A hymn which was popular in my youth was “Suffer The Little Children To Come Unto Me.”
This hymn began:
“When mothers of Salem their children brought to Jesus”
From that I assumed that even back then it was seen as the mother’s job to get the kids to Sunday School . . . (I further assumed, rightly or wrongly, the fathers were watching the Bears host the Falcons on TV . . )
Regardless, the King James version says: “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
As a child I keyed in a lot on the first 3 words: “Suffer little children.”
Question for you . . . Did you ever look around during Kids Moment on Sunday morning when all the Sunday School kids are sitting quietly, soaking in every informational, inspirational word which is coming forth from the mouth of Mrs. Reynolds, the Sunday School Superintendent?
Yeh, right! . . All the parents see is Little Johnny Anderson, (a kid who likely will grow up to be a hair stylist), is re-inventing little Nancy Fisher’s braids, braid’s which Nancy’s mom spent 2 hours perfecting I might add . . .
Sorry, I digress . . .
Thing is, look for the older couple in the congregation with the glowing, appreciative smiles, rest assured that couple is little Johnny’s grandparents, as Grandpa Anderson’s look says, “That’s ma boy!”
I like what “The Message” version says:
13-14 One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: “Let the children alone, don’t prevent them from coming to me. God’s kingdom is made up of, (NIV says: belongs to), people like these.”
I have to admit that the part of that verse which talks about “laying hands on children” did make me think of the looks on the faces of Little Johnny’s parents whose faces displayed a clear message of intent to lay hands on little Johnny!
Sorry, again I did the digressing thing!
Fact is I do a lot of digressing but mostly my stories have a point . . . watch for it, the point could come any moment!
Back to my narrative . . .
Even though some children were not, shall we say, acting in a studious nor entirely learning-receptive manner in their time in front of the entire church community, I grew to the point where I kinda accepted Matthew’s statement to represent Jesus’ blessing of all kids so assembled.
So, thing is, since Jesus so obviously considered it OK for the village kids to be kids, maybe, (although we may feel the necessity of providing little Johnny with very clear acceptable guidelines in community-based conduct acceptability . . ), we should likely feel free to climb on board the “Welcome kids on the main stage on Sunday morning” bandwagon!
Sorry but I gotta wonder why the modern church has decreed that kids have no place in the corporate church service. I mean, a rule which restricts us to only seeing our children, (supposedly the basis of the hoped-for church of tomorrow), file out of the fellowship hall, if anything . . .)
Oh I know, the Music Pastor who organizes all things worship filled and running over, has proclaimed, “our service is jam-packed full of goodies-religious and we are simply jammed for time, sorry but folks complain when the service goes longer than Sunday morning seats can abide!”
What is the answer to this dilemma?
Well, as a suggestion . . why not scale back on the 17 replays of the highly inspirational 16th verse of the new and amazing worship song, “We Shout And Bang Our Tambourines and Guitars To Bring Quiet Reverence To Our Worship!” . . That should give lots of time for Kid’s Corner, on stage and active!
And by the by, was I the only one who noticed that all 16 verses are direct re-quotes of Verse #1?
Wait, this just in . . the reason to exclude children from corporate worship is “When we have Children’s Time they always run overtime!”
Answer is . . . there’s that big countdown clock at the back of the worship center and when the big hand says “Th. . Th . . That’s all folks!,” is when the ushers and extra pastors are in place to help facilitate timely exits.
But I digress . .
Actually, I digress on purpose.
Try as I will, I can’t arrive at one logical reason to systematically exclude our precious children from 5 minutes of preparing them for, (and urging them to), long-term in-church participation on a lifetime basis.
You want to get seniors turning out for Sunday service?
Let me know my grandkids will be seen on stage rather than hidden away somewhere in a secret cavern in the Holy of Holies, out of sight and out of mind, I’m there.
You feel the need for increased giving at your church?
The inclusion of kids in the morning worship is going to bring more family, and happy and served church attendees do loosen their purse strings . . and what was that I hear? . . .
The church roof needs repair?
I realize all we need is prayer but . .
Again I digress . . .
Jesus, said: “God’s kingdom is made up of, (and belongs to), people like these.”
The kingdom of God consists of those with the childlike qualities of trust, faith and honesty. Sounds like little Johnnys and Marians to me.
We talk of how people exposed to, (and enthused with), the message of God’s love and salvation at an early age are many times more likely to stay with the message for life.
In banishing kids from at least a portion of all active parts of our main church service are we shrinking God’s kingdom?
And to digress one last time . . .
Why is it the more active kid in dissertations like this always called Johnny?
I mean . . .
May God bless our church ministry, dramatically!
John Alexander
DramaShare
