This blog grew out of my response to kamirusma's blog yesterday. She introduced the issue of church being boring. No doubt it is a real factor within the families of faith. I suppose all of us have had heavy eyelids in church, as well as almost any other place we sit still for more than a few minutes.
In my opinion it is inexcusable to make the message of Christ boring. In our day of instant gratification, I suppose that to some the traditions of faith can seem dull, especially if those leading worship and presenting the message are just going through the motions.
I belong to a fellowship that is conservative. We do things as close to the way they are outlined in the New Testament as we can. We are not high church, if that is a functional term for this community, but not charismatic either. We sing acapella, no gimmicks to hype up our services.
But we try to make the message and the worship assembly meaningful and practical, we want it to be part of your life everyday and in every place.
One of the things we do is give our teens opportunities to be a part of the services and to participate in ministry of the word. I think it is an important part of why there are few who sleep in our services.
We have our Sunday school study centered around one passage or topic for the whole family on any given week. That way the families can read and share with their kids in discussions of the subject before classes. The intent is that everyone be aware of the subject before they get to class so they do not feel left out. They will even be likely to contribute to the lesson.
We do some other organized activities to help the young ones know the basics of faith so they will develop a faith of their own. Hopefully, by their teen years so they have made their decisions for faith and are not as likely to be "forced to go to church".
Skouba has some good ideas in the comments of kamirusma's blog, & I encouraged her to post them on her site too. She points to the need for mom and dad to train the children to worship instead of programming them to need to be entertained.
Another item that helps is that the messages in our services are not long and drawn out, at least not on a regular basis. I had a friend and mentor tell me long ago, "No sermon is all bad if it is short enough."
I don't know if this helps the debate, but I hope so.
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2 comments:
You know, it's hard to take little ones to mass, simply because they fidget and don't let you pray or enjoy the service. At the same time, though, if you don't take them they don't feel comfortable in church. I think you have to look at worship a little differently when you have small children - you're introducing them to their faith, and may have to make time to communicate with God on your own because they won't give you reflective time during the service...
It's work, but it will be worth it in the long run. I don't want my kids to grow up without a comfort in their faith, they can decide later if it's something they want to continue or not, but if I don't give them the foundation they won't know what they're missing.
As a side note - I just posted an announcement for a new book club blog. I thought you might like to join.
So many moms do not hear much in worship when they are training their little ones. But in my way of thinking they are rendering worship and service to the Lord by instilling a love for Him in the kids.
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