A Call to Fathers and Mothers to Lead their Kids in Worship
A few weeks ago, life was busy for me with night meetings which meant that my wife was having to deal more with the kids by herself than normal. She was doing a great job, but she wasn’t seeing it because she was in the thick of it. I wanted to give her something to encourage her, some resource, to point her in the right direction that what she is doing in raising our kids is a fantastic vocation that is worthy of honor even if it is mostly wiping poopy butts. I started to look through the books that I had, looking for something about the redeeming and righteous work that motherhood is. Unfortunately, I came up short. Where are all these books?
So now I am on the hunt. This led to my current prey. I found Nancy Wilson’s book Praise Her in the Gates: The Calling of Christian Motherhood. This book had some of what I was looking for my wife, but it is also full of lots of practical things. I’m only about halfway through it, but in Chapter 6: Manners, there is some good stuff. I’m listening to it, so I only have paraphrasing of what I remember. I think I’ll represent Nancy just fine. If you have a problem with my paraphrase, read the book and correct me.
Anyways, in Chapter 6, Nancy has a section on church manners and raising kids in the church. She made the point that kids should be learning how to sit in church and pay attention, not merely learning how to color quietly. I’ve got 5 kids, 1-9 years old. I’m in the thick of training them. However, I have been training them to sit quietly, not to actively listen and worship. Shame on me. My 9- and 7-year-old can do better than what I am expecting of them. Weirdly, I think my 5-year-old is about right for her age, the 2-year-old we are in the thick of it with, and the baby still sleeps through the message.
A week ago, my pastor was teaching against lukewarmness in worship and not having an attitude of acedia. He doesn’t normally, but this Sunday, he actually shouted about staying awake during the message. He was addressing the whole congregation about how some people still fall asleep every week during the message.
When I heard this section from Nancy, I thought about our pastor shouting at our parents about staying awake, and thought of the state of the kids in our church. It made sense. How can we expect our kids to learn how to sit through church, actively listening and worshiping, if our parents aren’t doing it? We can’t expect more from the followers than what the leaders are doing.
Our pastor made the point that if you can’t stay awake during the service, you might as well stay home. I might go a little further to push the point and ask, “if you aren’t paying attention to the service, why don’t you just stay home?”
I took my 8th grade class on a field trip last week to visit a working Benedictine Monastery because we recently finished reading The Rule of St. Benedict. The tour went fine, the library was fascinating, the museum was cool, and we stayed for the noon prayer service. We got there a little early and watched everyone come in for the service. These monks took this prayer service seriously. They were very kind to us, but the way they focus, you could tell that we didn’t exist to them during this service. Even though everything was written in a book for them to follow. There was no “moving of the spirit” in this church. There was a seriousness to it all. While seriousness can squash life, this one did not seem to take on that flavor. I think it actually showed a care for Christ.
So, why this post? Because I know that I need to lead my family better in this and I want to encourage those who read this to do the same. Not in a legalistic way, but because worship matters. Raise your kids to worship the Lord with His saints. This includes joyfully singing loud enough for the people next to you to hear you (like your kids), bow your heads in prayer with the saints and not scrolling your phone, actively listen to the message (like engaging with the minister with your eyes and taking notes), take communion joyfully celebrating the peace that we now have with and through Christ, and finally going out into the world to work our vocation for the glory of God and to make the Jews jealous of the good gifts that God has given to us, the church.
Now, I want to point out something I just said: taking notes in church. I hate taking notes. Especially when I am trying to deal with kids. It is way easier to not do it. It is way easier to zone out, find something to fiddle with, surf my phone, discipline my kids, or even just watch my kids and make sure they are obeying. There are plenty of things I could be doing during church besides taking notes.
I still take notes.
I do this because I know how brains work. They have done test. They have the data. No matter what you think, you are wrong. Anyone brains can only do 1 thing at a time. Some people’s brain can switch between things really quickly. This is true. But is splitting your attention something that you should be doing in worship? I take notes because in writing down the things that the pastor is saying, I am repeating the message to myself. Often, I have to put it in my own words in order to keep up with what is being said. So I am synthesizing the message as he goes. In doing this, my retention of what is being said in the message goes up exponentially. I take notes because it helps me remember what is being taught.
