Travis Fentiman

May 2026

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Outline

Intro
Nature’s Light & Biblicism
1. Scripture: Old Testament
.     New Testament
.     Elders
2. Church History
.     Jews, Early, Medieval, Reformation, Westminster
3. Alternatives
.     Abstinence, Children’s Church (Westminster), Separate Children’s Church, Sunday School
Conclusion

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Intro

It is sometimes taught certain Scriptural commands and principles make it divinely obliging for infants and young children to attend the Church’s adult, public worship, as a rule.  This article does not seek to discourage parents from having young children in congregational worship where it is profitable, but it will show that the Scriptures do not make this a rule.  Where children’s attendance is not profitable, or not the most profitable, churches and parents ought to have no qualms about utilizing other more profitable options.

A “divine obligation” here refers to an obligation deriving from God which overrules most other considerations.  Part one will show in detail all the Old Testament evidence regarding young children attending worship respects extraordinary occasions, and the New Testament evidence, even with the apostolic letters being read publicly aloud to the churches, does not directly equate to all young children sitting through an hour and a half (or longer) service (or two) every Lord’s Day without a break.

Paul says children think differently than adults (1 Cor. 13:11, which is known by nature’s light), what is not understood, does not edify (1 Cor. 14:14-18) and his rule is that all things are to be done for edification (1 Cor. 14:26).  In fact:

“unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how will it be known what is spoken?  For you will be speaking into the air.” (1 Cor. 14:9)

Does the natural principle Paul uses in 1 Cor. 3:2, “I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it,” have no relevance to the instruction and worship of children?  “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised…” (Heb. 5:12-14)

As Scripture does not prescribe children to be in regular congregational worship, so this topic does not properly fall under the Regulative Principle of Worship, whereby we ought to only worship God in the way He wills.  Rather it is maintained (and will be defended below that) children in worship falls into the category of Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) 1.6, which allows variability, that:

“some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. (1 Cor 11:13-14; 14:26, 40)”

Hence, however young children and church are handled, neither Scripture nor anything else mandates one particular way of doing things.  Rather there may be a flexibility of practices, in accord with (1) nature’s light, (2) Christian prudence and (3) the Word’s general rules, unto edification, as is seen in Scripture.  It is affirmed, in some circumstances, there may be an obligation for young children to regularly attend an adult worship service due to these three factors.

Part two surveys Church history.  Despite claims that “for most of Christian history, children were present in the meetings of God’s people” and “age integration in worship has been the dominant practice,” it will be documented, more fully than has yet been done before, that through much of history children’s worship attendance was on a voluntary basis by families and not expected or required until the age of seven or eight, or puberty (circa thirteen).  Children under those ages frequently were not brought and sometimes were barred therefrom (such as by Scottish covenanters), and this in consideration of the natural principles of childhood growth and development, besides for preventing disturbances in worship.  The Westminster Assembly (1640’s) did not address the issue in her major documents, leaving the issue open.

Lastly, Part three will show alternatives to children attending adult worship, namely (1) abstinence therefrom, (2) children’s Church in the adult service, (3) or separate from it, and (2) Sunday school, may all be sound, profitable and in consistency with the Regulative Principle of Worship (WCF 21.1).  You will learn much theology and Church history in looking into these things.

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“These were more fair-minded…
in that they received the Word with all readiness,
and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”

Acts 17:11 NKJV

 

 

Prefatory Matters,
Nature’s Light & Biblicism

It will be complained by some that “young children” is not here being defined.  Yet to set an age limit would be foolish and is part of the problem.  The standard is not an artificial, specific age, but rather nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules (which include moderation, Gal. 5:23; Phil. 4:5; Titus 1:8; 2:2; 2 Pet. 1:6).

None should qualm about parents not bringing an autistic child to worship if it causes suffering for both child and parents.   Yet we do not need the Bible to tell us this.  God is good and nature’s light and law herein suffice¹ (Lk. 11:11; 1 Pet. 3:11).  Scripture assumes we are capable of and ought to discern this aspect of God’s will (Prov. 13:16; Heb. 5:14).  Yet the specifics of children attending worship is in the same realm when it comes to individual families, with individual parenting characteristics, with individual histories, with individual children, with individual psychological characteristics and needs with respect to specific services and churches.  All these factors in the unique situations combine to form, in part, the nature of things with their proportions, out of which arises nature’s light and laws.²

¹ See ‘Does Scripture Regulate All of Life?’, ‘Taking Scripture’s Sufficiency Too Far’, ‘On the Need & Validity of Natural Knowledge’ and ‘Scripture Upholds Nature’s Light & Law & Reason’.

² See ‘That the Law Arises out of the Circumstances’.

While moderate parenting of children in worship is not being discouraged, but encouraged, yet in regards to expectations that are not so moderate: Children’s persons are more important (Mk. 8:36-37) than the damage wrought by the imprudent and unyielding application of simplistic child-training methods and expectations.  Children are more important (according to the Word, nature’s light and Reformed theology) than positive ordinances of worship themselves (Hos. 6:6).¹  Human growth and development is part of natural law, though it be not taken into account with quasi-military style family discipline (which goes beyond the Scripture sufficiency of Paul’s direction: “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Eph. 6:4).

¹ See ‘Natural Worship is more Foundational & Important than Instituted Worship’, ‘Instituted Worship is for Natural Worship, & is Subservient to it’ and ‘On Self-Care & Upkeep as a Legitimate Reason for Missing Public Worship & Church Activities’.

This gets to the main underlying problem at hand for many, which is Biblicism: most forms of which involve a simplistic and absolutizing use of isolated Scriptures, which don’t take other necessary factors into account (such as the light and laws of nature).  Biblicism, in common forms, appeals to those who find easy answers attractive (albeit in complex issues) and are geared towards black and white thinking (including in practical decisions).  Biblicism majors on the authority of God at the expense of other legitimate concerns (these are not exclusive of each other) and takes advantage of ignorance and the confirmation bias of Christians.  That is bad enough in regular Christians, but when used by church leaders concerned with implementing compliance to an unnatural standard they think is the divine will, problems will only multiply (and be suppressed) all in God’s name.

Hence a major part of the below is to let the Scriptures speak for themselves, seeing what does and does not derive from them by good and necessary consequence (WCF 1.6), apart from unwarranted, over-arching inferences and assumptions.

In all this, the question of children’s Church membership (whether one is a convinced baptist or presbyterian) will be seen by the Biblical and historical evidence not to determine the issue one way or the other.  Those who make children’s Church membership determinative of the issue are simply reading their biases into the Bible.

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Part 1, Scripture

Old Testament

In briefly surveying the main relevant Old Testament evidence, it will be seen numerous instances of children at congregational worship were extraordinary, some involved only some of the annual festivals and some instances respected extraordinary fasts.  Numerous occasions did not require little children to appear, nor were they ever required to attend the ordinary, public worship of God.  Lastly children being spoken of in the Psalms will be addressed before the New Testament is turned to.

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Extraordinary Occasions

Numerous Old Testament verses speak of children attending worship in special, one time events.  Moses says in Ex. 10:9 that Israel’s “young” must go with them in the exodus out of Egypt, as “we must hold a feast to the Lord.”  Yet the exodus was by a special, positive appointment of God, where He would appear to them at Sinai in a theophany and bring them all into covenant with Himself.  The closest parallel to today (albeit far from the same) would be of an infant being brought to church for its baptism.

Likewise, before Israel entered the Promised Land, still in Moab, Moses proclaimed in that extraordinary situation:

“All of you stand today before the LORD your God: your leaders…  all the men of Israel, your little ones and your wives…  that you may enter into covenant with the LORD your God…” (Dt. 29:10–12)

Another special covenant renewal, after the battle of Ai in progressing into the Promised Land, entailed Joshua assembling “all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones…” (Josh. 8:35)

Later in the history of Israel, after their return from the Babylonian captivity, at the dedication of Jerusalem’s newly built wall, it is grammatically possible children attended the sacrificing, but it is also possible they did not, but only rejoiced at large in the city:

“…they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and the children also rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off.” (NKJV Neh. 12:43)

What all these passages have in common is that they don’t entail young children worshipping with adults every week in the regular public worship of God.

