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How should you train your children to prepare for worship services? How should children listen to the preached Word and receive it? How can you help them retain it and put its content into practice? What role should the prayer meetings have in your family? Why are they so important biblically and historically? Answering these questions, we see the need for families - parents and children - to be actively involved in the church’s core callings of corporate worship and corporate prayer. To begin with, it is crucial that fathers teach their children first how to listen attentively to the preached Word.

When discussing family integrated worship one of the first concerns raised it "How do I get my kids to behave in church?" The practical aspect of keeping children in the worship service is an important issue and in many cases a real difficulty, especially if changing from an age segregated meeting. Thankfully, there are simple, practical things that parents and members can do and it all starts with the mindset of recognizing the goodness of having children in the church.

I’ve been pastoring in Vancouver for roughly twelve years now, preaching close to 1000 sermons, to over 50 nationalities, with people of various backgrounds and theological understanding in the pews. And 100s of children (ages 0-13) have been present. We are a Presbyterian church and, as such, believe children belong to the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:14). For us, there really is no question whether children belong in the worship service (Eph. 6:1). It would make more sense for me to cut off my right leg than it would for me to tell my children to leave the worship service (see 1 Cor. 12). As a preacher and a father of four young children, few things have given me more delight in this world than singing with my children in the worship service and looking at them when I’m preaching knowing that they are hearing and listening to the preached word of God. As Presbyterians, besides the fact that we believe worship is a privilege for God’s people, regardless of age, sex, race, class, etc., we also believe there is a unique God-ordained power in the preached Word that transforms the people of God (2 Cor. 3:18). The preached Word has a unique power to “make alive” and “build up,” such that willfully removing ourselves from such a blessing is to remove us from the primary means God has ordained for our salvation (Rom. 10:14ff.). Naturally, when I came across an article offering reasons why one church “let the little ones go from the worship service,” I was rather disappointed. The author (Pastor Paul Carter) “believe[s] in the transforming power of the preached Word of God,” but his church sends those under the age of 10 to Sunday School where, I assume, adults teach and thus also miss out on the preached Word. The implication is that this transforming power is better reserved for those over the age of 10. According to his experience, having “little ones in the service works against the smooth operation of that process” because “every fussing toddler is surrounded by a 20 person circle of distraction” and “of course, no one is listening to the sermon.” Children are “distraction factories,” and so need to be removed for the common good! As a pastor, I would say that much of my own efforts in sermon preparation are geared towards making the sermon simple enough for both children and adults to understand. Having pastored in a church that allows all ages to worship in the sanctuary, I have found that having children

Over the years, many people have written both positively and negatively about Church and Family Life.  Here are the seven most common mischaracterizations. Church and Family Life redefines the nature of the church as a “Family of Families.” False. Our understanding of the nature of the church is consistent with the historic doctrinal statements of the faith including the second London Baptist Confession of 1689, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Heidelberg Catechism and The Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Many years ago, we said, “the church is a spiritual family of families.” Some said we were presenting a new definition for the church when in fact we were not speaking of the nature of the church at all. All we meant is that a separate jurisdiction – a family - comes to church and it needs to be acknowledged as such and equipped to be a biblical family. We were not redefining the nature of the church. Church and Family Life believes that the church is an extension of the family. False.  We do not believe the church is an extension of the family, rather they are separate yet complimentary institutions. Church and Family Life wrongfully places the family over the church in priority.  False. We have plainly stated that we believe the church is supreme among the institutions for it is eternal while the family is temporal. Church and Family Life believes that the church should be family-based. False. We do not believe that the church should be family-based. We believe that the foundation and center of attention of the church ought to be the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel. Further, we believe that families form critical building blocks of the church in the sense that families send their members to church and if you have weak and unbiblical family life, you will have a weak church.  Church and Family Life believes that the church can only relate to family members through the father. False. We do not believe that the church must always work through or communicate through a father. We believe that the church has authority to discipline and instruct every individual believer in the family not just the head of the family, or through the head of the family. Church and Family Life believes that the whole family must always be together for all gatheri

It is very common for us to tell our children that Jesus Christ died for our sins. The problem is that we are not explaining the background. In many ways it becomes non-sensical or they believe that He died for their sins, but they really do not understand how the death of one person on a tree can pay for the sins of the world. So whenever we are talking about the gospel, we must set the context or the parameters. God is many things: He is holy, He is just, He is merciful, He is compassionate. But all of these attributes exist in God in perfect harmony. This presents a problem: man has sinned and the justice of God demands that that man be punished, but the compassion of God demands that that man be saved.

