Participatory Worship

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. - 1 Peter 2:9

It's not just the pastors, the praise team, and ushers who have active roles in worship. These are just people who help enable, facilitate, and lead the congregation as one group. However, we're not the audience during worship; there is an audience of only One, and the rest of us are the presenters. Come let us worship and bow down, for He is our God and we are His people. Each one of us has an active and participatory role in offering worship to the Lord.

Children in Worship

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." - Matt 19:14

For various reasons, many of us never worshiped with our parents. Perhaps it was a language barrier. Maybe our parents didn't go to church. Maybe our churches had separate worships for different groups: Sunday School, Youth Group, College Group, or Contemporary Worship

When we become parents ourselves, maybe we can't use language as a reason, but we still have other concerns about worshiping with our kids. We wonder if the young children will be a distraction to others or whether they can handle the adult worship. We're concerned that our children won't get anything out of worship, because it's not targeted for them. Maybe we think the sunday school teachers and youth pastors are better able to teaching our children about God.

However, if we believe we are invited by God to come and offer our worship to Him, how could we not include our children? How can we tell our children to stay behind?

Raising Children in the Lord

"Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." - Deut. 11:18-19

Raising children in the Lord doesn't happen overnight; it's not the result of having "The God Talk" with them when they are old enough. As the passage above points out, teaching children in the ways of the Lord is a continual process.

Here at New Life Bay Area, we know that it's difficult for children to understand all that is going on in worship, but we do believe that they can learn to participate, even from a young age, whether it is the toddler just learning how to sit quietly with his parents, to learning to recite creeds and prayers and singing songs. Most of all, they will learn by watching their parents worship the Lord.