Why Should Kids Attend Church? My Youth & Family Newsletter Article - April

From Your Y&F Coordinator:
Last month in my daughter’s kindergarten class, they had chicken eggs in an incubator for a couple weeks. Each day she would give me a report about how the chick eggs were doing; “No chicks yet” she’d report most of the time. Finally at the end of that month the finale began, “The chicks are FINALLY hatching!” There was some sadness to it though because she knew at the end of the week that the chicks were going to be shipped off to the farm. (Now we all know what happens to those chicks but let’s keep this story with a happy ending shall we?) In the end it was a great experience for her and her classmates.

I recently was in attendance at the Congregational Resource Event for the NIS. I was lucky to hear our keynote speaker: Dr. Craig Nessan talk about the church as being an incubator for us to be able to live out God’s mission in the world. I was also lucky enough to have a pen and paper to take notes! I have taken what I heard from Dr. Nessan and tried to give it a twist on why it should be important for the youth AND their parents to attend worship.

Try to envision this: We are the eggs in the incubator on every Sunday morning at worship. God is ACTIVELY taking part in the worship service as the primary actor. He is forgiving us our sins, hearing our praises and prayers and giving the gifts of the sacraments freely to us every Sunday. He is forming us in the incubator to be His agents, his hands and feet, to go out into the world to do His work.

What parts of worship are used to form us then? When we extend our hands for peace we become peacemakers. We do it because God has extended peace to us then we extend peace to others. When we hear God’s word we become people who dwell in the word. When we sing hymns we become people of praise. When we give an offering we are formed to be people of gratitude. We become prayers who pray for peace in other countries and pray for the sick and the poor. That makes God’s agenda our agenda in the world. It also makes us compassionate people. We also become people who are hospitable. When we welcome all people to Jesus’ table we learn that there is enough for all.

That is an Amazing thing that is happening to us in worship! When you bring your kids to worship on Sunday that is what they are learning, that is what God is actively doing for you and your children every week!! How can you NOT bring your kids? Kids also learn from example: they need to see YOU involved in worship too.

One of the frustrating things about kids though is you don’t think that they’re listening or “getting” anything from worship because all they were doing was coloring or fighting with their siblings. Don’t underestimate that power of God. He is there tending to them in that incubator. You may not see the results right away but the finale will come!

God’s Blessings
Michelle