Before you go any further, make sure you read the previous article in this series: Are You Robbing Your Kids?. And in case you missed this while reading the first article, here’s a blurb from it that highlights what I would love to see families work toward when it comes to their kids’ involvement in church: 

Parents having an intentional plan to help their kids see what involvement in the local church looks like. When kids are babies, by all means, have them in our nursery rooms where they can be cared for and prayed over. As they transition into toddlerhood, find ways to incorporate them into worshiping through song with your family in service. When they reach early elementary age, they are ready to join you in the service, and go to their classroom with their peers while you serve the church or take a class of your own. It is good to see kids ministry as an equipping ministry for your kids in addition to gathering with the church. But, if we begin to place kids ministry as a top priority—having a kids-ministry-first mentality––there’s a problem.

So, now that we all see the importance of having our kids come to church with us, I wanted to share some practical tips and advice to help that transition happen as smoothly as possible. Before we get too practical, I want to issue a warning: This will be inconvenient—but it’s worth it. There will be times, especially early on, that you will need to take one of your crying, distracting, or disruptive children into the lobby for discipline and conversations. There will be times when you feel like you spend more time correcting, watching, and moving kids around than listening and singing yourself. Bringing your kids into church with you isn’t convenient, but it’s worth it. This is a call to embrace sacrificial parenting—sacrificing, for a time, your preferences and desires for how corporate worship looks for you. The beautiful thing, though, is that your self-denial and sacrificial parenting in corporate worship for the purpose of training, discipling, and investing in your kids is a great act of worship in and of itself. So, if you’re ready to embrace the call to get your kids into church with you, here are some practical tips to help get you started. 

Set the pace for what participation looks like. Your kids are watching you, and they will see church as important to the degree that you act like it’s important. Is gathering with the church a weekly priority in your home? When you’re getting ready for church, is there joy and expectation to be with the people of God, or is it treated as a duty you have to do? When you come to the gathering, what does your participation look like? Are you singing? Are you listening intently, reading along in your Bible, taking your own notes? Are you having conversations about what you learned on the way home or around the dinner table? Your children are watching how you engage at church—are you setting the pace that you hope they keep one day?

Start young and start small. Start getting your child used to being in church at a young age. Maybe when they are one or two, you go and pick them up from their classroom after the preaching, so they can join you for worship. I love seeing families in the kids hallway as they pick up their kids to have them join in the singing of God’s people. The important part is that you want to help them get used to being in the room with you and the rest of the gathered church. If you have older kids that you’re trying to get to start attending service with you, maybe start with just once or twice a month until they get used to attending with you. 

Talk regularly about why the church is important. Cast a big vision for your kids. Let them know that being part of a church is being part of a family, and we love to gather with our family. Talk about what you are learning. Ask them what they are learning. Talk regularly about the joy and blessing it is to worship and learn alongside God’s people

Set the expectations. Let your kids know why they are joining you for church, what the service will look like, and how you expect them to behave during church. Know that when you set expectations, you also need to follow through with discipline when expectations aren’t followed. This may require knowing when to take a child out into the lobby for conversations and discipline when they are choosing to be disobedient and cause distractions. A word of caution—the goal isn’t that they would simply be quiet but rather that they would be trained in how to engage in worship and preaching. I often see families with bags of toys or handing their little ones phones to play games or watch shows, and I would warn against that as an ongoing practice. While unique services where childcare isn’t an option may warrant some of those practices, we want to help kids see the importance of engaging in the gathered church, not just being distracted in the gathered church. I can understand making a case for using quiet toys and coloring sheets in a limited way to support the early training process, but I would encourage you to have a plan for weaning your child off of those things during church so they learn to engage. 

Practice at home (and other places). You can’t expect a child to sit quietly and patiently in a church service if they are never expected to sit quietly and patiently anywhere else. Have them practice sitting at the dinner table before or after a meal. Have them sit patiently in a car without music or screens for a bit. Have them sit quietly as you read to them before bed. For the really little ones, practice calm lap-sitting and add a minute or two each week. Find ways to incorporate times when you teach your children to sit quietly and patiently. 

Put your arm around them. Kids love physical attention from their parents. Put your arm around them in service, let them hold your Bible with you, give them a little squeeze on the shoulder every once in a while. This doesn’t just show them you care about them, but also serves as a reminder that you are next to them and aware of what they are doing. 

Give them a Bible when they start learning to read. Give them an age-appropriate Bible to take with them into service. This gives them something to hold and a way to participate. It also gives you an opportunity to teach them how to use their Bible and follow along. As they continue growing and learning, giving them a notebook to teach them how to actively listen and take notes can really improve their engagement. 

This obviously isn’t an all-inclusive list, but it’s a place to start. We want to be a church that sees the value of the corporate gathering of the church—not just for adults but for kids as well. We want to be a church filled with parents who are willing to embrace self-denial and sacrifice for the sake of their kids, seeing the beauty that is the gathered church. And we want to be a church that raises up the next generation to love Jesus and his Church. May we take that call seriously.