Yesterday (Sunday) morning, as what happens when possible in our household on Sunday mornings, I woke up first, showered and cleaned up, then woke up the kids, fed them breakfast, cleaned up what I could, and got them dressed as Mom got ready. Because Mom had a baby shower at my in-laws’ Methodist church after the service, we went to that church this morning. I considered taking sermon notes. 
Unfortunately, we didn’t get that far. After four songs were sung (two “I will praise”, two actual praise 
), a guest speaker came to the pulpit and was in the middle of informing the congregation of a children’s charity that the church had been supporting for their 12th year. During this presentation, my second twin started playing, happily, and was quite vocal. No screaming, just the soundtrack of happy songs that comes out of her mind.
After a couple of minutes, my wife decided we were leaving. An older lady in front had told her, “That is terrible; I can’t hear a thing.” So we left, not even waiting to hear the pastor’s message. If a joyful girl is so terrible, she should wait until our girl has a meltdown.
In our own Lutheran church, we also get looks whenever our twins are louder than the norm. We’ve not been actually spoken to about this “problem”, but the looks are enough to convey annoyance.
Both of these churches have a “children’s church” and nurseries. In our special case, this isn’t practical. Our second twin has incredible separation anxiety as a symptom of her diagnosed medical condition. At least our church has a cry room where we can still hear the service, however softly. My church in Kansas City has a public address speaker in the nursery so that the service can be heard. It broadcasts the pastor’s microphone; I hope he has kept his sense of pitch over the years.
On the first flight Sunday (my itinerary was Southwest Airlines’ Columbus-Nashville-Houston-Oklahoma City) I listened to the second hour (Windows Media / MP3) of the October 4 Issues, Etc. radio show. The topic was the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). There was an excellent exchange about 41 minutes into the second hour, where the three pastors on the panel extol the virtues of children in church:
CALLER: The question I have is: How does the Third Commandment affect the choice of sending the children to Sunday School on/during Divine Worship time versus allowing them to go to the service? I have many parents who really struggle with that issue, and I’d like to hear what they (NR: the panel) think.PASTOR WILKEN: That is an excellent question. By the way, it’s becoming more and more popular in Evangelical circles to have either Children’s Church or just something else for the kids to do while Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa go to worship, and it’s even being done in some Lutheran circles as well. So how would you go at, we’ll do this with Pastor Watford, how would you go at Aaron’s question there?
PASTOR WATFORD: Well, uh, thanks a lot. (chuckles) Oh, as unpopular as it’s going to sound, the children should be in church. Again, it goes back to how God is revealed. He wishes to be worshiped; he wishes to be worshiped by the hearing of the Gospel, the reception by faith of the Gospel, which is possible even for children, maybe even more possible in some aspects for children. After all we do baptize children, not on the basis of their faith, but not also on the basis of any idea that they may not have faith. Where does that faith come from? It comes from the means that Christ himself has instituted, through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. Now there is a difference to be made with the Sacrament because one has to be taught to examine one’s conscience and to know what one’s doing when one receives the Sacrament. What better way for that to be taught than for the children to be present in the Sacrament? I can’t help but think of Jesus’ own words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for they are the stuff of the Kingdom of God, such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (NR: sic, Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14) So, that has to do with something other than Means of Grace and true worship.
PASTOR WILKEN: What kind of presuppositions do you think might, not in every case, but might lurk behind the practice of saying, “Look, church is for grownups, and kids on Sunday morning, we find something else for them to do”?
PASTOR WATFORD: I’m sorry to say I’m afraid one of the reasons some people want to take their kids out of church today because it’s not entertaining. Children want to have fun. Entertainment’s one of the great gods of our day. I’m completely opposed to so-called “children churches” or taking children out of the Divine Service any longer than is necessary. There are times when we need to take them out. When they begin to stink, take them out and change their diaper, (chuckles) but when they’re done, bring them back. The children need to be there; they learn by watching. I’m reminded of Maundy Thursday, well, the Old Testament Passover, let’s look at the Old Testament. As the father of the house celebrated this, the children were saying, “Dad, why do we do that?” And children should do the same thing in the church. “Dad, why do we stand then? Why do we sit at this time? Why do we make the sign of the cross?” We have stained glass windows in our church, and we have a little brochure called “The Windows of Grace”. This is really helpful for parents to sit with their children and say, “Do you see that window? What do you see in that window? What does the Ark mean? What do those tablets mean? What is the Cross? What does it represent?” They can look at all these things and learn. And when their children come up with their parents for the Lord’s Supper, when the parents come up for the Lord’s Supper, in the past I’ve had children reach out to take the Body of Christ, and the parent will say, “No, no”, and you can see the child is sometimes a little confused. Well, then the children are then instructed by the parents who say, “well, we have a time that we set apart, catechesis, where you learn what the Lord’s Supper is, what you receive, and there’s going to be a day soon to come when you will be able to take that, and then you will be prepared to commune.” So children learn. They hear, they believe, they need the Gospel that’s preached there, just like everyone else.
PASTOR BROCKMAN: One of the presuppositions also, it’s kind of been mentioned at, is that kids can’t learn. But they can learn, and I have four children myself, and I remember before they were able to read the printed word, they were able to sing all kinds of hymns, and they learn by watching, that’s the biggest thing for children is to learn by imitation.
Pastor Wilken then went on to relate how his infant son was singing the Gloria Patri and other parts of the liturgy without the real words, because he didn’t know language yet.
What a good thing to hear, and how timely, in my case. I need to kick in another donation.
Now I would assume that pastors know all about “faith comes by hearing”, and there is no age requirement for that to occur. Yet in the two congregations and others that I’ve attended there’s the unwritten (and only sometimes unspoken) Do Not Disturb. I understand how someone might think that is rude. Coming from the point of a view of a parent with such a noisy (even in joy) child, it’s in my interest to hear myself, so we try to keep the child calm and quiet. It’s not like we deliberately unleash our children onto a congregation with the intent to disrupt. They love to sing.
This brings me to my final point; the Divine Service. The Divine Service sings the same words and melody from week to week, which makes it easy for kids to pick up. Perhaps our services would be more palatable for children if we return to singing the liturgy. Music is a wonderful mnemonic device; what a fine way to get the Word of God to stick into our heads.
iggyantiochus on 
Dan