When it comes to bringing truth to bare in our homes, God has been so kind to give us the precious gift of living with each other in a close environment 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week. This means that Christians have the opportunity to be a living billboard of the realities of God to everyone around them. Even though we are very imperfect (as those who live with us know best), through our imperfect yearnings for God Himself and our stumbling efforts to apply the things we are searching after, God brings truth before the eyes of the people we love. With children, we practice family worship and talk about the realities of God throughout the week. We can point them to the memorization of scripture, not just as a whole, but particularly those passages where God reveals Himself in a striking way. We can point them to great hymns and explain that we sing these old songs because they give honest views of the Christian life and high views of our God. More than all of this, our daily lives are able to help our children know how to apply the realities of God to a situation in the daily circumstances of life. For example, dealing with children in their disobedience, point them (and yourself) to the all-sufficiency of an infinite and incomprehensibly great and good God. If I do not know this, how will I talk to my children about this?

If I was asked by an eight-year-old how he can know God, there would be a couple of layers to my answer. The first is knowing about God. This is very important. We want to go beyond knowing about God, but it does start here. We need to know the God who is and that can only happen through His word. If you do not, you end up with a God that very rarely contradicts you, who is always happy with you no matter what patterns of sin persist in your life, and who never asks you to turn away from those sins. Many people who say they know about God do not know about the God of the Bible at all. The second layer is that God must be known in more than an academic sense. We do not study the Bible like a math book. We must think of it as a love letter communicating intimacy and friendship.

Omniscience is derived from two words: omni (which means "all") and science (which means "knowledge"). The fact that God is omniscient means that God knows everything. Here are some important things to know about omniscience. The greatest thing about God's omniscience is that it means God knows everything about Himself. He is infinite and eternal yet He knows who He is. God knows what has happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. How does He know what will happen in the future? Because He has planned everything that is going to happen. "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good." (Proverbs 15:3) God knows everything that you do. Not only does He know what you do in front of your parents, but He knows what you do behind their back and in your bedroom and when you are playing. Wherever you are, God sees you and knows exactly what you are doing. God knows you and everything you do. These are very important things to tell an eight-year-old about the omniscience of God.

One parameter is to explain that, when we are talking about many of the deep things of God, we are talking about a God who is infinite. I would use examples to show the child that even in our own world there are things that we can observe and declare are true, but cannot fully understand. One example of this would be the doctrine of the Trinity. I would show the child in the Scriptures that God is one. Also, I would go through the Scriptures and show where the Father is God by name and deed, where the Son is God by name and deed, and where the Spirit is God by name and deed. Going on what I have already taught him, I would explain that there is an element of mystery, but this is what we can determine: there is one God who manifests Himself in three real, distinct, eternal Persons.

Job is an interesting and unique character in the Bible which makes him so useful to us. You might come to the idea of men as priests in their homes if you talk about the patriarchs or Noah or Melchisedec. But here is Job who is a Gentile and yet we see him using the old testament means of grace and offering sacrifices for his children out of deep concern for their spiritual wellbeing. This is something we should learn from. There is an unavoidable application to all of us Gentiles. We have to make Christ's sacrifice central in our leadership of our families. His sacrifice gives us the ability to lead our families aright. As Job, we must have the same spiritual concern and perseverance. Men must be priests in their home.

In Genesis 1, God creates male and female in His image and commands them to be fruitful and multiple. They are told to fill the earth and take dominion. In Genesis 2, Adam is told to work the garden and we see that it is not good for him to be alone. He needs a helper suitable to him so that they can care for the garden that God has planted. They are to spread the image of God through the whole earth which is quite difficult because of their fall. In Genesis 3, that curse addresses man and the work he is given to do. It also addresses woman and the work she is given to do.

This is the most important question that a man can ask. How do we break this down for a child? The best way to begin is to think about how we know one another. We might know things about a person without personally knowing the individual. The only way we can know each other is to communicate with one another. In the Bible, God communicates to us. So we go to the Bible to hear what God says about Himself and us. This is how we learn who He is. But there is still a breakdown in this relationship. Something has to be overcome so that we can truly know God. The Bible tells of Jesus Christ. We read the Word of God, learn who Jesus is, go to Him as a sinner, and pray that the Holy Spirit would teach us to know God through Christ. "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." - John 17:3