 

Annual Festivals

Other verses often put forth for mandated children attendance respect Israel’s occasional, annual festivals, or special, not-regularly-occurring occasions.  Hence Dt. 16:11 & 14, “You shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter…” refers to the annual events of Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles.  Dt. 31:12–13, with similar language, “Gather the people together, men and women and little ones,” refers to the Feast of Tabernacles every seventh year.

Yet Scripture does not specify that the youth and “little ones” were to participate in or even attend the worship service itself, only that they were to come to “the place where the LORD your God chooses to make his name abide,” namely the city of Jerusalem.  They were to participate in a “feast” (Dt. 16:14), but this may very well have been somewhere in the city itself, just as the annual Passover was not eaten by families in the Temple, but in their homes and as Eli’s family went up yearly to feast in Shiloh (1 Sam. 1:3-4).

Just following the prescriptions in Dt. 16, Moses ordered “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord…” (Dt. 16:16), that is, at the feasts of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost and Tabernacles.  Hence, despite previously mentioning women, sons, daughters and little ones, who may come up voluntarily, only the males were required to.  “Male,” זָכוּר may likely refer to those of adult age who were taxed, counted in censuses and could serve in war (i.e. 20 years old, Ex. 30:14; 38:26; Lev. 27:3; Num. 1:3, 18).  If it included youth, the youth had to be hardy enough to make the trip to Jerusalem each year; hence puberty, or 13 years of age as in later Jewish tradition, would be a natural marker. 

More importantly for our purposes though, Israel had seven annual festivals (Lev. 23); only Israel’s males had to attend only three of them.

 

Extraordinary Fasts

More proof-texted verses reference extraordinary fasts.  Thus, in the time of Jehoshaphat, before eminent invasion by superior armies, “all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the LORD.” (2 Chron. 20:13)

After the return from the Babylonian captivity, women and children, amongst others, at a providential occasion, voluntarily joined Ezra in weeping and repentance:

“While Ezra was praying, and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept very bitterly.” (Ezra 10:1)

Those famous and oft quoted words of Joel in chapter 2, verses 15-16:

“Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast,
Call a sacred assembly…
Gather the children and nursing babes…”

are a prophetic call for an extraordinary assembly for repentance and fasting in light of the predicted devastating, incoming army which was being sent to lay Israel waste.  All these examples share in common that they were not recurring, or diets of God’s regular, public worship.

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Occasions where Little Children were
not Required to Appear

While babies were to be circumcised the eighth day (Lev. 12:3), there was no requirement a priest had to do it, much less in the Tabernacle, Temple or synagogue.  Likewise, firstborn children were to be redeemed with a payment when they were one month old (Num. 18:16), but the baby was not explicitly required to be brought to the Tabernacle, Temple or synagogue.

The annual Passover meal was held in the home, not at the meeting place for public worship.  Naturally children may be in the home.  Moses assumes this and says:

“And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say…” (Ex. 12:24–27; 13:8)

There is no explicit warrant here that children younger than those able to so question partook of the Passover meal, nor that any derived any spiritual benefit from the ritual actions apart from rationally understanding them with faith.

In 1 Sam. 1, baby Samuel was not taken up to the yearly feasts until he was “weened,” which could have been as late as three years old, seeing as when he does first go up, he was “young” (נָֽעַר). (1 Sam. 1:22, 24)  This might be thought to support young children being at public worship, yet Samuel’s case was by no means ordinary; rather, he was devoted to God and would reside at the tabernacle permanently (1 Sam. 1:22; 2:11), which certainly did not reflect the normal practice.

Later in Israel’s history after the return from Babylon, the people are gathered for the divinely prescribed festival on the first day of the seventh month.  It is said only persons who could understand God’s read Word were there, that being the pertinent means of spiritual edification.

“Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding…  and the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.” (Neh. 8:2–3)

A few weeks later, during that very providentially acute time, at the Feast of Tabernacles, “everyone who had knowledge and understanding…  entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law…” (Neh. 10:28–29)

 

The Regular, Weekly Worship of God

There simply is no Biblical prescription that young children had to attend the regular Tabernacle or Temple services: it was left indifferent, to by determined by nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, per individual families and children.  Making the ordinary expectation be that young children be at the regular public worship of God still goes beyond the Word (1 Cor. 4:6).

In the second Temple era when children did come with their parents to the Temple, it is likely they stayed with the women in the Court of Women, not progressing further with the adult men into the Court of Israel (which directly looked on the sacrificing priests),¹ meaning they had no family integrated Church in Christ’s time (which Christ never thought worthy to criticize).

¹ Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: its Ministry & Services as they were in the Time of Jesus Christ, new ed., rev. (NY: Pott, 1881), pp. 23-28

It is possible Lev. 23:3 and Ps. 74:8 (given other indirect evidence in the Old Testament) speak of weekly worship assemblies in the towns throughout Israel:

“the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation.  You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.”

“They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land.”

Whether this be so or no, there never was any requirement in Scripture for young children to attend weekly synagogue worship, nor in Judaism during Christ’s day (see below).

 

Psalms Sung in the Temple

Sure it is Psalm 148:12-13, as sung in the Temple, calls upon “children” to “praise the name of the LORD.”  However, this does not change that young children were not religiously required to attend the Temple; and there may likely have been some children in attendance.

David calls upon children in Ps. 34:11-18 to come and be taught by him:

“Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”

Setting aside whether this may be typological, or metaphorical (speaking of adults as children, as in John’s letters sometimes), or speaking of children in daily life: (1) there likely were some non-required children in the Temple, and (2) the psalmist elsewhere calls upon “the nations” and “all the earth” to fear and praise the Lord (Ps. 33:8; 66:1; 67:4; 96:1, 9; 98:4), though it is clear not all the nations were present in the Temple.

Sure enough “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength” (Ps. 8:2), but that therefore they were regularly in, much less required to be in, the regular worship is something Scripture does not posit.  Likewise, the “children crying out in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!'” and Jesus quoting Ps. 8 in reference to this (Mt. 21:15-16), was not in the regular worship of God, but occurred incidentally and naturally in Jesus’s time.

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New Testament

The main New Testament evidence consists of Jesus as a baby and youth, his teaching “Let the little children come to Me” in regards to covenant theology, and the apostles sometimes addressing children in their letters.  As the New Testament nowhere requires regular attendance of young children, so this cannot be a qualification of Church elders, as will be seen from 1 Tim. 3:4-5.  Church history will then be delved into.

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Jesus’s Youth

Lk. 2:21-22 records baby Jesus being brought to the Temple after the forty days of purification elapsed for Mary bearing a son (Lev. 12:1-4).  As Mary was unclean during this time, there is little doubt that this Temple appearance was the first for baby Jesus, though He had been absent from public worship for five weeks.  This is in contrast to the dubious health practice of families bringing their newborns to church in their first several weeks.

Verses 41-42 of the same chapter record Jesus as a youth going up to Passover in these words:

“His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.  And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.” (Lk. 2:41–42)

While this passage does not explicitly say this was the first time Jesus, from Nazareth, 90 miles north, attended Passover, yet the background Jewish evidence, which will be provided below, does suggest this.

 

“Let the little children come to Me”
& Church Membership

When Jesus “passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee” (Lk. 17:11) and was publicly teaching, his disciples prohibited women from bringing their young children to Him, “that He might put his hands on them and pray.”  This passage is often used to justify requiring young children to quietly sit still through hour and a half (or longer), adult worship one to three times (and possibly more) weekly:

“‘Let the little children [τα παιδια] come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’  And He laid his hands on them and departed from there.” (Mt. 19:13–15; Lk. 18:15–17)

What is interesting about this passage, besides that it is not a weekly worship service 52 times a year, nor did it involve quietly sitting still on chairs (sometimes steel) for an hour and a half, nor involved Jesus preaching to adults and children, but that Jesus here has to interrupt and divert from teaching adults to properly address the children in short time at their level (that is according to their nature), in a non-family integrated way.¹  Likewise, at the very time of this passage young children were not required to attend the regular worship of the Temple or synagogue (as will be more fully documented below).

