CHILDRENIN WORSHIP

Itis an interesting fact that most Christian worship halls in Singapore havea little room which is designated a ‘cry room.’ Ask around what is the functionof a ‘cry room,’ and you are likely to get a response to the effect: “The cry roomis a play room in which mothers, with infants and toddlers who are too youngfor Sunday School, can sit in during worship service.” This statement revealsseveral facts with regards to the modern use of the cry room and the place ofchildren in worship in general. Firstly, most cry rooms today are soundproofrooms which are separated from the main worship hall with a glass panel, orconnected by close-circuit TV. Mothers who use the cry room can in fact observeor at least listen in to the worship service. Secondly, cry rooms are designedto isolate noisy children from the congregation so that no one will bedisturbed by their noises. Generally mothers with their young children woulduse the room for the entire service: they go into the room at the beginning ofthe service and stay there to the end of the service. Thirdly, many who use cryrooms generally do not follow the form of the worship service. For example,parents may sit throughout the service even at the times when the congregationis required to stand. This is especially so when there is no immediate visuallink with the main worship hall, such as when the room is not separated by aglass panel. Children, on the other hand, are usually allowed to play freely inthe rooms. Indeed, some cry rooms are even equipped with play mats and toys.

When cry rooms are so used, it is no wonder that manya church soon begin to organise nurseries, crèches and even full-fledged SundaySchools. Why let the children play in the cry rooms and disturb their parents whenyou could maximise the use of the time to teach the children some biblicaltruths or get them to do some ‘biblical activities’? What’s more, not onlywould a new area of service be created, but parents could worship in peace!  

So prevalent is this concept of the cry room and itslogical derivatives, that most of us, I am quite sure, would be surprised whentold that cry rooms in earlier days,—meaning, till less than 50 years ago,—hadvery different functions. ‘Cry rooms’ or ‘crying rooms’ were literally for thepurpose of crying. You see, it had always been a common practice that children,toddlers and infants all worship together with their parents. When a baby ortoddler cries, he is brought immediately into the crying room in order that hiscry may not disturb the rest of the congregation. He stays there until he stopscrying, and then he is brought back into the worship hall again. In the sameway if a toddler or a young child needs to be disciplined for being rowdy orirreverent during the worship service, this room could also be used. Again thechild is brought back into the worship hall after appropriate admonition.

How did the original function of the cry room sodisappear from modern Christianity that few know why the room is called a ‘cryroom’ today? I believe the answer is two-fold.

First, I believe that it is because most of us todayhave a pragmatic, rather than biblical or theological, attitude when it comesto worship. This attitude appears even in churches, which have childrenworshipping with the adults, such as when a mother tells a child to keep quietduring worship service it is for no other reason than not to disturb otherworshippers. With this attitude, it would not be uncommon to see parentsentertaining a toddler by playing during worship service so that the childwould not cry for attention.

Secondly, spurred by pragmatism, many a church todaydevelops the idea that children have special needs, which are distinct fromthat of adults. By this reasoning, it is thought that it makes no sense to havechildren sit through “adult worship services.” One respected writer, forexample, complains that “there is an almost superstitious idea abroad in thechurches that if the children are made to sit through adult sermons, God willbe especially pleased, and some spiritual benefit will wash off on them whetherthey understand anything or not.” The writer is, I suppose, referring to themore conservative churches in the United Kingdom.

It is not difficult to see from our lengthyintroduction that we do not agree that children should be taken out of worshipservices into separate programmes, whether formal or informal. We are, ofcourse, not denying the usefulness of a crying room when properly used. Infact, we are not even opposed to the use of crying rooms to train children whoare still not used to sitting quietly in public worship with the wholecongregation. What we must attempt to do, however, is to provide some biblicalbasis for our belief lest we become legalistic in our practice, or be easilyswayed by new innovations “to cater to the needs of our children.”

Let me suggest five reasons why we ought to keep ourchildren with us during worship and why they must be trained to attend toworship reverently.

