The Why and How of Corporate Worship

Children's ministry is awesome, but corporate worship is biblical. When are children worshipping with mom and dad and the whole church family? How are kids and parents being trained on this?

Recommended resources:

• Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman - https://amzn.to/3Z7vJDs
• Family Ministry by Dr. Josh Mulvihill - https://shop.renewanation.org/products/family-ministry-how-your-church-can-shepherd-parents-and-grandparents-to-make-disciples-pre-order-to-be-released-january-2025

Transcript

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Welcome to the Kidman Huddle, Amber Pipe. The children as intributors get equipped, encouraging the power to disciple with intentionality. Growing God's kingdom one child at a time.

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Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. Today we are talking about corporate worship. Do you have a time when all of the family, mom, dad, teens, kids, grandmas, grandpas, when all of the family is worshiping together corporately? Maybe you have it set up where you don't have children's church. There's no children's services, so everybody is worshiping together all the time. Love it. Maybe you do a fifth Sunday stay, where about once a quarter kids are remaining through worship the whole time. Maybe you have special worship nights, or like I'm currently doing communion Sundays, we're up the whole time. There should be a time, pretty regularly, when the kids are worshiping together with mom and dad, grandma, grandpa, and the rest of the church body. Why? Now, this is a little um kind of controversial because we're kidmen people, right? And children's ministry, they are learning in their own space, on their level. The fun, the awesomeness, yes. But corporate worship? That's biblical. Look at Joshua 8.35, and yes, my Bible almost matches my shirt. Joshua 8.35. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembled of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them. The little ones. This is not a standalone reference to kids hearing the reading of God's word together, of everybody worshiping together. This is what God designed. Corporate worship. It is important for so many reasons. One, biblical. I'm pointing to Bible, yeah, biblical. Um, two, it is a really great way for kids to learn what it means to worship when they are doing so beside mom and dad, who have been given the biblical command from God to pass on their faith to instruct children in the ways of the Lord. So if mom and dad, grandma and grandpa have been given this command, corporate worship is one way that they can fulfill that command. The home aspect as well. But we need to be worshiping as a church family, the whole family unit. When we had, I'm gonna say maybe about four, four to six months attending my current church. Someone asked me, You just have one kid, right? Like, no, I've got two. She had no clue that I had two kids because at that point the kids were in a separate building the entire time. No one else saw my other kid because they were over in the kids' wing the whole time. So was my daughter at that point able to build relationships with church members? No. Was she able to worship beside mom and dad? Or in our very blessed situation, gream and grandpa? No. She was constantly separate. So she wasn't seeing prayer and the reading of God's worded, worship, engaging in singing praises to the Lord. She wasn't able to do that. She wasn't able to see this is what mom and dad do, this is what greaming grandpa do, this is what our church does, because she was over there having snack time. So when I took over, I made some changes. We do the old school model of our kids are together. They start the service with us corporately, where we have our we're Baptists, so three three songs in a prayer, and then the sermon. So the kids are together with the whole church body until the sermon begins. And I have to tell you, just side note, how blessed my kids are. We currently have my mom and dad. So there's my husband, myself, and my two kids, my mom and dad, and then my brother and sister-in-law, and their four kids. And we make up this whole little side section. We sit in the overflow side area, used to be a Sunday school classroom, like old sanctuary, 200, 250, old sanctuary. And I was looking two Sundays ago, and all of the kids, including my nieces and a couple of church kids, they all will move from our little overflow section. It's got three pews. My mom and dad and my son sit in the first pew. My sister-in-law, brother, their kids sit in the second one, and I'm in the back with who knows how many kids of these three pews. And when the songs start, all the kids go up there and stand with my mom. And so my mom, made to be a Grammy, she is just arms around her granddaughters and like bonus granddaughters worshiping. And then we're sitting during, um, I think during the prayer time, and I look over, and my daughter and my second niece are sitting there holding hands because they love each other and they're best friends. And I'm like, oh, this is what church should be worshiping together, and I love it, and it's amazing. So for this to happen though, we have to have those opportunities where corporate worship is happening. And if you have not been doing this regularly, you need to train on this because if they're not used to it, they're not ready for it, they're not going to love it. They will do like what happened at my last church when I took over with the teens. Um, I wasn't over the teens, but when I took over or I came in and I would notice that the teens during sermon time would get up, some of them three times to go potty. You were telling me at 16, 17, you got to go potty three times in a 30-minute sermon? But you know what the real thing was? They had never been trained on how to sit through corporate worship. Their parents and grandparents were not teaching them to worship beside them. Their ministry leaders had never trained them on sitting through a sermon and they were bored. So they were leaving. So, ministry leaders, we need to be training our kids on how to worship because there will come a day, no matter how your programming is set up, where these kids are now teens or adults that are expected to