Talking with my wife about this, she said that she stopped taking notes because she never looked back at them. Totally a thing. Take notes anyways because you’ll remember what you hear better. As a Christian, I don’t want to be a vibe theologian. I don’t want to just know what feels right when it comes to the Bible. I want to actually know what is right when it comes to the Bible. This means knowing what is actually in the Bible and what it means. Sitting in church and hearing your pastor talk about scripture is a great way to learn what the Bible means. You should not sit through to get the vibes of what he is saying. You should be looking to get the actual words and meaning of what he and the Bible are saying. So take notes.
With kids, it is really hard to take notes in a notebook. I love writing with my fountain pen. Just having it in my hand literally brings me joy. I don’t bring it to church because I have little people and need to be caring for them. My phone has to do. I don’t even bring my Bible because the Bible I like is getting old, I have kids, and my phone has it on there. My note app has unlimited storage. I can start a new note every week, have my Bible in a swipe, and throw it in my pocket when my kids start to scream. This is my reality. It works. It helps my attention. It also shows my kids what is important and what I expect of them. I need to get better at communicating this to them though. I need to train my older two kids better in this.
Now I am going to poke a particular group of people: the old church ladies. Actually, at our church, it is all the ladies because most ages do it. I am looking at the knitters, the crafters, the drawers, the doodlers. Those who like to keep their hands busy. Now, I am going to call a spade a spade and say that most of them do it to distract themselves, and they aren’t paying attention. This is actually the fact. Most of them are not paying attention, or they aren’t paying attention well. You can fight me on this, but it is true. I’m a teacher, I see this all the time with my students. Most people doing things with their hands are not paying attention better than those who have nothing in their hands and are actively listening or those who are taking notes.
The last group to poke is those who say they pay attention better when they are doing something with their hands. I want you to look four paragraphs above that talks about how the brain can only do one thing at a time. This is a fact. You can’t get around it. You can’t pay attention better if you are doing two things at once. No matter how automatic the action is, no matter how thick the myelin sheath is on your nerves, you can only do one thing at a time. It might seem like you can do more than one, but it has been proven in sports science that no matter how good the athlete, no matter how fast their reaction time is, they can only do one thing at a time. While you might think you pay attention better while doing something with your hands, in reality, you are undisciplined in your thoughts. You should work on growing in your care for worship and focus on the things at hand. YOU might currently pay attention better by doing something with your hands because it keeps you from distraction yourself with something else. But it would be better if you grew in your self-discipline and care to be able to focus on the thing in front of you instead of needing something as a crutch. If you are still going to fight me on this, great, how about you do something with your hands and take notes from the message.
One group of people that I have neglected so far are those who are mature. What would a mature person in Christ look like during a message? What would they be doing? Do they need to be taking notes? Because that is basically what I am arguing for is that everyone needs to be taking notes. To be clear, that is not what I am trying to say. Note taking is a great tool, the best one I can think of, to build engagement and retention of concept. Notes build a reference to look back at. Writing building neurological pathways for your brain to follow. The point of it all is to have as much attention on God as possible. So, what would a mature person look like? Well, in my mind, it would look like someone who is paying active attention. When I am old, kids are grown, grandkids are in my row, there is a good chance I might not be taking notes then. If I know my Bible well and have large portions of it memorized, I might not bring my Bible. How would I want to show my grandkids to worship God? To be honest, I’ll probably have my fountain pen, haha. But if not, I’ll probably look like I am enjoying myself during the service and that it is hard to distract me from what is going on in the service. When they make noise, that won’t cause me to open my eyes in prayer. When they talk, it would be hard to get my attention because I am focused on the Lord. When they need to go to the bathroom during singing, they will have to push past me in order to get by because I am worshiping. So basically, a mature person would be one that my kids could point to and tell their kids to follow in how to worship. Mature people set the example. Any time the people of Israel found the Scriptures after being lost, they stood to hear them. Like for multiple hours. Because they cared about what God said. We should do likewise.
I need to work on how I am raising my kids. I need to be a better example to them and hold them to the standard that I set. I want to encourage you to grow in your capacity as well and to not hold onto the crutches that you have built around yourself over your lifetime. Show the generations what it looks like to focus on the Word and the God of the Word. He is worthy of your full attention. Be mature in Christ. Love the right things. This includes His Word and the teaching of it.