God’s Covenant

The first reason why we should keep our children inour worship services is that God is not only concerned with us individually,but with our families. This is by virtue not only of biblical examples of God’sdealings with families (e.g., Lk 19:9;Acts 16:31); but by the biblicalassertion that: “the promise is unto you, and to your children” (Acts 2:38–39).The Apostle Peter, who first enunciated these words, was clearly referring tothe Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17:7; cf. Gal 3:13–14, 29) in which God instructedAbraham to circumcise his male children because among them would be the“children of the promise” (Rom 9:8; Gal 4:28). This is also why we baptise ourinfants. The Church is essentially God’s covenant people, whether in the Old orNew Testament. It is an organic body comprised of families and not justindividuals. Though an individual believer may be considered as a planting ofthe Lord (Mt 15:13), the Church must not be conceived of as a collection ofindividual plants, rather, it must be conceived of as a tree (cf. Rom 11).Children form part of the tree, as branches. If the branches do not bear fruit,they would be cut off (Jn 15:6). But as long as they remain in thecongregation, they are covenantally holy (1 Cor 7:14) and are to be regarded asmembers of the church.

Thus, when the congregation is addressed with thesingular second-person pronouns by the Lord, such as in the letters to theseven churches in Revelation 2–3, the children are included. This is especiallyclear in Deuteronomy 29:10–13 in which a gathered congregation, whichexplicitly included little children, was addressed with the singular pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thou’:“That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORDthy God maketh with thee this day: That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, andthat he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said untothee,and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and toJacob” (Deut 29:12–13).

Naturally, then, when the church gathers for worship,the children, being members of the church, should be included.

Biblical Pattern

Secondly, I believe that it is a biblical pattern thatchildren be included in congregation worship, together with their parents. Inthe Old Testament, the Jews were seldom required to come together to worshipthe Lord in the hearing and exposition of the Law, but when they did cometogether the children were normally included in the worship. For examples,firstly, at the renewal of the covenant recorded in Deuteronomy 29, we arespecifically told that the “little ones” (v. 11) were present. The wordtranslated “little ones” (¹f¾, taph) literally means: “thosewho walk with quick tripping steps,” i.e., toddlers. Similarly at thesabbatical year convocation, weare told that not only were the men, but women, strangers and children, were tobe gathered and instructed: “When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shallchoose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather thepeople together, men, and women, and children,and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that theymay learn, and fear the LORD yourGod, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which havenot known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God…” (Deut 31:11–13).  Then again, in Joshua 8:35, we aretold that “all the congregationof Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that wereconversant among them” attended to the reading of the Word by Joshua. And againwe read of similar gatherings during the time of Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 20:13) andduring the Reformation of Ezra (Neh 8:2–3; 12:43).

In the New Testament, when the people gathered to hearour Lord, the young children were usually present too (see Mt 14:21; 15:38;etc.). On one occasion, we are told that the people began bringing their youngchildren to the Lord to be touched by Him (Mk 10:13). For some reasons thedisciples tried to stop them. Perhaps they thought that the Lord should not beencumbered with anything other than preaching or healing the sick. Perhaps theyhad baptised the children, but their parents were not satisfied, and theywanted the Lord at least to touch their children, believing that they couldreceive a special blessing that way. Whatever the case, the disciples did notthink it necessary for the Lord to accede to their request and so they rebukedthem. We are told, however, that “when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased,and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid themnot: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:13–14). The word translated‘little children’ here is the Greekpaidivon (paidion), which means “veryyoung child or infant.”   

This statement of our Lord is instructive, for how dowe suffer the little children to come unto Christ in post-ascension Christianworship, but to bring them to worship with the body of Christ?

Whatever the case may be, there is little doubt thatthe practice of having children in the worship service was the norm in theearly church. This is suggested by the fact that the apostolic epistles, whichwere read during congregational worship in the early church, addressed thechildren directly (e.g., Eph 6:1; Col 3:20; and perhaps 1 Jn 2:12). In general, the biblical pattern isthat the Christian family, being heirs together in the covenant of grace, oughtto worship together. It is amatter of historical fact that the exclusion of children from congregationalworship is a very recent innovation, which is probably an offshoot of theSunday School movement.

The Call of the Gospel

The third reason why children should worship with thecongregation is that the ordinary means by which God calls His people is thepreaching of the Word of God: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing bythe word of God” (Rom 10:17).

Those with Arminian tendencies will generally insistthat there is such a thing as an “age of accountability,” before which a childwould not be held accountable for his or her sins or for rejecting the Gospel.They reason that before such an age of accountability, which is generallyarbitrary, the child is incapable of conceptual thoughts. This “age ofaccountability” is however an unscriptural idea based on secular psychology andpopular morality. The Scripture declares every child of Adam to be guiltybefore God from the moment he is conceived (cf. Ps 51:5). Conversely, theScripture also indicates that it is possible for a child to be regenerated at avery young age and so come unto faith and justification. John the Baptiser wasapparently regenerated while he was still in his mother’s womb. The angelGabriel had foretold this when he prophesied that “he shall be filled with theHoly Ghost, even from his mother’s womb” (Lk 1:15). Then when Mary came tovisit John’s mother, the baby, sensing the presence of Christ, leapt for joy(Lk 1:44).

