A Little Child Shall Lead Them

DURING ALL THE Sunday mornings I spent in church as a child, I only cried once. After months of encouragement from my parents, I decided to go to our Catholic parish’s children’s liturgy (their version of Sunday school). I remember nothing else about that morning except that I stood in the corner crying while kind volunteers tried to calm me down with a few cookies. I never went to children’s liturgy again, and I’m thankful the experience didn’t leave me scarred for life, unable to eat another cookie.

My dislike of children’s liturgy wasn’t about what it was; it had to do with what it wasn’t. I grew up watching Mass unfold from the front pew, where I could be as close to the action as possible. Going to the basement meant that I had to give up the beauty, wonder, and fascination I experienced during church services.

It’s been more than 25 years since I lost my composure on that fateful Sunday, and my dissatisfaction with children’s liturgy is now echoed by ministers, Christian educators, and parents who realize the importance of including children in corporate worship. But as I see it, including children in corporate worship isn’t a matter of choice or changing trends; it’s a matter of justice.

“When your children ask you ...”

Practices for including children in worship are far from new. Children’s ministry leaders refer to Deuteronomy 6 so often that memorizing this passage might as well be a prerequisite for working with kids in churches! Many interpretations of this chapter focus on the first few verses—“Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children ...”—and emphasize the importance of teaching God’s commandments to children in all times and places. Yet a crucial point in this text appears in verse 20, which begins, “When your children ask you ...”

By using “when” instead of “if,” the author of Deuteronomy assumes that children will be curious about “the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded” because they are present to witness and participate in those decrees and statutes in the first place. After all, how can children be curious about something they haven’t experienced?

Scripture is filled with examples of children being present—and even having primary roles—in liturgies and everyday practices of faith. Take the institution of Passover in Exodus 12. God instructs the people of Israel to practice a rite of remembrance with their children, saying again, “When your children ask ...” Even today, young children do not simply observe the Passover Seder; they have one of the most important roles. By asking questions about why this ritual is practiced in a particular way, the story of God’s liberating work is told anew for all who are present. Similarly, after Israel crosses the Jordan, God instructs Joshua to build a stone memorial, and once again God paints a picture of children asking about the meaning of those stones for generations to come (Joshua 4).

In the New Testament, we see Jesus continuing to place importance on the presence and participation of children. In a context where children were often perceived to be at the same level as animals, the hugs that Jesus gives children are incredibly radical actions. Unlike the pastel-infused scenes of smiling (white) children sitting on and around a gentle (white) Jesus that adorn many Sunday school classrooms, Jesus’ attitudes toward children subverted and undermined the social order of the day.

In Mark 9, for example, Jesus responds to a dispute among his disciples about who is the greatest by lifting up a child into his arms and saying that the greatest is the one who welcomes these little children. Only verses later, he goes so far as to say that children are exemplary members of the reign of God. It’s easy to overlook the sheer importance of the fact that children were among Jesus’ closest followers, so much so that all Jesus had to do was sit down and pick one up.

The varieties of inclusion

As a speaker and writer about the faith formation of children and youth, I’ve had the privilege of learning about all sorts of ways that churches are taking steps to include children in worship. There’s no one right way to do it, and congregational practices are all over the map, but I find it helpful to think of the various practices for including children as a spectrum.

On one side of the spectrum is no inclusion. These congregations organize activities for children that remove them from the broader worshipping community. Churches might have Sunday school or children’s church that lasts for the entirety of services, with parents dropping their kids off in a separate space when they arrive and gathering them again after the service is over.

The next point along the spectrum is nominal inclusion. These churches might have children join the whole congregation for part or all of services, often having a children’s time or song early in the liturgy. They may even provide activity kits that include items such as quiet games, books, and coloring pages that children can use in their pews. Some churches might even set up an activity station in the sanctuary where children and families can go to create artwork or play with quiet toys during the service. From my experience, the majority of congregations that are working to include children within their communal worship operate around this point on the spectrum, which makes room for the presence of children, but not their active participation.

Moving along the spectrum we next come to the marker of moderate inclusion. In these congregations, children begin to participate and even contribute in the service by offering a reading, making announcements, leading special music, taking up the offering, or even processing in with the minister or priest. Mainline and liturgical congregations tend to have the edge here because their preplanned and varied orders of worship readily offer multiple ways for children to contribute to the service.

