Should children be brought into the "adult" worship service? Should children have their own age appropriate worship service / class?
Some would compare bringing a child into the adult worship service to bringing a child into a college lecture. We agree that when it comes to education, children should be in an age appropriate class or experience. 6-year-olds go to a first grade class at school. 9-year-olds go to a 4th grade class at school. They don't go to college at that point in their life because it is not age-appropriate and the child would get little to no benefit from the teaching.
Here are some thoughts on this that I found online.
"I remember being in service as a kid. I remember absolutely nothing. Communion was cool because I got to eat Hawaiian bread or sourdough."
"Children can't handle a 30-45 minute sermon. But obviously a 30-45 minute sermon is the essential centerpiece of corporate worship."
"While we're at it let's skip kindergarten and start their education in college."
"Our last church, the pastor was adamant kids of all ages needed to be in church, then made services two hours long, right at lunch time (an hour plus of that was his sermon). My kids hated church. When it was time to get ready for church there were crying meltdowns. Not how I want my kids to feel about church. We moved, joined a better church, and now send our kids to children’s church during the sermon. They’re much happier, and we can listen to the sermon instead of trying to make them behave."
"I just don't get some of your reasoning. I respect your opinions, but it just seems disconnected from reality to me. Would you send your kids to a college lecture? No, because they wouldn't get hardly anything from it. They wouldn't understand 99% of it. That's why they work their way up. The same goes for church, IMO. Is having them in the main service distracting others when they are hardly going to take anything from it really worth it when they could be in Sunday school learning things at their own capacity? It's not worth it in my opinion. I understand doing it sometimes, but it just seems unrealistic to expect your kids to be in the main service every time. I think it's a lot more beneficial for them to be in a class that is geared towards them."
"As a parent of multiple children under the age of 10. My 3-year-old absolutely cannot sit through an entire sermon. There are some services throughout the year we attend as a family, especially Christmas. However, it is very difficult to focus, take notes, etc. on the service during those times. I do think there is validity to having your kids in service and worshiping as a family over the age of 12 or 13 or so. However, if you are talking about real topics in church (pornography, sex trafficking, etc.) these are topics I do not think I should be explaining to a curious 6-year-old."
"Young children simply do not learn the same ways that adults or older children do. There are children that can sit quietly and obediently during a service and retain absolutely nothing, just like many checked out, dissociating adults. There's something to be said for modelling, but this issue should really be decided at the level of local churches, where the context of the congregation is relevant to how involved kids could and should be on the general service."