From the example of John the Baptiser, we see thatregeneration is a sovereign work of God, not dependant on rational professionof faith. Indeed, it is the consistent teaching of Scripture that regenerationprecedes faith. In the case of covenant infants, it is possible that the childis regenerate long before he is able to express faith. Surely a regeneratechild would benefit from the preaching of the Word. John Willison puts it wellwhen he says: “Though children be young, yet bring them with you; for they arecapable of getting good by the word sooner than we are aware. … If we lay ourchildren by the pool-side, who knows how early the Spirit of God may help themin, and heal them?” (Works, 77).

Moreover, experience has shown us that children asyoung as a year and a half (as was a case of a little girl I know in London)could understand adult conversation reasonably. Experience has also taught usthat children 4 to 5 years old could actually benefit from sermons and respondto them by way of obedience.

Such being the case, it would be rather presumptuousfor the church or for parents to exclude their children from the preaching ofthe Word of God, which is designed for the spiritual well-being of every memberin the church. Would it not be exceedingly strange for parents to pray for thesalvation of their infants and then remove them from the ordinary meansordained to call them unto Christ?

The Praises of Babes andSucklings

The fourth rationale behind having childrenworshipping with the congregation is that God is well-pleased with the praisesof babes and sucklings.

Those who advocate an age of accountability are alsolikely to think that the praises of babes and sucklings are meaningless, sincethey are unable to worship God consciously. This is however contrary to whatour Lord teaches. We read in Matthew 21 of how the children in the templepraised the Lord with the words: “Hosanna to the Son of David” as they beheldHim clearing the compound of those who bought and sold and exchanged money; andhealing the blind and the lame that came to Him (Mt 21:12–15). The chiefpriests were displeased and so chided the Lord, but the Lord replied: “Yea;have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfectedpraise?” (Mt 21:16). The terms, “babes and sucklings,” as their designationsimply, refer to infants and babies who are still suckling, i.e., under 3 yearsold since Jewish mothers were wont to nurse their babies till three. From ourLord’s statement, we can be sure that God is especially honoured by the praisesof little children.

If this is the case, then, removing children from theworship of the church would be like removing a range of violins from anorchestra, or excising toes and fingers from the body.

The Training of Children

Thefifth reason why we include our children in worship is a pragmatic one, whichis to train our children to revere and worship God. Children who are taught tosit still during worship when young are likely to grow up understanding theimportance of reverential worship. More than one godly persons I know haveexpressed their gratitude to their fathers for disciplining them to keep themstill and quiet during worship when they were young. Matthew Henry, who washimself trained from young, explains: “Little children should learn betimes toworship God. Their parents should instruct them in his worship and bring themto it, put them upon engaging in it as well as they can, and God willgraciously accept them and teach them to do better” (Comm. on 1 Samuel 1:19).Also: “It is for the honour of Christ that children should attend on publicworship, and he is pleased with their hosannas” (Comm. on Luke 2:41).

Conclusion

Baptist churches, in general, which see children ofbelieving parents as being no different from children of pagan families, hadled the way of separating children from their parents during worship. We areglad to know that even Baptist churches, that is, Calvinistic Baptist churches,have begun to return to the old paths and are conscientiously including theirchildren in their worship services. It would be such a shame for us, who claimto believe in God’s gracious covenant and favour towards His families, topersist in doing what is right in our own eyes rather than what is warranted byScripture.

It is true that many children are unable to sit forthe duration of the sermon without becoming a distraction to their parents andfellow worshippers, but I believe that this problem can be overcome bypersistent training, with the co-operation of a sympathetic congregation. It isalso true that many children areunable to understand adult sermons and wouldbecome so accustomed to the sound of preaching that they would shut offcompletely, so much so, that even when they are older and ought to be able tounderstand, they will make no effort to listen. To overcome this problem, may Isuggest that parents, especially fathers, ought always to make sure that theirchildren pay attention during the worship and help them to understand thesermon or at least the gist of it by taking simple notes during the sermon, anddiscussing the sermon during family worship.

May the Lord help us to persevere as we seek to dowhat is right and pleasing in the sight of God. May we neither bow to thepressure for numerical growth nor humanistic reasonings, however pious they maysound.Amen.                                                         

—JJ Lim