Churches with moderate inclusion also open up activities and initiatives for people of any and all ages. One way this can happen is when congregations invite all people to participate in activity stations or more interactive and experiential approaches to worship. Another approach is to leave Sunday morning services as they are, and set up alternative services that more actively involve children. Some congregations might host a monthly Messy Church program on Sunday evenings, while others create their own worship experiences that might happen once a year or once a week. Unlike Sunday school programs, which separate children from the rest of the church, alternative services do not operate at the same time as corporate worship, providing different times and spaces in which people of all ages can gather together for worship.

The final point on the spectrum is radical inclusion. Congregations at this mark are rare, for to be radically inclusive is not only to allow children to participate in worship but to be open to having congregational worship be changed by their full presence and participation. This is much easier said than done, for it takes Jesus’ example so seriously that it subverts the age-segregated, exclusive, and adult-centric norms that underpin worship. It is so radical, in fact, that even the word inclusive is subverted. No longer can there be active adults who include and passive children who are included. All must be invited to welcome and include one another. Adults include children. But children also include adults. Living fully into Jesus’ command to welcome children—and be welcomed by them—means we need to be open to being changed.

Sharing the reins

A decade ago, theologian Marcia Bunge offered a major contribution to the intersection of children and theology by deciphering six perspectives of children and childhood that have existed within Christian tradition. In her words, they are:

• gifts of God and sources of joy,
• sinful creatures and moral agents,
• developing beings who need instruction and guidance,
• fully human and made in the image of God,
• models of faith and sources of revelation, and
• orphans, neighbors, and strangers in need of justice and compassion.

How a congregation works to include children often depends on the theological perspective that dominates its vision of children. For example, a church that sees children through the second and third perspectives may not include children because it sees Sunday school as a means for guiding children along the right path. Similarly, a congregation that views children as made in God’s image might engage in practices that lead to moderate inclusion.

Of Bunge’s six views, the one that often seems to be least applicable to debates about including children is “orphans, neighbors, and strangers in need of justice and compassion.” In the church, we often picture “orphans and strangers” as children outside of our congregation, perhaps the recipients of our outreach ministries, such as the thousands of children in Flint, Mich., who will forever carry the marks of lead poisoning. But what happens when we look at our own children through this lens, our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren who come to church with us?

When we see all children through this perspective, the conversation about including children in congregational worship begins to change. Suddenly, including children isn’t an optional choice; it rests firmly in God’s command to seek justice in our world. Much like multicultural worship, radical inclusion of children demands that we put our own values, assumptions, and preferences on hold so that we can more fully embrace the other. It means at some point all people will be uncomfortable as congregations radically rethink what “counts” as worship, dismantle exclusive practices, and imagine new ways of worshipping together that hear the voices of all ages. And it also means that adults should empower children to take the reins, not knowing where they will lead us but having faith that God’s reign belongs to them.

Getting there

So how can congregations move toward greater levels of inclusion with children? The first step is to assess your church’s current position: Are children present in congregational worship? Are there ways for children to participate? Is the worship changed by children’s participation? After assessing where your church falls on the spectrum of inclusion, identify practices that reach toward including children more fully—and implement them!

For example, if your congregation encourages children to remain in the full service by providing them with quiet activities, perhaps you can set up an experiential worship station where children and adults alike can experience prayer and worship during the service through coloring mandalas, painting images evoked by the hymns and sermon, and engaging in other activities that allow them to experiment as they participate in the service.

If your church already has such moderately inclusive practices, you could move toward radical inclusion by changing your liturgy (gasp!). Instead of a sermon, people of all ages could act out the day’s reading in a reader’s theater style and then chat with one another about the experience. Some congregations I know have station-based worship for a portion of Sunday services, where people can move about the sanctuary to experience God by lighting candles and praying, serving one another communion around small standing tables, and writing (or drawing) their prayers on a prayer wall. Rather than billing these activities as optional add-ons (like moderately inclusive activity stations), practices such as these move toward radical inclusion by altering and adapting worship styles in light of children.

Whatever you do to work toward inclusion, remember: You don’t have to change everything at once. But to work toward the justice and love that Jesus demonstrated when he said that the kingdom of God belongs to little children (Mark 10:14), change is needed.