The great need is for the church to provide education for both young and older people as well as the children. All members of the Christian household need to know the meaning and methods of acceptable Christian worship.
Robert G. Rayburn in O, Come Let Us Worship
We must be sure that what we do in worship nurtures the kind of people we want our children and ourselves to be as Church…All kinds of other things are being tried in the attempt to urge young people to get involved in our congregations’ worship. Why don’t they? Simplistically, youth don’t participate in worship because they don’t understand it.
Marva Dawn in It is a Lost Cause?—
Having the Heart of God for the Church’s Children
Ten and fifteen years ago, I would have jumped up and down screaming about the importance of OPC evangelistic and short-term mission teams as the means of discipleship and nurture of our covenant children and young people. I still jump up and down with enthusiasm about such things, but with less animation nowadays. Why? God sat me down as a pastor and parent to instruct me on the importance of worship.
OPC Pastor Larry Wilson reviewed with me somewhere between Seattle and Portland, driving home from a Presbytery meeting, the importance of capturing and making use of the dialogical principle of worship. I had known of and practiced such things before, but there are those times when truth is a providential trip wire. Fathers and mothers, you might explain it to your children as the friendship principle in public worship. God speaks to His people, and then, we respond. God and His people take turns in speaking and listening. He’s the living God: He welcomes us; He tells us Who He is and What He has done, and we get to return thanksgiving and adoration expressing words and actions to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Isaiah 6:1-13 provides the pattern about this. Note the taking of turns between God—with His angels of the heavenly realm—and Isaiah the prophet. Clearly, there’s dialog between God and man. But there’s more on the pattern.
Guide your children to see and join in these parts of worship:
First, there’s the call to worship—we receive God’s welcome to praise Him: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We lift up our hearts to Him, and we remember that He is present with us.
Second, in order to be fit to pray, sing, read and commune with Him, we confess our sins and He promises forgiveness. Doug Wilson uses the figure of speech saying, we wipe our feet at the door of God’s house. With forgiveness comes the liberty to approach God to sing to Him, offer prayer and listen to preaching from the Bible, and in these ways, we are renewed, we are consecrated, for daily living.
He ministers to us with the words of the Bible, we respond with songs, prayer
and open hearts.
Next, after the sermon, we show our unity as church family by saying together words of what we believe, and then we receive nourishment at the Lord’s Table. This is communion.
He gives spiritual strength for our faith.
Last, God blesses us with His benediction; these are words of His goodness, kindness and favor. We leave commissioned to serve Him in the world.
We have been renewed in our relationship with God to live for Jesus Christ.
Children will catch on to your modeling, parents. They watch you and me like hawks. They watch to practice. One child, maybe a 4 year old, a little boy that I know, loves the Gloria Patri and Doxology. He mimics what he hears and sees. Since we sing these each Sunday, he’s grown to hum them, sing them and take part with the congregation. He knows his part! The other recitations shape his understanding too. In this way he’s being nurtured. One mom mentioned to me recently that she has grown to appreciate how dialogical worship calls for participation—you’re not to sit passively. Worship is not a spectator sport. She values the fact that she, her husband and children are engaged, active and share in the responses to the Lord.
G. Mark Sumpter
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