¹ Contra Scott Brown on this passage defending that children ought to attend the service despite interruptions in hearing the sermon: “It is clear that our Lord Jesus Christ did not believe his teaching was hampered by the presence of children.” “Is Age-Integrated Worship a Historical Norm?” (2023)

As far as Jesus saying here of young children, “of such is the kingdom of heaven”: They were covenant members and of the kingdom in the Old Testament by way of infant circumcision, yet their Church membership then did not require their attendance at all covenant assemblies, such as the regular tabernacle, Temple and synagogue worship.

Needless to say, the wives and children attending the apostolic company and praying together outside of Tyre in Acts 21:1-5 was ad hoc.

 

Addressing Children in Apostolic Letters

A major argument for the necessity of children attending regular congregational worship is that apostles in a handful of places in their letters to the churches addressed young children, assuming them to be present.  These letters are held to have been publicly read to the churches gathered (Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27), even as Scripture (1 Thess. 2:13; 1 Tim. 4:13; 2 Pet. 3:15-16).  Relevant verses include:

Eph. 6:1-3  “Children [τέκνα], obey your parents in the Lord…”

Col. 3:20  “Children [τέκνα], obey your parents in all things…”

1 Jn. 2:12–13  “I write to you, little children [τεκνία], because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.  I write to you fathers…  I write to you young men…  I write to you, little children [παιδία], because you have known the Father.”

1 Jn. 5:21  “Little children [Τεκνία], keep yourselves from idols.”

Yet a one time reading, possibly in a special gathering, or multiple ones (which is all Col. 4:16 and 1 Thess. 5:27 necessarily entail), and young children being present for this, does not equate to young children being required to attend the whole congregational worship every week.  The verses do not refer to infants as such, as infants could not do as the apostles directed.

As for children being part of the Covenant community, one can share in being at least outwardly in the same Covenant with the whole community, without being present at every gathering.  The unity is in being in the same Covenant, not necessarily in physical proximity every week, just as the case was in the Old Testament.¹  Again, making the ordinary expectation be that young children be at the regular public worship of God goes beyond the evidence here in the Word (1 Cor. 4:6) and tends to gratuitously read one’s own ideas, or contemporary Church culture, back onto the Middle Eastern people of these previous centuries.

¹ Contrast the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination’s Book of Church Order, Directory for Worship, ch. 1, B. The Nature of Public Worship, p. 126:

“4. In public worship, God’s people draw near to their God unitedly as his covenant people, the body of Christ.

a. For this reason, the covenant children should be present so far as possible, as well as adults.  Because God makes his covenant with believers and their children, families should be taught and encouraged to sit together as families.”

 

Elders

It is clear from the Scriptural teaching above that being a model of having one’s young children sit quietly still through adult worship services is not a requisite to being a Church elder.  1 Tim. 3:1-7 lays out numerous characteristics, the equity of which ought to be true of a Church-overseer (so the Greek word often translated “bishop”), or elder.  Verses 4-5 say an overseer ought to be:

“one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);”

To interpret the above as requiring one’s young children to be models of sitting quietly through church goes beyond what these verses and the rest of God’s Word requires.  John Calvin (d. 1564), in his Commentary on 1 Timothy, ch. 3, verse 4, said (which is approved):

“The apostle does not recommend a clever man, and deeply skilled in domestic matters, but one who has learned to govern a family by wholesome discipline.  He speaks chiefly of children, who may be expected to possess the natural disposition of their father; and therefore it will be a great disgrace to a bishop if he has children who lead a wicked and scandalous life.”

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Part 2

Church History

To turn to Church history, Scott Brown, an American minister and leader of family integrated churches has made repeated claims that “for most of Christian history, children were present in the meetings of God’s people” and “age integration in worship has been the dominant practice.”¹  Unfortunately, besides three nebulous (and unsourced) examples from Martin Luther, John Bunyan and Matthew Henry (two of which don’t specify young children, but only mention “children” generally), Brown leaves these claims historically undocumented, leaving readers to trust in his word and silence.

¹ Brown, “Is Age-Integrated Worship a Historical Norm?” (2023)  He also says, “until you get to the latter half of the 20^th century, including children in the worship of God was the dominant practice” and “for most of Christian history, children were present in the meetings of God’s people.”

It will be documented in some length below, more fully than has been done elsewhere, that through much of Church history worship attendance by children was on a voluntary basis and not expected or required until the age of seven or eight, or puberty (circa thirteen).  Children under those ages frequently did not come and sometimes were barred from doing so (such as by Scottish covenanters).  Westminster did not address the issue in her major documents, leaving the issue open.  Nor were these practices without substantial foundation: rather, they were often based on (besides the lack of Scriptural requirement) nature’s light and laws and Christian prudence, given children’s unique psychology, growth and development (which Scripture recognizes).

Another frequent trait in history is that churches were not “family integrated,” with families sitting together, but rather were often “age-segregated,” various ages sitting together separately, for reasons from nature’s light.  In summary most of Church history shows the attendance of young children was various, flexible and not required, reflecting the norms of Scripture.  We will proceed through the practices of the Jews, the early and medieval Church, those of the Post-Reformation (Geneva, Scotland, England and Westminster) and the post-1800 Sunday School movement, before touching on the background understanding for their practices from the nature of children and their development.  After this alternatives to children attending adult worship will be theologically analyzed.

 

Jewish Practice in Christ’s Time

There appears to be only a handful of pertinent evidences for Jewish practice during Christ’s time.¹  Without going into the significant interpretive issues embedded in them (i.e. how far these isolated instances may or may not be representative of that era’s Judaism generally, whether they even can be attributed to Christ’s context, etc.), the most prominent is the teacher Judah ben Tema (fl. AD mid-2nd century) saying in the Mishnah that at 13 years boys, at least in his opinion, became “subject to the commandments”.²  This would seem to imply expected, regular Synagogue attendance started at thirteen years old.

¹ The mainly archaeological evidence in Hagith Sivan, pt. 2, “Children in the Synagogue” in Jewish Childhood in the Roman World (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 209-64 dates significantly later than Christ’s time and involves diverse geographical regions.  The evidence that would be pertinent in Leah Sarna, “Crying Babies in Jewish Thought & Jewish Law” (2024) is too late.  Her other material on the subject is not specific to our purpose.

² “He used to say: At five years of age the study of Scripture; At ten the study of Mishnah; At thirteen subject to the commandments; At fifteen the study of Talmud; At eighteen the bridal canopy; At twenty for pursuit [of livelihood];” Mishnah, Nezikin, Pirkei Avot, 5:21

The later Babylonian Talmud, reflecting back on when the Temple stood, has a discussion of the Mishnah’s statement that children (boys and girls) ought to participate in the Biblical Day of Atonement one or two years before they were obliged in their majority, “so that they will be accustomed to the commandments.”¹  Alfred Edersheim (d. 1889), that expert of early Judaism, siding with the reformed theologian Johann H. Alting (d. 1644), believed that was why Jesus attended Passover when He was twelve (Lk. 2:41-42).

