Let the Little Ones Go!

 It's one of those moments they never train you for in seminary: you're preaching hard, really getting into the text, flourishing the sword of God's word with all your pastoral might!...and then little Johnny decides it's time to start competing with you using all the noises he can muster, great and small. Heads start turning. Focus is lost. You quickly try to regain control of the congregation's attention, but it takes a few moments for everyone to reset. We wait for mom to take Johnny out of the service until he can learn to stop making any noise. After all, the church service, above everything else, should be calm, clean, and serene. Right?

It is this attitude that leads many churches to shuffle the children out of worship for some time in the service, usually during the sermon, if not the entire time. On some level, I think we all get it. Moms and dads need breaks. Kids are going to struggle to just sit still through the service, never mind actually understanding the points of the sermon! Surely it's just better for everyone if junior goes somewhere where a trained teacher can give him something more digestible. And mom and dad can not only catch a break, but actually pay attention to the service and benefit from the preaching.

Let me be clear that I am not universally opposed to these practices. Some churches do them very well, in a way where children at a young age are being trained to participate ASAP in the worship service from start to finish. Many churches just do this for the youngest children in their midst and keep youth in the service as much as possible. All this can be God-honoring and it is not my desire to throw shade at anyone else's practice. 

It was in my Bible reading today that I was especially struck by this issue. Specifically, I am reading through the Old Testament this year and am in the first half of Exodus. As Moses and Aaron are interacting with the Pharaoh this exchange occurs: 

"So Moses and Aaron were brought again to Pharaoh, and he said to them, 'Go, serve the LORD your God. Who are the ones that are going?' And Moses said, 'We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.' Then he said to them, 'The LORD had better be with you when I let you and your little ones go! Beware, for evil is ahead of you. Not so! God now, you who are men, and serve the LORD, for that is what you desired.'" (Exodus 10:8-10)

Moses is adamant that Israel must go and worship the Lord God away from the Egyptians. And when asked specifically about who would go to this feast of Yahweh, he says, "Everyone! Young and old, sons and daughters." He even says that all these must go, "for we must hold a feast to the LORD." A feast to God, with sacrifices offered in worship and then shared in the celebration meal, must have everyone involved. It's not enough that the men of Israel be free to go, the little ones must come, too! 

Every congregation must decide for itself how it's going to approach the inclusion of children. I am not going to sit here and say that the issue is 100% black-and-white. I don't know where we got the impression that church was supposed to be a silent, serene affair; I don't see it in the Bible! But I can say honestly that those moments like I described at the start, those little voices bursting out in the service, give me a lot of joy as a preacher. Little voices remind us that worship is a feast to the LORD! And whoever heard of a silent feast? 

Does junior understand everything in the sermon? Of course not. But if he doesn't understand anything, I would say the answer is for us to be better preachers, not to send him packing! I'm reminded of a quote from Martin Luther that I'll paraphrase, in which he described how he aimed his preaching at the little ones in his church, not the doctors and professors. If he aimed at the children, the old men would get something, too. And if the doctors and professors believed such preaching wasn't sophisticated enough, he'd point them to the door!

God told Pharaoh, "Let My people go." Not just the men. Not just the adults. All the people. So let the little ones go, too! Or, as Jesus put it so well, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 19:14)