Children in Worship Part One: A Book Review: Let the Children Worship by Jason Helopoulos

We are evaluating our meetings at my local church, and the new plan is to include our children in more of the adult services.   This has given our community pause because we have 40 children between ages 2-5.  The new meeting is planned to be 75 minutes and the expectation is that children who are in the nursery will have nursery, but those age 3 and up will stay with their parents.  So I've been researching and review the concept of children in worship.  I've also been creating lessons for our grade 1 and 2 class on what worship is, why we break bread, how we use this time.   So it's all coming together! 

I ordered this book which is published by Christian Focus with a 2016 copyright, and I had read somewhere that this was a newer version of Parenting in the Pew a book that actually has been published three times.  I'd read the first version years ago when my oldest was a toddler. He's 17.  I'll share from that book another post.

I enjoyed this book. I'd give it four out of 5 stars.

 Let me share what I liked about it:

• 90 page book, so it's not a long read. Broken into 7 chapters.
• Chapters have headings and subheadings.
• Every chapter ends with a conclusion, making it helpful for the reader to comprehend. 
• It is rich with scripture quotes and references. 
• It's reality based- his presupposition is just getting to church is a big deal for most families.  Let alone sitting together quietly for an hour or more.  
• His thesis for worship and including children remind us that: all we do must be grounded in the Word of God or biblical,  our worship be with joy, as well as reverence, edifying, and praise based. We treasure worship and communing with God, and our actions and attitudes should show the joy and value this plays in our lives to our children.  
• He's positive and encouraging in his tone, motivating the reader to remember- God created us for worship, it's the purpose of the church gathering, because it marks our identity as believers.  
• He shares that parents need to work with their children on this, but he also teaches that the congregation, leadership, and church community need to be supportive and helpful.  

What I wasn't as fond of:

• not sure the audience of this book- 
• written to academic or theologically educated people, perhaps even of Reformed Denomination?   (first chapters) 
•  Later chapters are more to parents/lay people, there are a lot of theological terms that may not be in the reader's regular vocabulary, and might have served the reader better with definitions, footnotes, or connections. 
• Covenant Community (we don't use this term in my local church) 
• Ordains, sacraments
• not sure how all parents will feel about his plan that suggests children don't have anything with them for the meeting to help their active engagement.
• he suggests it's not doodling time, or even note taking time, as it can be a distraction.  
• he suggests that all children can learn to sit with the help of their parents and focus directly.  
• We know that there are different learning styles, and different types of children. 
• I prefer to teach parents to know their child, and figure out what will work best for their children at each age and stage, with their learning styles, activity level, and needs.  
• I prefer a view that remembers that a child can be sitting on the floor drawing, or even make a tower of his color wonder markers, but still hear the speaker, the songs, the testimonies, the Word of God, and be thinking about it.  And he might be listening better than a child the same age forced to sit in the chair and look at the leaders for the whole time.  
• I don't equate sitting, looking attentive, standing, singing, etc to real worship, learning, or growth for all adults or children.  Some of us need to move, some need to take notes to be processing, some color or knit so that they CAN focus, some need to be on the floor to be less distracting.  Some chew gum, have a snack, or sip water.  I bring fidgets that are quiet and can be manipulated while attending to the meeting.  

As we are considering children in worship at our local church, I shared a Book Report with my elders.  If you click on the link you can see a pdf of my notes on the book.