3 reasons to take your kids to church
Though my kids are all grown now, I well remember the challenges of getting all five of them ready for church, then delivering them to the pew relatively on time and relatively well-behaved. It wasn’t easy. Was it worth it? You bet it was.
Jesus commanded that the little children be brought to Him and not hindered (Matt. 19:14), and He was indignant with the disciples who blocked the way of those who were seeking to bring their children to be blessed by Him (Mark 10:14). Children need to know that they belong and that Jesus deeply desires them to come. So, to help feed your desire to face the challenge, I offer three reasons to take your kids to church.
1. To enable them to hear and see the Gospel
While all Christian families should be pouring the Gospel into their kids from infancy and every single day beyond, it is vital for your kids to hear the Gospel message from the lips of other people and to see it at work in their lives. Proclaiming salvation in Christ should be a parent’s top priority, for Jesus said, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). The local church presents the same Gospel message spoken by a wide variety of messengers and at work in a wide variety of living examples.
After a while, kids can begin tuning out their parents as they use the same words and the same persuasions day after day. In the church, God can bring a mentor, a preacher, or even a peer to deliver the truth of His Word — truth that leads to the essential conviction of sin and faith in Christ that are needed to save their souls — at just the right time. And there is no communication of God’s Word that is exactly like a sermon preached skillfully by the power of the Holy Spirit in the setting of corporate worship.
Who can rightly calculate the cumulative impact of 936 good Sunday morning sermons over 18 years on your child’s heart? Further, when they see how the Gospel has transformed other men, women, boys, and girls, and they experience the fruit that is growing in their lives, the living Church becomes a witness to their precious souls with potentially eternal implications.
2. To give them a vision of heavenly worship in the corporate service
The Kingdom of Christ is immeasurably bigger than just your family. God has been at work in countless millions of lives around the world and across centuries of history. When all is said and done, there will be a multitude gathered around the throne of Christ greater than anyone can count from every tribe, language, people, and nation to give Him glory for their salvation (Rev. 7:9).
None of us has ever seen the “universal Church” (that spiritual union of all believers from all over the world and across all eras of church history) to which Revelation points, but we can best envision it by attending worship in a local church. There we hear corporate singing from people of all ages and different backgrounds and voices united in passionate worship. Your children will have the opportunity to see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears the love these varied believers have for Jesus.
In addition, they will have the privilege of experiencing the rich spiritual truths in the sacraments — the Lord’s Supper and baptism. These ordinances cannot be done on your own in your living room, and they give foretastes of heavenly worship. This experience, multiplied over 18 years, will give them a sense of God’s powerful work all around the world and over the centuries since our Savior walked the earth. With this foundation, they should be able to place themselves within this mighty work of the Spirit with humility, faith, and perspective, none of which can be gained just in your family unit alone — no matter how devoted you are.
3. To enable them to develop a habit of obedience to God’s command
God has commanded Christians not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together “as is the habit of some” (Heb. 10:25). It is easy for busy families to get into the habit of missing church. Perhaps they tuned in one Sunday to the livestream and then lapsed into that habit out of convenience. God specifically warned against becoming negligent in gathering for corporate worship, which may even lead to eventually forsaking church attendance altogether.
We cannot flourish in our walks with Christ as lone ranger Christians.
More pointedly for parents, our children are watching us constantly to see what we really believe and cherish. If we disobey the command of Hebrews 10, our children will rightly see us as hypocrites, and it will be very easy for them eventually to choose not to make Christianity a part of their lives at all. But by instilling in them the habit of faithful attendance at church worship services, we will be laying a foundation for the rest of their lives. They will think of disobeying this clear command as unthinkable, and it will open the way for comprehensive obedience to everything Christ has commanded them to do (Matt. 28:20).
This article was first published in Tabletalk, the Bible study magazine of Ligonier Ministries. Find out more at TabletalkMagazine.com or subscribe today at GetTabletalk.com.
Dr. Andrew M. Davis is senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Durham, N.C., and founder of Two Journeys Ministry. He is author of several books, including The Glory Now Revealed: What We’ll Discover About God in Heaven.
