

Let's let children experience the Faith as children, rather than forcing them to endure things meaningful only to adults. And let's remember Jesus' words of exhortation, "Unless you become like little children, you cannot see the kingdom of God." Maybe we all ought to come to worship in the spirit of Eddie.

–Pastor George VanAlstine