¹ Babylonian Talmud, Moed, Yoma, Yom haKippurim, 82 a
² Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ (NY: Pott, 1881), ch. 7, “Upbringing of Jewish Children,” p. 120

Yet there is evidence some children were accustomed to attend the synagogue as the Mishnah records that a minor may publicly read the Scriptures in the service and translate them into Aramaic.¹  Obviously this did not apply to children of an age who could not read.  The term for “minor”, קָטָן, has been defined by a standard, scholarly dictionary of the Mishnah as “a boy under thirteen, a girl under twelve years.”²

¹ Mishnah, Moed, Megilla 4.5-6
² Macus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targum, the Talmud Babli & Yerushalmi, & the Midrashic Literature (Philadelphia: c. 1883 – c. 1903), qatan

Edersheim elsewhere observes, unfortunately without citing sources, that children were not allowed to lay hands on the animals when sacrificing them in the Temple, and that children (if they were able) carried and shook palm branches in the Temple (though where therein is not specified) on each of the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles.¹

¹ Edersheim, Temple, p. 87, fn. 3 & p. 238

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Early Church

It is rather natural in many contexts for young children to follow their mothers, going where they go (Acts 21:5).  Hence some of the earliest, significant, clear evidence in the post-Biblical early Church, in the Apostolic Constitutions (around AD 380 in Syria, when Christianity became civilly established) speaks of youth and likely younger children attending the worship service (yet not sitting together as families, but separately):

“Let the young [adult, male] persons sit by themselves, if there be a place for them; if not, let them stand upright.  But let those that are already stricken in years sit in order.  For the children which stand, let their fathers and mothers take them to them.  Let the younger [unmarried] women also sit by themselves, if there be a place for them; but if there be not, let them stand behind the women.  Let those women which are married, and have [young] children, be placed by themselves; but let the virgins, and the widows, and the elder women, stand or sit before all the rest;” The Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson, rev. A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo: Christian Literature Co., 1886), vol. 7, Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, bk. 2, sect. 7, “On Assembling in the Church,” p. 421

The rationale given for this by the author is that the Church ought to be ordered like the natural example of a ship (a common analogy in the early Church) and its servicemen, each according to their kind; or like a sheepfold, where each kind of animal is set “according to their kind and age…  like to his like”.  Note, while the ordering here is prescriptive, the presence of various categories of youth is descriptive, reflecting those who may attend, not that they had to attend.

John Chrysostom (d. 407), having lived in Antioch and Constantinople, gave a homily expounding Eph. 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord…”  In it, in only one line, he seems to directly address children: “This, he means to say, is what God commands you.”¹  Nonetheless this is far from evidence of babies and toddlers being present, and two Chrysostom scholars conclude, “the presence of children [in Chrysostom’s audience] cannot be considered normative…”  See their discussion.²

¹ Chrysostom, Homily 21 on Ephesians in NPNF1 13.153.

² “In the case of children their presence is much more difficult to establish.  If it were not for the rare allusion (In Acta apost. hom. 29: PG 60,218 4-5 – ‘I’m not addressing those who’ve been here a year, but those who’ve been attending since they were very young’; cf. In Acta apost. hom. 44: PG 60,313 23-4), we would be tempted to conclude that they did not form a part of the regular audience.  While such allusions suggest that the admonition at the conclusion of Against the Jews or. 1 may perhaps be more than a simple topos, the presence of children cannot be considered normative since in other homilies John exhorts members of the audience to bring them with them to synaxis (Contra Anomoeos hom. 11: SC 396,3 14 3 15-18) or admonishes them for failing to do so (In illud: Si esurierit inimicus: PG 5 1,176 15-20).” Wendy Mayer & Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom in The Early Church Fathers (Routledge, 2000), p. 35.

Jerome in AD 403 wrote to a lady with a daughter, Paula, who was probably 4-6 years old¹ and purposed to be dedicated to Christ, through the Church, as a virgin.  While Jerome gives advice for Paula’s conduct in Rome “if” she in the future may “visit a church,” or “goes to keep solemn eves and all-night vigils,”² yet, in contrast to this, it is only upon puberty that she would first be expected to go to church in a stated way:

“When Paula comes to be a little older and to increase like her Spouse [Christ] in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man,” [Lk. 2:52] let her go with her parents to the temple of her true Father but let her not come out of the temple with them.”³

¹ She is described as playing, learning to read and of being of “tender age”: Jerome, Letter 107 in Letters in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, eds. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (NY: Christian Literature Company, 1893), vol. 4, The Principal Works of Jerome, pp. 191-92
² Jerome, Letter 107 in NPNF2 4.193
³ Ibid., 4.192

The scholar O.M. Bakke has gathered the most references to children in worship I have seen, most dating “from between the end of the fourth and the sixth centuries.”¹  Putting aside the peculiar issues of infant baptism, paedocommunion (the early evidence of which is regularly tenuous) and boys functioning as church lectors (or Scripture-readers), he cites 10 examples (mostly from Syria, Jerusalem and Constantinople) of children (unspecified in years) praying or singing in congregations, often in choirs and separated from their families.  All the evidence is descriptive in nature and does not mention infants or toddlers explicitly.  The inference that these examples at such locations and times may fairly represent the rest of the ocean of practicing Christianity in that era, not to mention previous centuries, is tenuous, especially as the custom of having children in worship was likely variable according to the varied mores of different localities and peoples, just as it is today.

¹ O.M. Bakke, When Children became People: the Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity, tr. Brian McNeil (Fortress Press, 2005), pp. 254-56

Robin Barfield, when he was a PhD student, analyzed much of the above evidence and more.  After quoting an important point from Hughes Oliphant Old, concluded:

“…it is clear that it was not necessarily regular practice for children, or many others, to sit under the preaching of the word.  Yet they would most likely have been taught separately; in the early church and medieval era it would have been by sending a child to the monastery.”¹

¹ Barfield, “A Historical Study of the Place of Children in the Worship Service” in The Modern Churchman 132(2) (2018), p. 127.

For the early Church evidence here surveyed, our conclusion is that most of it does not pertain to the youngest children, and that practices varied.  Children not attending church or sitting under the adult preaching, was common in many places.  None of the evidence has been found to be prescriptive, whether from church mandate or as understood by Scripture.

 

Medieval Church

One specialized scholar on this topic writes of the Medieval Church, giving background to practices at the Reformation:

“From the twelfth century the Church regarded puberty (twelve for girls, fourteen for boys) as the age at which one…  had the duty to attend church…  Children beneath the age of puberty were free from the obligations of adults and most legislators did not specifically require their presence in church.”¹

¹ Nicholas Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 2021), ch. 4, p. 150

Nonetheless, baptized children under that age were not barred from church and sometimes were brought, though not always.¹  When they were brought, other people responded variously (not always positively).²

¹ For a plethora of evidence: Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children (Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 209-213.

² “Notwithstanding this exemption, some children certainly came to church or were brought there.  This may have varied with age.  Parents took small children with them because they could not be left at home.  The author of Piers Plowman used the simile ‘as chaste as a child that in church weepeth’.  Noisy or restless young children in church sometimes caused annoyance, as they do today.  A visitation of Lincoln diocese in 1519 heard complaints from Wymondham and Kirby Bellars in Leicestershire that ‘children there make a noise indecently, so it is hard to hear divine service’, while at Kimpton, Hertfordshire, infants ‘laugh, cry, and clamour’.  Some adults might even condone the noise like Thomas Leyk of Gosberton, Lincolnshire, who ‘impeded the service with an infant’.’  Other parents left their toddlers at home, either from embarrassment or in order to escape for an hour, a practice which came to light when it led to fatal accidents.  A two-year-old in the care of an elder sibling fell down a well, a baby was left in a cradle apparently safely till a fire broke out, and a toddler fell into the fire, although he survived.  As children grew older their status may have shaped their attendance, with the wealthier accompanying their elders while the poorer were deputed tasks at home.” Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England, pp. 150-51

Another writer, surveying the British isles from AD 500 to 1500, has said “any child over the age of seven could be conferred to minor orders [of the Church] and tonsured.”†

† Sherrilyn Kenyon, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages: the British Isles from 500 to 1500 (Writer’s Digest Books, 1995), ch. 18, “The Church,” p. 133

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Post-Reformation:
Geneva

Shortly after the Reformation, Geneva exercised a paradigmatic influence.  Their Laws and Statutes of 1562, while John Calvin was still alive, omits speaking of children with respect to congregational worship.  Rather, in apparent distinction therefrom, the statutes ordained that: “all citizens and inhabitants shall bring or send their children on the Sunday at twelve of the clock, to the catechism…”†  It is specified in the same place the schoolmaster is to so bring in the youth under his care,‡ meaning that not only did families not necessarily sit together, the church being “age segregated,” but the youth were likely at “Sunday school” during congregational worship.