sit through an hour-long service without going potty or getting up because they're bored or scrolling on their phone. So, how are we training? We need to train our kids, but we also need to be training mom and dad, as well as the rest of the church body. I mean, you've met kids before. So you realize that they are likely not sitting still during this sermon. They are potentially talking, definitely wiggling. Um, some of them are just not having it, right? They're not, they're not quiet. They're children. So here's a couple things that that I would do. Whenever our kids were staying up, I would make sure that I got a time to have a children's sermon, a devotional, a Miss Amber moment, whatever you want to call it in the bulletin lineup. And I would always start it out with reminding our church body how wonderful of an opportunity this is, that our kids are learning how to worship alongside of our church. And I would remind them that they might be a little wiggly, they might talk, that mom and dad might be explaining an important piece of the worship order with their kids. And how great it was that mom and dad were taking the time to teach their children. So this was the kind of backhand way of reminding the adults hey, don't you dare fuss if the kid's making noise because they are learning how to worship. It's okay if a kid wiggles, it's okay if they talk, it's okay if the parent has to whisper a little loudly so that the kid can understand what's going on. I loved, I don't know, a month or two back during communion, I saw one of one of our dear ladies at church who one of my nieces, like that's her person. And she's sitting and she's explaining the elements of communion to my niece. And I'm sitting and I'm explaining to my daughter, or a niece. So, you know, people are explaining, and it's just this is what it's what should be. I love it. So we need to train on how to worship. So maybe you are doing part of this in your service. I think sermon notes are a great tool for kids. Now, I do not believe in busybags. If you are creating busybags for your kids, if you are creating things to entertain them during the worship service, I question why. We don't need to entertain them. They are being trained. Now, there is no junior Holy Spirit. The Bible is made for everyone, so our kids should be picking up stuff from this. And if we are just going right ahead off the bat and being like, well, they're kids, we just need to keep them busy and quiet. We're missing the mark. But what if we took the opportunity to train them on how to sit through the sermon, on how to pay attention, on what they're supposed to do? So, what does this look like? I love for youngers tally marks. This is like my secret sauce of awesomeness. And I've had a couple times where there was one where I didn't know something was happening and like the kids ended up staying up and it wasn't planned on and I had nothing prepared. But for my daughter, I just took a piece of paper because I always carry a notebook because I'm a writer, and I wrote out some words and taught her how to do tally marks through these. And I love all of the guides that I make for my kids. If I've got a Lord's Supper guide or the VBS thing guide, whatever, I'll add a tally mark section. So this is a sermon note page that I made, and I picked four words that are probably gonna be in a sermon. You can you can have a really safe bet with Jesus, God, the word pray. What might your pastor say at some point? Teach them to do tally marks. Whenever they hear pastor whoever say this word, add a tally mark. Do you know what this is doing? This is training them to listen. They might just be listening for a single word, but they're listening and they're probably catching some more. You can make this as in-depth or as simple as you want, depending on your kids. Maybe you are got some older kids. So, all right, let's what scripture were we in? What did I hear? Do I have any questions? You could make it younger and draw a picture of you singing the worship song, something like that. But that training piece that okay, this is what we're doing, we're learning to listen. That's key. Not busy bags. So I don't need to add a toy, like a fidget, because I want them participating. I want them to be learning how to listen. If you are sitting near Miss Amber, so if you're related to me or a kid sitting next to me, when we stand up, you stand up. When we sit down, you sit down. If we have our Bibles out, you have your Bible out. But there are others who are not related to me or sitting by me. How do I ensure that they become a participant? Well, we need to make sure that we're training moms and dads as well. How are you expressing to mom and dad, casting the vision of why we're doing corporate worship? Well, one easy win for you. Um, if you have parents that like to read, is the book Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman. This is a wonderful resource. It's if you're looking at the video, it's it's a short read. Um 152 pages, right? So that's not a big book. Wonderful resource on this is why. You can see if you're looking, I've got tabbies, I've got things highlighted in here. It's a great resource on casting the vision. Here's just one thing that I highlighted from this page 81. Worship music can lay a foundation for understanding the truth of God. Yes. Great resource for parents. So you could do a maybe a little training video. Hey, we are gonna start observing corporate worship on the fifth Sunday, whenever there is one. So about four times a year, the kids will not be in children's church. We're going to be worshiping with our church family. Now, I'm gonna be providing sermon notes that the kids do by doing XYZ. But to give you a little more, I've got a hundred copies of the book Parenting in the Pew that will really help you understand why should kids be worshiping corporately. So the first 100 of you guys to come and check in this week is gonna get a free copy of this book. I'm so excited for you to read it. Let me know what you think. Boom. We're training mom and dad. How are you encouraging them to take the time to teach their children to model worship and not just allow their kid to play in the phone? This can be delicate. You might not have the freedom to speak up depending on who it is in the