To Sit or Not to Sit

Hello blog reading friends! Today I have a question for you. I am seriously interested in your opinions, beliefs, convictions, questions, and answers. So please comment! Or let me know and you can write a guest post on the matter! Here goes...

I see two basic ways to bring up children who go to church. Two basic ways, with many variations between.

Some train their children very carefully from babyhood up, to sit quietly in church. They discipline them if they become unruly or noisy. They teach them that it is very important to sit still, maybe playing with a toy, maybe not—but they must sit quietly two or more hours a week, at church.

The church where we attended a wedding on Saturday had a nursery full of toys. My kids went wild with delight in there. From what I could read here and there, this nursery is manned by childcare helpers on Sundays. You drop your child off, enter the sanctuary, actually listen to the sermon, actually sing the songs, actually pray through an entire prayer. All the while, your little kids are being taken care of quite well—even with a snack.

Those are two opposite extremes. There are some of us in the middle who try to sit in church with our kids, it works for about an hour, and the rest of the time we spend in the nursery or in the back where most people don't see that we aren't actually changing a diaper or giving a bottle. We're exhausted and allowing our twin girls to run around.

So! What do you believe? What have been your experiences? With your kids? With yourself, as a child? What are your memories?

And a few more questions...do you find it easy to love God's Word? Do you find yourself thrilling to it when you hear it, hanging on every syllable, looking forward with great anticipation to the next sermon? Did you grow up like that? As a child, how did your parents make church and God's Word desirable, exciting, wonderful to you?

I going to guess at the beliefs of the first paragraph people.

Teaching your child to sit still in church will grow in them a respect for God's Word and His people. It will prepare them for a lifetime of church. It's good discipline for them. Even as a young child, they can be bathed in God's Word and start hearing and learning from it.

I am going to guess at the beliefs of the second paragraph people.

Waiting until your child is old enough to understand and appreciate devotions and sermons that are almost without fail, geared toward adults will protect them from growing up with a distaste for God's Word. It will keep them from an early decision that the Bible and church are boring, and something to be endured. It will keep them from a negative feeling about church.

I am now going to guess that there are a few “sins” that paragraph one people need to fight.

It would be easy to find yourself training your kids carefully to sit quietly in church because you know that most people look upon that in awe and with respect.

And the second paragraph people?

It would be easy to allow others to take care of your kids because...well, let's just say, as a mother of three toddlers, that sometimes I deeply enjoy being “lazy”. :)

Craig read a quote to me the other day, that went something like this:

It is a sin to bore a child with the Word of God.

Howard Hendricks

What are your thoughts? Beliefs? Convictions? Questions? Answers? Experiences?