† The Laws and Statutes of Geneva as well concerning ecclesiastical discipline, as civil regiment…  (London: Hall, 1562), ‘The order which ought to be kept for little children’, p. 14

‡ “it is ordained that the children which go to school shall come together before noon, and that the masters do bring them in good order in every parish.”

 

Scotland

After the Reformation in Scotland, the land of the covenanters, young children were “systematically excluded everywhere from Sunday sermons…  lest they disturb the adult hearers…”¹  Glasgow sessions disallowed children under eight from attending church.  Further examples and details are given by the scholar Margo Todd.¹

¹ “Aberdeen prohibited ‘young bairns [children]…  not at the school and not of such age and disposition as they can take themselves to a seat when they come to the kirk, but vague [wander] through the same here and there in time of sermon and make perturbance and disorder.’  These children were to be ‘kept at home, for eschewing of clamour and disorder in the kirk’.  Kingsbarns’s session ordered them not only to be kept away from the kirk, but also to be shut up indoors lest parishoners be troubled by the ‘running up and down of little ones and young children on the Lord’s day in the time of sermon’.  Perth’s session in 1582 actually ordered warding (gaoling) and a 6s 8d fine [presumably for the parents] for ‘bairns that perturb the kirk in time of preaching’ instead of being kept at home…

Services of baptism obviously presented a particular dilemma, since one could hardly exclude the baby.  Perth solved this problem with a 1587 order that babies ‘be holden in some secret place til the preaching is ended’ and only then be fetched for baptism, ‘for avoiding of the…  crying of the infant and bairn which makes din in time of the preaching, so that others incoming thereto are stopped from hearing.'” Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (Yale University Press, 2002), ch. 1, ‘The Word & the People’, pp. 37-38; see also pp. 35-38 & 45-46.

Todd does highlight the opposite tendency in that culture as well: “the frequency with which they had to repeat the order to keep ‘greeting [crying] bairns’ and other youngsters at home suggests that some adults, far from resenting required sermon attendance, were willing to risk a fine in order to come to the preaching with children in tow.” Ibid., p. 38

After the covenanters gained control of the national Scottish Church in 1638, they made many detailed reforms.  While in 1639 they did appoint ministers to catechize within their parish every week and that “masters of the families” ought to catechize their children at home,¹ yet there is no evidence, it appears, that any change was made about young children often or regularly not attending public worship.  This is confirmed in that “[i]n Pittenweem in 1655, the kirk session declared that children were expected to attend services every Sunday ‘providing they bee paste 7 or 8 years’…”²

¹ Records of the Kirk of Scotland: containing the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, from the year 1638 downwards…  ed. Alexander Peterkin (Edinburgh: Sutherland, 1838), vol. 1, Aug. 30, 1639, “Act anent Ministers Catechizing, and Family Exercises”, p. 209

² Samantha Hunter, “Who was Expected to go to Church in Early Modern Scotland?” (2020) at The Centre for Scottish Culture; University of Dundee

At a town in Southeast Scotland in 1649 school boys “were to be convened and taught Scripture lessons and catechized” by the school teacher on the Lord’s Day until the morning service “when he should march them to the kirk.”  Afterwards in the afternoon, he (not their fathers) “was to convene them again, and ‘question’ them on what they had heard.”¹  This mandated attendance, however, only applied, so far as the evidence goes in a nearby town after 1643, to boys in school, namely who were “past six years old”.²

¹ Alexander Williamson, Glimpses of Peebles or Forgotten Chapters in its History (Selkirk: Lewis & Co., 1895), p. 178
² James Grant, History of the Burgh & Parish Schools of Scotland (London: Collins, 1876), vol. 1, p. 310

Samuel Rutherford, a leading spokesman for presbyterianism, a Westminster divine and a covenant theologian, in 1658 argued against the congregationalist teaching:

“That this instituted Church is to meet together all of them, even the whole Church for the administration of the holy ordinances of God, to public edification, 1 Cor. 14:27“

as this would be:

“a manifest debarring of infants born within the visible Church from being members of that Church which Christ in his Gospel has instituted, etc., for they are neither capable of convening in one place every Lord’s Day, nor of public edification by prophesying, as is meant, 1 Cor. 14:23…”º

º Rutherford, A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church Discipline… (London, 1658), bk. 3, ch. 6, p. 343

While Rutherford’s argument is polemical and technical, he clearly correlates the need for attending God’s institution of public worship with edification from the preaching, as grounded in nature and Paul.

 

England

The post-Reformation practice in England was similar.  Persons were required “to attend church, at least from puberty, on all Sundays and festivals.”¹  Official articles of visitation to churches from 1569 up through at least the 1660’s regularly inquired (with minor variations) whether children:

“above seven years of age…  come to the Church on Sundays…  at the times appointed…  and there diligently and obediently to hear and to be ordered by the minister, until such time as they have learned the same catechism…”²

¹ Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England, p. 394
² This was from 1580; see generally EEBO-TCP search results in titles for “articles to be enquired”.

These appointed times, be it noted, did not necessarily refer to congregational worship, as 1667 articles specify “in the afternoon”.  The 1580 articles say the minister is to “hear [the children] and instruct for half an hour at the least, before or at the evening prayer…”  “At the evening prayer,” whether before the service, during it, or after, would seem to be a kind of “children’s church”.  Something clear in these articles is that they allowed for flexibility.

The Anglican canons of 1603 (1604) ordained schoolmasters on Sundays to:

“bring their scholars to the church where such sermon shall be made, and there see them quietly and soberly behave themselves; and shall examine them at times convenient, after their return, what they have borne away of such sermon.”¹

¹ The Anglican Canons 1529-1947, ed. Gerald Bray (Boydell Press, 1998), p. 373

Here is more age segregation and, not the father supervising the youth in church and examining them about the sermon, but one so delegated in the public school.  The same canons say that in the service “either man, woman or child…  shall be…  in quiet attendance,”¹ meaning that the attendance of noisesome babies and toddlers was discouraged.

¹ Anglican Canons, p. 289

The presbyterian, puritan, partially-conforming and reforming Anglican minister, Stephen Egerton (d. 1621?), addressed in writing “the aged, sick and such as have young children,” who could not attend church.  He advises them to take turns going to church if possible, and when it is not possible, “they may lawfully keep” at home to tend upon their children, encouraging them that “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” (1 Sam. 15:22) and “I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” (Hos. 6:6)¹

¹ Egerton, The Boring of the Ear…  (London: Stansby, 1623), ch. 2, pp. 27-28

Later, around 1739, Philip Doddridge, following in the congregationalist, puritan tradition, remarked of children being present in worship: “If there are any…  old enough to be quietly present…”¹

¹ Doddridge, Works (Leeds: Baines, 1804), vol. 5, Lectures on Preaching, Lecture 19, p. 484

On the other side of the Atlantic, in that same time and tradition in Northampton, Massachusetts, the setting of Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards and Timothy Dwight, attendance at church, according to Iain H. Murray, while including children, did not necessarily include “the sick and aged, and mothers with babies or infants too young to be quiet in church”.¹

¹ Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: a New Biography (Banner of Truth, 1988), p. 89; cf. pp. 187-88.

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Westminster

Most of the members of the Westminster Assembly were conformists in some (or great) measure to the Anglican Church,¹ meaning that many of them likely tolerated, accommodated or approved of the official, typical Anglican practice.  As Westminster’s major documents do not mention the issue of the attendance of infants and young children in regular congregational worship, there is no doubt that in Westminster’s original, historic intention, this was left an open question, as all parties, in the consensus context and processes, could yet agree on and affirm what Westminster’s major documents do say.

