When God blesses a congregation with young children, He is blessing them with a future. Given the average age in many of our churches, it’s a blessing we ought to fervently pray for. Nevertheless, when God does bless an elderly congregation with a second chance at life by placing young families with children in church, it does come with certain challenges.
One such challenge is maintaining order in worship when there are a lot of small children around. After decades of quiet, hearing the sounds and seeing the constant wiggles of a new generation during the divine service can be distracting for older members. It’s not long before the complaints arise; and finding Biblical rationalizations for their feelings comes easily. “Our Lord is a God of order rather than of chaos.” “We should be approaching Him with fear and trembling.” “Raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord means teaching them to be quiet in church.”
As the complaints bubble to the surface, they can quickly foster resentment. To be sure, sometimes these complaints are made downright wickedly. My wife and I have been subject to that ourselves. But even innocent approaches can end up corroding church fellowship when those who object don’t really understand those they address.
They try to say “please teach your children to behave in church so we can concentrate on worship.” On the surface, that’s a very reasonable request. What’s more, they remember it as the standard when they grew up. I often hear older Christians reminisce that they would never have dared get noisy or disruptive in God’s house because their parents would bring the hammer down. “My father had to take me out of the service once, and boy oh boy, I never wanted that to happen to me again!” By and large, they not only loved their parents, but feared them as well because of how strict they were.
But as our culture severs generations from one-another, mutual understanding is one of the casualties. In this case, the older generation overlooks an important factor: Most parents today who join their children in church are already embarrassed by any disruptions and work hard to train their children appropriately. Neither a disregard for reverence nor a lack of will inhibit them.
A Culture that Hates Discipline
One can say “do something about your kids” or “work harder to discipline them” all he wants, but parents are fully engaged already. They possess nothing more they can give to resolve the complaints. To the majority of parents who are already trying their best, “we want your children to be more quiet and well-behaved in our sanctuary” is indistinguishable from “we don’t want your children in our sanctuary” because they have no concrete pathway from A to B that they haven’t already tried.
That raises another important question, however: Why? Couldn’t parents today just discipline their children the way elderly Christians remember from their own childhoods? While rose-tinted nostalgia explains some of the disconnect, I don’t think it explains all or even most of the issue. Likewise, once could point to the increase in neurological disorders and the parenting challenges they present. But while such cases skew the averages, they nevertheless aren’t responsible for the norm. No, I believe parents today cannot govern their homes the way previous generations did, and it’s not a matter of will or effort. In many respects, it’s not even a matter of skill per se, though much skill has been lost from generation to generation.
One does not parent in a vacuum. No matter how much you might wish to disregard the world and do things your own way, nobody ever reinvents parenting from scratch. You will use the examples set by your own parents, for better and for worse. You and your children alike will acquire ideas of what’s normal and expected from the children and parents in your neighborhood, from your friends & family, and from whatever media you consume. When every strict parent you’ve ever seen on television your entire life is always the bad guy, that affects how you parent even when you know it’s propaganda.
The law also gets its say. You might remember your father taking you to the woodshed, but if a modern father did that, he could end up in jail or lose custody–if he could even bring himself to do so at all. Unless you live in utter solitude like monks, the customs and norms of your community will judge and constrain you whether you like it or not.
Feminism Abhors Order
The rise of feminism is another novelty we must consider. Generally speaking, moms are considerably less inclined to be strict with children or to level effective discipline than dads are. While a father should certainly listen to and consider his wife’s input to ensure he does not provoke his children, he also needs to understand that A) she’ll always feel that discipline interferes with her instinct to nurture to some extent and B) the buck stops with him rather than her.
However, now that unilateral divorce is always in a woman’s back pocket as a solution to marital complaints, he needs to tread with excessive caution. If his son needs to be spanked but his wife has been listening to a peaceful parenting podcast lately or has even had a bad day, he has to consider the potential outcomes. The divorce threat point requires many fathers to weigh the consequences of weak discipline against the consequences of his wife nuking his family.
But discipline is a much broader matter than mere stricter punishment, and frivorce is only the symptom of a deeper issue. Many older Christians remember obeying their parents not because they threatened punishment, but because they commanded respect.
A child’s obedience should certainly proceed primarily from respect rather than threats. But where exactly are they to learn that respect? We have transitioned far away from a culture that could say “father knows best” without snickering. And while we can (and do) blame the culture all day, our churches by no means escape culpability. The same generation complaining about unruly children cultivated an environment of disrespect for fathers. At this point, many churches display contempt for men as a matter of tradition.
But fault lies even closer to home than that. By design, a mother ought to provide her children with an example of respect and obedience towards their father. Today, the average mom is far more likely to set an example of disrespect which her children will learn quite well. And once again, our churches not only tolerate this violation of God’s Word but actually facilitate it.
And the corrosion extends beyond fathers. In the end, it annihilates respect for their mother as well because a wife has only the authority delegated to her by her husband whom God has made her head. In undermining him, she undermines herself. Equality is poisonous, not only to marriage itself, but also to the families marriage creates & serves. For if the husband and wife treat each other as equals, that is how children will learn to treat father and mother alike.
Cultivating Reverent Children in Church
So what then are Christians to do? Has reverence gone extinct forevermore? Must the older generations resign themselves to chaotic services? No. But older Christians need to think less about what they’re owed and more about how they can help parents with children in church. And all of us need to repent of disregarding God’s order in home and society so that we can receive it once more.
First, complaints must be set aside whether or not they are valid simply because they are counter-productive. If you want parents to be enabled to go further in disciplining their children, they need to be confident in slowly rebuking their culture more and more. Calling them failures or constantly demanding what they cannot provide only undermines confidence. But producing confidence is also within our power. Honor parents who win the struggle to bring their children to the Lord’s house. Gladly help them wrangle their children when they need it.
Is swallowing your complaints fair? Maybe, maybe not. (Although considering how these cultural transformations occurred on the watch of the older generations, I would contend that it’s quite fair.) But either way, it is certainly more helpful to your goal of having a peaceful divine service free of distraction.
Second, our churches all need to repent of submitting to feminism rather than God’s Word. “Children, obey your parents” follows right on the heels of “Wives, submit to your husbands” and “husbands, love your wives” for a reason. That is how God designed marriage and family to work. We cannot expect that undermining His design will bear good fruit.
The older generations need to help walk back the changes they’ve made. Fathers and mothers should be honored rather than despised. That means holding men who head their families in high esteem and advocating for their authority in their household. That means doing what Scripture does and pointing young women towards motherhood and being keepers of the home rather than being career-oriented girlbosses.
That also means restoring church governance to match God’s order rather than undermining it by seeking equality in every office but that of pastor. Women aren’t abandoning their vocations because their nature directs them to, but because the older generations built a society which honors and esteems them for it. Congregations must honor men and women for being God-fearing instead.
Parents can become more skilled and effective at disciplining their children. We can make reverence for God’s house normal again. We can bring order to chaos. But complaints and grumbling will never achieve it. Only once we begin shoring up the foundations we’ve neglected will we be able to build on them once more. You cannot expect children to be orderly in church if your church will not uphold God’s order in the home.