church, if you're one of those churches. You might not be in the position to where you could call out families. It's it's delicate, right? You don't want to upset a family. You don't want them to feel so singled out. Oh, well, they just attacked me and I will not step foot back in that church. You guys get what I'm talking about? So maybe instead of saying, hey, moms and dads, remember we don't want kids on iPads or phones during the sermon. Maybe you try the positive reinforcement where we are casting the vision. Why are we doing this? Well, we're training our kids to worship. We are entering into a time of worship with our kids. We are worshiping alongside of so our kids can see us modeling what church looks like. Cast the vision. Like I said before, cast the vision to your church body. You will inevitably, likely have an older person who either forgets what it was like raising young kids or doesn't understand what it's like raising kids today. I mean, their attention spans are so much shorter. Technology was not a thing when they were raising littles, and maybe they've just forgotten how hard it is to raise kids and that there's going to be some squirming and some wiggling, or you might even have a kid throwing a fit and you gotta have parents taking them out of the service. Remind the church body as well, this is why we're doing what we're doing. You want to cast the vision to where when those corporate worship times come, families are still attending because they see the importance of it instead of, well, that's the Sunday we're gonna skip. We we have a reason for it, but do your families know that reason? Does your church know that reason? Cast the vision. God set up family worship, corporate worship. So we should be having times where we're worshiping alongside of our kids. So, how are you gonna do this? Oh, I will, I did want to say on the book, Parenting in the Pew, there is one thing I disagree with. She says that kids don't need a sucker to get through the service, and I disagree with that. I have found if you give them a sucker and you have tally sheets, tally marks in your sermon notes, your little kids are much better to engage. I sometimes will give crayons with it. I have the Crayola twist-up crayons. My kid loves these. So I have when it's that time, I as mom have a bag full of those for her. But sometimes you need to give them out to parents because not all parents come prepared. I'm that mom when my kids were little and we were doing this. I had the bag full of snacks. I had a notebook for them to draw pictures on, um, the the crayons, all the things, but not every parent's gonna be that way. So I would have a bag of treats, um, or I would have the crayons, I would have the suckers. You as a ministry leader, maybe you want to provide that. Okay, I'm passing out the sermon notes. Here's your crayon, here's your sermon note, and here's your sucker. Don't eat it until Pastor whoever starts the sermon. As I began to train at my last church when we would do these, I would have a bucket with treats. All right, show Miss Amber that you were listening during the sermon, bring back at the end. Come down here, find me, because I always sat in the front row. Come down here, show me your note sheet, and then you get a treat. Now, I had some kids who didn't want to do the notes, but I they were sitting and listening, I'm like, that's fine, you get a treat. Positive reinforcement. It's the same thing that we're doing with parents. Hey, I'm not shaming you for letting your kid play in the iPad during sermon. I'm positively, this is why we're doing this. When is corporate worship happening in your church? It's important. This is not a just, oh, that's a fun idea. No, this is an important thing. Kids need to be worshiping together with their family and your church family. So when is this going to happen in your church situation? You are likely not going to go from never to all the time like that. So I suggest fifth Sundays. For us, we do it when communion communion is happening. So it's about every other month. So we probably do five to six a year. Maybe you are going to have special times where it is Christmas Eve, the Christ, your Christmas Sunday, your Easter Sunday. This also really helps on your volunteers on those big holiday weekends. You don't need volunteers. The only thing open is maybe the nursery. When is it going to look like for you? Who do you need to talk to? How do you need to prepare? Um, you can purchase, you can make your own sermon note sheet, you can get some candy, you can get clipboards that need to be passed out, whatever. Get the supplies in place, put the dates on the calendar. If you just start out with one this year, that is one time where kids will be worshiping corporately with mom and dad and the church body. This is very, very, very important. So put it on the calendar, make a plan. If you haven't read the book, Parenting in the Pew, I highly encourage you to do so. Um, just really good. Also, Josh's book, Family Ministry, talks, it has a whole chapter on corporate worship. If you haven't read that, Family Ministry by Dr. Josh Mulvahill, definitely check that out. Um, I think I talk about an intentional children's ministry. I don't know. I've been snowed under for a while, so my brain's not as good as it's not as good as it should be. But it is an important aspect that we, though we are kid win leaders, need to be incorporating in our service. I would love to hear if you've got some things that are just big wins for you. I would love to hear about them. I mean, we could keep talking about if we want to make this a big win, we get with the church leadership and we have kids participating in the service. Maybe you've got kids reading scripture or part of the praise team to where it's a full family service. That would be awesome. It could look a million different ways, but the important part is that boys and girls are standing beside mom and dad, praising, worshiping, praying, reading scripture. They're seeing faith being lived out by their parents and grandparents to where they can begin to do that in their own lives. So important, kidmen leaders. I would love to hear how you are doing it, what has been a win from you? Reach out if you have questions. And remember, kidmen leaders, what you do matters.