¹ See “Westminster”, pp. 18-21, especially fn. 25 in Travis Fentiman, “Editor’s Extended Introduction” to English, Partially Conforming Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1644; RBO, 2025)

That they did not think determining the question was profitable or worthy of confessional status is telling, and likely reflects the level of clarity they thought Scripture sheds on the topic.  If Westminster did sufficiently give guidance on the issue, that must be found in WCF 1.6, where I have placed it, under some circumstances of God’s worship and the Church’s government (or governing) common to human actions and societies which are to be ordered by nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules.  That is, the issue is not uniquely religious, but common to human affairs (wherever children might gain some profit from an adult assembly) and ought to be done for the edification of children (and others).

It may be claimed the “circumstances” in view in the Confessional passage, especially as it is only “some circumstances,” entails things like sitting on chairs or pews in public worship, using a pulpit, holding service at this time or that, and not to things like children attending worship or not.

While that could have been the view of some in the 1640’s, yet (1) the Confession’s language does not so limit it, (2) is ambiguous in its terms and grammar, (3) many divines of the era held “circumstances” to refer more largely; and (4) anyone who so did, in Westminster’s consensus context and processes, could affirm and vote for the Confession’s language, (5) the Confession not excluding such views of “some circumstances,” (6) or circumstances-unqualified, which the Confession does not restrict.  (7) Westminster’s statement of affirmation that there are some such circumstances, does not exclude all other circumstances not so qualified.  See all this documented and proven in Travis Fentiman, “Editor’s Extended Introduction,” “The Westminster Standards,” pp. 65-71 in English, Partially-Conforming Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (c. 1604-1609; RBO, 2025).

Further, as noted, there were possible precedents for Sunday school and children’s church in Geneva and the Anglican Church respectively; who knows what else happened there or elsewhere.  Hence it seems likely some of Westminster’s members would have had some intention of encompassing such things by their confessional clause.

It is the case that certain persons (or children) being present is a physical circumstance of the actions of worship being directed to their ordained ends and God.  This is in consistency with the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), which forms part of the background to Westminster: “Circumstances are outside an action, inasmuch as they are not part of its essence; but they are in an action as accidents thereof.” Summa, I of II, q. 18, art. 3, reply to obj. 1.¹

¹ I believe this was approvingly quoted by the partial-conformist, John Burges on the topic of worship in An Answer Rejoined to that much applauded Pamphlet [by William Ames]… (London: Matthewes, 1631), though I cannot find the reference at the moment.  Burges’s position of a tolerating, outward conformity to the Anglican ceremonies, upon pain of ministerial deprivation, till they could be reformed lawfully, was the dominant view and practice of the Westminster divines.  See Fentiman, “Extended Introduction” in Partially-Conforming Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists, pp. 18-21 (with fn. 32), 33 (fn. 71) & 56-77.

The question of Westminster and children’s church is more specific.  For that, see below, ‘Westminster, Scotland & Children’s Church’.

 

Modern Sunday School Movement

The modern Sunday School movement, having begun to arise in the 1800’s (on both sides of the Atlantic), is often blamed for being novel in removing (especially young) children from the preaching of the Word.  For some of this history and an analysis of it, showing that many claims surrounding it are far from accurate, see Barfield’s brief treatment.¹

¹ Barfield, “Place of Children in the Worship Service”, v. “The Sunday School Movement,” pp. 131-33

 

Child Psychology, Growth & Development
viewed through Church History

Given the variety and flexibility found through much of Church history on this topic, it might be wondered by some: Did these people not read the Bible?  Were they not committed Christians?  Did they never read Joel 2:15-16, “call a solemn assembly…  gather the children, even nursing infants”?

Another response is to simply find much of Church history’s practices inexplicable, as though all these persons could not possibly have had competent and faithful reasons for what they did.  Barfield, on the contrary, shows in some detail how many Church history figures understood and taught that childhood growth and development played into whether children should be attending adult sermons.¹  Children are psychologically different and have different needs for their growth, as the Bible teaches (Dt. 1:39; 1 Sam. 2:26; Ps. 131:2; 144:12; Isa. 7:15-16; 8:4; 28:9-10; Hos. 11:3-4; Jon. 4:11; Zech. 8:5; Lk. 2:40, 52; 1 Cor. 3:2; 13:11; 14:9; Eph. 4:13-14; Heb. 5:12-14).

¹ Barfield, “Place of Children in the Worship Service”, 2. “Nothing but a Fool?: Church History and the Theory of Child Development,” pp. 133-41

Barfield, in another section,¹ points out that young children (Covenant members in classic reformed theology), do not partake of all the benefits of the Covenant of Grace’s administration, so far as they do not partake of the Lord’s Supper.  Yet, so far from being deprived of this, it is something they will, Lord willing, grow into in their development as they become mature Christians in age.  Likewise, on a larger view of the Church, a child may be expected to come in time to maturity and naturally join in as appropriate in the adult, congregational worship.

¹ Barfield, “Place of Children in the Worship Service”, 3. “Another Brick in the Wall: Church History, the Covenant and Child Involvement,” pp. 141-46

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Part 3

Alternatives to Children attending
the Whole Adult Worship Service

As young children are not divinely required to regularly attend the whole of adult, congregational worship, there are only so many alternatives, which will now be examined, namely:

1. Young children not attending at all, whether remaining home or in a nursery, etc.;
2. Having children’s church in the congregation’s service, with or without the children departing afterwards;
3. Holding children’s church, or worship, apart from the adult congregation; or
4. The children having Sunday School during the time of the adult service.

Each of these will be shown to be legitimate alternatives.  Which one ought to be chosen is a matter of being directed by nature’s light and laws, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules unto edification.  While one alternative may be more suitable and edifying than others (given the circumstances and persons involved), yet if a less edifying choice is made or necessitated, this is a matter of tolerable liberty, not sin.

While some of these alternatives may have been historically novel, having arisen in popularity in the last few centuries, this is irrelevant: they are all possible in the nature of things and are potentionally useful, in all times, and are allowed by Scripture, as will be seen.

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1. Abstaining from the Congregational Service

While mothers often staying home with young children occurred through Old Testament history, in Jesus’s time and through Church history, it seems other possible alternatives may be more spiritually profitable, such as the mother attending congregational worship while young children may be in the nursery.  However, mothers and children can also worship the Lord at home.

When mothers and children do worship at home (say maybe during a spreading disease, such as COVID), they are still part of: Christ’s Chuch (namely, his people), the congregation and are in the same Covenant of Grace (at least outwardly); herein their worship is still part of the Christian Church’s and congregation’s covenantal worship.  When the early Church was spread throughout Jerusalem, divided by geography and walls, not being able to see each other, and Peter was in prison, “prayer [singular] was made without ceasing of the Church [singular] unto God for him.” (Acts 12:5)  God received their prayers, though likely given at different times, yet united in the same spirit and ends, as one, of his one Body.

Perhaps mother and children may watch and participate in the congregational worship over the computer or phone, where children’s distractions do not disturb other people.  The worship they offer participates in the public worship of the congregation, so far as the same material content is being assented to, shared and offered to God as worship, albeit separated by space and walls (such as is also the case in cry-rooms and for streamed-in satellite churches).  The worship of a mother with her children with the church by distance is not simply glorified family worship: they truly share in and offer the public worship of the church.

While meeting physically together is ideal, see all the above points demonstrated from the Word, right reason and classical presbyterianism in these sections on the RBO page ‘On Holding Public Worship & Church Courts by Distance Through Technology, & on Using Satellite Churches, under Necessity & for Edification’:

Intro
Bible Verses
Gathering into One Place: Incidental though Beneficial to Public Worship
Assembling in One Location: Not Necessary to Public Worship
Physically Gathering: Not Necessary to Public Worship
Public Worship over Technology Preserves the Essence of Verbal, Public Worship Ordinances & Spiritual Communion
Visible, Spiritual, Communion in Publicly Worshipping by Distance
Communion in the Same Kind vs. Same Material Worship
Public Worship may Consist with Difference of Time

In addition, inform yourself of reformed to the Word, catholic theology, that The Communion of Saints is Trans-Spatial and Trans-Temporal.

