Should Kids Be In Adult Worship?

Check out this short clip of a conversation that did not make the final editing of the latest podcast. Should children be in the adult worship service? This will be something we dive into in later episodes but this came up this week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Let's kind of get off topic here. Yeah. On purpose. Not really on purpose, but I just thought about it. Yeah, I heard a podcast the other day, and somebody was talking about it as well. When it talks about winning them to what you win them with, and then yes, it is about Jesus, but it's also there is a part of programming in that.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

As a children's pastor, I guess part of it is how do you do children's ministry? But should children sit and worship with their parents? So because they are hearing preaching and worship. So where do you stand on the children's pastors?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

When you say sit in worship with their parents, do you mean the whole service? How it yes and no. Okay, so my pastor's when he says worship, he means from the welcome to the closing, right? All right, from the start to finish. All right. So that the other day I say that to the reason I'm saying that is to clarify. The other day I said, well, after worship, when they left, he was like, Well, everybody leaves after worship. And I was like, No, no, I meant like the singing part, you know. So uh I personally do not think it is effective. And if you disagree, then we just agree to disagree. Like it's fine, other people have different, you know, perspectives on this. But I I preached last Sunday at our church, and I saw the grown humans that were nodding off in the middle of the message. And if you've listened to this podcast, you know sometimes I just randomly have outbursts that don't make sense. But uh, I get loud. I, you know, if you're falling asleep with me yelling in this microphone in this church, like think about what that would be for children. And so I do think that children's ministry, youth ministry is necessary for development and growth of the child or e honestly, even the youth. I mean, I know on Sundays youth are in service, and I think that's important, but the Wednesday night being different and being pulled out, I I think it's important. I mean, I I do I do believe that is uh a hill worth dying on, in my opinion. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So kids have their own thing on Sunday morning to church church for the entire service.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Not for the entire service. So the kids are in service in the sanctuary with everybody else through the through the singing. Uh, and then after the last song, kids go down to what we call kids home, and they're split up into two groups, uh, technically three, but the nursery stays down there, they start down there. But so from four-year-olds through sixth grade are in the sanctuary worshiping through song.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Uh so is that your is that I mean, I know that's where you're at, so you're the children's pastor. So when I say preference, I don't mean it used to not be my preference. Would you rather have them doing their own thing the entire time?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

So it used to not be my preference, uh, but from from experiencing it the way that it is done at my church, I really like it. I don't think there's I don't have a I ain't on no heel on this one. If if you do it the whole time, I I think that's great. You know, doing it the way we do it, I think it's there's a lot of benefits from it, from um seeing our kids see their parents worship, seeing other adults worship. Now, sometimes that's a hindrance because you got parents that sit there like a bump on a log and aren't actually worshiping. But uh with that being said, now how I do it is when we're done with the singing, when we get down to kid zone, we sing again. And it's you know, the motions and that kind of stuff. So it is different. But uh when I first got to the church I'm at, you know, I talked to our pastor and he was like, I mean, you do what you want to do. He's like, if you want to change it, that's fine. Um, he was like, People like it, people like the idea of it. He's like, but I support you. And so I I took, you know, I had uh this one guy who was very uh helpful in his advice that said, Don't go in and just changing stuff, you know, give it you know a couple months, give it six months to a year and see if this is really something that you want to change. And so that was first thing, like I'm changing this, we going down there. And uh I as we hit that you know six-month mark, I was like, you know, I think I I think I like this. Uh so there's benefits of them all being down there throughout the whole time as well, but I do I do enjoy having them in the sanctuary.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, when we were when I was in children's ministry, we were out the whole time, and I I would prefer being out the whole time. Don't break service. The and people will say, Well, it's good to see the kids in worship and moving them out's not a a hindrance. It it's not, but it can be. But I also think them having their time and their space works well. What I excuse me, what I really like would be that the sermons kind of go together, so when they leave, they can talk about the same thing type thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

So this week uh it did work out that way. Um, I am the children's pastor. I did not look to see what the kids' curriculum was that particular week before I planned what I was teaching. And the way God ordained it, we were both talking about Lazarus, which was cool. And uh my my sister and my brother-in-law, but they came uh to church on Sunday, and uh my sister had called me later on that day and was like, Do y'all always do this? This was really cool. Like what you talked about, they talked about the same thing. I was like, No, that don't always happen. You know, it's like uh that would be at my church, that'd be really difficult. My pastor goes through a book um at a time, and you know, it he goes through what he what he goes through. So it may be two verses this week and maybe you know eight, ten next week. But uh with that being said, to plan that for kids would be not easy.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Well, there it I think there would be a way the senior pastor would have to get the kids stuff and make his sermon off of what the kids instead of the senior pastor or the children's pastor, vice versa, trying to make it because most children's ministries use a curriculum. Right. Most pastors probably do not. So if they could maybe that's what if I ever become a senior pastor, that's what I'll just give the kids curriculum and I'll just teach the kids curriculum.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

There you go. That would fit well. That would fit well.