 

2. Children’s Church in Service

Children attending the first part of the congregational service and then coming up to the front where the pastor, or another, addresses them directly for a lesson, with the children then going back to their seats or departing, is another possibility.  If a minister is responsible for spiritually feeding the church in worship, there ought not to be any issue with teaching a relevant part of the church in an appropriate, direct and edifying way.  Instances previously seen with the psalmist (Ps. 34:11-18) and Jesus (Mt 19:13–15), as well as Jesus setting a child in front of adults and giving lessons in Mt. 18:1-10 are similar examples (though not identical).  The Lord Himself specially stoops to feed his children (Hos. 11:3-4):

“I taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by their arms…
I drew them with gentle cords,
with bands of love,
And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck.
I stooped and fed them.”

Sometimes objected to this is that such has not been explicitly, divinely ordained in Scripture for a worship service; therefore it is unlawful (Lev. 10:1–2; Dt. 4:2; Mt. 15:9; Col. 2:23), due to the Regulative Principle of Worship (WCF 21.1).  However:

1. Children changing location from the audience to the front is not religiously significant, and addressing them directly in worship is approved by all (Eph. 6:1-3; Col. 3:20; 1 Jn. 2:12–13).  Nor is such held to be necessary in conscience or binding on others, as in Mt. 15:9.  Hence children’s church being materially in the worship service does not thereby become formally “beside the Word,”¹ that is, it is not necessarily held to be, nor is of the same authority as, or on par with God’s Word or what He has ordained for worship; and hence is not forbidden for that reason.

¹ WCF 20.2 says, “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship.”  On this topic see, ‘On Whatsoever is Beside the Word’.

2. Children’s church respects circumstances in worship and governing the Church which may be justified and bear a degree of necessity unto edification by nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules (WCF. 1.6), so far as addressing children specifically according to their nature is common to human actions and societies.

The objection claiming that children’s church was not historically, specifically intended in the “some circumstances” in WCF 1.6 at the Westminster Assembly, has been addressed above under the section, ‘Westminster’.  Not only some circumstances, but all human and worship actions are to be in accord with nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules (this being more fundamental than instituted public worship itself), which Westminster does not disallow.¹

¹ See Fentiman, “Extended Introduction”, pp. 44-47 & 67-68 in English Puritans, Refutation of the Errors of Separatists.

3. As this is so, children’s church is not the forbidden “will-worship” of Col. 2:23, as it may be divinely warranted by nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules.¹  As such, children’s church is herein subordinate to and in service of the Word.²

¹ See Fentiman, “Introduction”, p. 83 in Puritans, Refutation of the Errors of Separatists.
² See Fentiman, “Introduction”, pp. 46-47 in Puritans, Refutation of the Errors of Separatists and ‘On Dt. 4:2 & 12:32’.

Hence children’s church may fit within the rules of that classic theological writer and Westminster divine, George Gillespie (d. 1648), who said:

“If the Church prescribe any thing lawfully, so that she prescribe no more than she has power given her to prescribe, her ordinance must be accompanied with some good reason and warrant, given for the satisfaction of tender consciences.” Dispute against the English-Popish Ceremonies (1637), pt. 3, ch. 7, p. 114

4. The Regulative Principle of Worship in WCF 21.1 is no objection, as children’s church may fit within it:

“But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited to his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.”

God has instituted natural law, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, all of which form part of his revealed will.†  Scripture also prescribes that worship is to be in accord with these three things.  Children’s church, so grounded, is not an imagination or device of men.¹

† On this, see Fentiman, “A Commentary on Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1 on Worship & its Theological Context” (2024)

¹ For all these points (albeit not with respect to children’s church), see Fentiman, “Introduction”, pp. 69-71 in Puritans, Refutation of the Errors of Separatists.

Objection: But statedly ordained children’s church (occurring every week) is a positive ordinance in worship, and as such is necessary to the congregation.  The Westminster divine Samuel Rutherford (d. 1661) laid down the proposition: “Every positive and religious observance, and rite in God’s worship, not warranted by God’s Word, is unlawful.” Divine Right of Church Government (1646), ch. 1, p. 95

Response: There is a difference between (1) religious necessity and (2) a necessity of decency, edification, good order and Church government.  The second is what Children’s church falls under, which is lawful and warranted.¹

¹ On this distinction and category, see John Burges, An Answer Rejoined anent Ceremonies to William Ames (1631), ‘The Third Point, what the Ceremonies in Question are’

With respect to Rutherford’s proposition:

Children’s church, as a positive ordinance, when done because of nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, is warranted by God’s Word, as the Word warrants those principles and whatever they necessitate in the circumstances.  Thus positive ordinances instituted by men in and for God’s worship may be justified when necessary, as evidenced in Scripture and in the background to Westminster.¹

¹ See Fentiman, “Introduction”, pp. 39, 47, 73-74  in Puritans, Refutation of the Errors of Separatists and Burges, Answer Rejoined anent Ceremonies to William Ames (1631), ‘First, of the Definition or Nature of a Ceremony’.

It is true children’s church is a “religious observance” in some respect, just as the appointment to: have psalters in the pew, use reverent posture in prayer, have Sunday School, etc., but it is mixed (just as these previous things): it is partly indifferent and circumstantial, and partly religious (so far as religious instruction takes place through it).  That is different than things that are formally prescribed by Scripture, such as preaching the Word, praying, singing praise, baptism, the Supper, etc.  That which is not formally prescribed, but mixed in such a way, may be used and variable when justified.  See ‘On Primary Worship vs. a Subordinate Secondary Worship’.

5. It may be decent and appropriate to worship for a time, do something else (such as children’s church), and then worship further, whether privately (Gen. 24:12, 26-28, 42-48, 52; Ps. 55:17; 119:164; Dan. 6:10; Lk. 23:32-46), in a family or a smaller social setting (1 Sam. 1:3-19; Mt. 26:20-44; Lk. 9:28-36; 24:27-30, 44-53; Jn. 13-17; Acts 10; 16:25-34) or publicly (Josh. 5:8-12; Mt. 21:6-16; Lk. 1:8-21; Acts 1:13-24; 2:41-47; 17:7-12; Rev. 4-19).  There is no absolute and necessary requirement in Scripture, or otherwise, that all regular worship must be done continuously without intermission.  Rather, ordering worship, as seen in the cited examples, ought to be in accord with nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, including that all things be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40).

Church courts regularly take intermissions, recessing and resuming; and Church government is a form of worship.¹

¹ See ‘Acts of Church Government & Discipline are Worship, in a Secondary Sense’.

The principle above is found in Westminster’s Directory for the Public Worship of God under “Days of Public Thanksgiving”.  On such a day, the minister is to “dismiss the congregation with a blessing” in the morning, for the purpose “that they may have some convenient time for their repast [meal] and refreshing,” that is, before they “further…  celebrate his praises in the midst of the congregation, when they return unto it in the remaining part of that day.”

At a larger level, this is the reason why worship over multiple days is naturally interrupted by sleep and other necessary actions (e.g. Josh. 5:8-12; 2 Chron. 30:21-23); the same in a respect goes for us returning to weekly and less regular public worship throughout our lives (Lev. 23; Ps. 42; 43:3-5; 84:4-7; ch. 122; Lk. 4:16): “Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” (Ps. 116:7)

6. Not everything in what is called a worship service must be worship.¹  The material presence of things or actions do not therein make them formally worship (2 Chron. 6:13; 20:21-23; Neh. 8:4; Acts 20:7-11).  While generally speaking a church ought to keep within ‘Principles for the Use of Indifferent Things in Worship’, as that is what is found in the Word, yet, again, there is no necessary rule that all worship must be continuous.

¹ See historic reformed writers affirm: ‘Not Everything in what is called a Worship Service must be Worship’.

The Reformed in the Post-Reformation sometimes held a monetary offering to be indifferent and able to be prudently done in the worship service,¹ even in the Church of Scotland.²  The Westminster Assembly on a fast day filled with worship took a collection for maimed soldiers at the end.³  Westminster, allowing for the view and practice expressed, said in her Directory for the Public Worship of God, ‘Celebration of the Communion’: “The collection for the poor is so to be ordered, that no part of the public worship be thereby hindered.”  The same might be said for children’s church.

¹ At the Reformation the collection of money (and possibly other things) was frequently moved from being with the offering of the Mass to after the Lord’s Supper, and was designated for the poor.  On the continent it was often done as a part of the service, either at the dismissal, or just before: Hughes O. Old, The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 1975), pp. 28, 46, 49, 53-54, 63, 184, 310.  In the Anglican Church it was done at the Lord’s Supper; see the reform made by Cranmer, illustrating his thought, in Horton Davies, Worship & Theology in England: from Cranmer to Hooker, 1534-1603 (Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 188.  Even a paradigmatic separatist congregation in Amsterdam, pastored by an English puritan turned separatist, had a similar practice: Ibid, p. 339.  The partially conforming puritan, Nicholas Bownd, though against a collection in the service due to disturbances, yet testifies of the practice in his context: Bownd, Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or The True Doctrine of the Sabbath, ed. Chris Coldwell (Naphtali Press & Reformation Heritage Books, 2015), pp. 353-55.  The presbyterian and independent ministers’ request to the Anglican Church at the Savoy Conference (1661) shows what was happening and is consistent with pragmatic reasons: that the “Collection for the poor may be better made at or a little be­fore the departing of the communicants.” The Grand Debate between the most reverend Bishops & the Presbyterian Divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as Commissioners for the Review & Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer...  (London, 1661), ‘Exceptions’, p. 15

² William McMillan documents the collection often being taken when coming to sit at the Lord’s Table, or while there: The Worship of the Scottish Reformed Church, 1550-1638... (London: Clarke, 1931) ch. 18, pp. 220-21; Frederick W. McNally, The Westminster Directory, its Origin & Significance, PhD diss. (University of Edinburgh, 1958), pp. 325-27

³ John Lightfoot, Journal of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines, John R. Pitman (London: 1824) in The Whole Works of John Lightfoot, vol. 13, Oct. 17, 1643, p. 19

Thomas Cartwright (d. 1603) was a father of presbyterianism and puritanism in the late-1500’s and a partial-conformist to the Anglican Church government and worship.  Over things he did not agree with therein, the chief political advisor to Queen Elizabeth was appealed to by Edward Dering (d. 1576), another presbyterian partial-conformist, to exhort Cartwright “to use Christian liberty and to bear with the time[s].”¹  That is, if something is not impious or of itself immoral (such as children’s church is not), with sufficient justification it may be done as part of one’s liberty in Christian life, though it be in a worship service and may be considered as worship by others.  See this puritan principle of partial conformity soundly theologically set forth and defended.²

¹ Peter Lake, Moderate Puritans & the Elizabethean Church (Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 19

² See Fentiman’s quote under ‘Not Everything in what is called a Worship Service must be Worship’, the book by English, Partially Conforming Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1644; RBO, 2025) and the page at large, ‘On Occasional & Principled Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism’.

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Westminster, Scotland & Children’s Church

There is a question whether anything like children’s church may have been permitted by the original intention of Westminster’s Directory for the Public Worship of God.  The Directory certainly does not prescribe anything like children’s church in its delineated order of worship, yet it appears from the ambiguity and flexibility of its consensus language (which tends to the lowest common denominator) in the following, main, relevant paragraph from the Directory’s Preface (and further evidence below) that something like children’s church was not necessarily prohibted:

“…and have agreed upon this following Directory for all the parts of publick worship, at ordinary and extraordinary times.  Wherein our care hath been to hold forth such things as are of divine institution in every ordinance; and other things we have endeavoured to set forth according to the rules of Christian prudence, agreeable to the general rules of the word of God; our meaning therein being only, that the general heads, the sense and scope of the prayers, and other parts of publick worship, being known to all, there may be a consent of all the churches in those things that contain the substance of the service and worship of God;”

Observe these points:

1. The Directory is “for all the parts of publick worship”.  This language is that of WCF 21.5, which speaks of the “parts of the ordinary religious worship of God,” such as the reading of the Scriptures, preaching, the sacraments, etc.  Yet children’s church (or something akin to it, as possibly practiced by some Anglicans in that day) needed not to be considered a formal “part” of worship, but could have been understood to fall under circumstances in WCF 1.6.

2. “Every ordinance” in their clause, “our care hath been to hold forth such things as are of divine institution in every ordinance,” may refer to the ordinances explicated in the Directory; yet this does not necessarily exclude other ordinances not mentioned.¹  “Ordinances” need not necessarily be equated with “parts of publick worship,” as, for instance, Westminster’s Form of Presbyterial Church-Government, under “Of the Ordinances in a particular Congregation,” mentions as ordinances, “catechising…  collection made for the poor, [and] dismissing the people…” which are not listed as “parts” of worship in WCF 21.3-5.

¹ Gordon Donaldson interprets the Directory in its Scottish context to have allowed for other material parts of worship than what were in the Directory, namely ones which were in, or associated with, Scotland’s previous Book of Common Order. Donaldson, ch. 4, “Covenant to Revolution” in eds. Duncan Forrester & Douglas Murray, Studies in the History of Worship in Scotland (T&T Clark, 1996), p. 61

The Directory leaves itself open to “some other ordinance of Christ” in the service in the following language, under “Of Prayer after Sermon”:

“After which (unless some other ordinance of Christ, that concerneth the congregation at that time, be to follow) let the minister dismiss the congregation with a solemn blessing.”

“Ordinance of Christ” was likely consensus language.  Congregationalists more often insisted on worship ordinances being derived from the New Testament, whereas presbyterians often allowed worship derived from either Testament, rightly understood; yet both could no doubt agree on this phrase as Christ, as the Word, authored the Old Testament, and hence any worship ordained therein could, rightly understood, be considered an “ordinance of Christ”.  Likewise, natural law and the general rules of the Word were often considered to have been divinely ordained, even sometimes by Christ (as divine, or as the Word).¹  This of course leaves open that other things warranted by nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, and ordained by Christ’s Church government (which things derive in some way from Christ’s will, and hence could be understood as ordinances of Christ), might be done.

¹ See Fentiman, “A Commentary on Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1 on Worship & its Theological Context” (2024) and by the same, “Extended Introduction” in Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists, p. 46 with fn. 107.

3. The end of the paragraph specifies the meaning of what went before, confirming our reading.  Notice its very open-ended language and grammar.  “General heads” below can be understood as only the general heads of the Directory.

“our meaning therein being only, that the general heads, the sense and scope of the prayers, and other parts of publick worship, being known to all, there may be a consent of all the churches in those things that contain the substance of the service and worship of God;”

Westminster purposes, in implicit contrast to things not of the substance of God’s worship (such as children’s chuch may be reckoned), that “there may be a consent in all the churches” in “the substance of the service and worship of God”.

The clause above, “other parts of publick worship, being known to all” can be read as (1) those other parts of public worship in the Directory, or (2) other parts of public worship not in the Directory, these being known to all.  The above cited part of the Directory allowing for “some other ordinance of Christ” confirms the permissibility of the second reading.  It also shows the Directory being (as previously quoted) “for all the parts of publick worship,” does not necessarily mean the Directory contains all the parts of public worship, as the Directory leaves open indefinitely “some other ordinance of Christ” to be practiced.  The Directory is for all the parts of public worship, but it does not necessarily specifiy all the parts of public worship.

4. Further, note the Directory’s passage above only speaks of a “consent” in “those things” that “contain” the “substance” of the worship of God.  “Those things” can be read as the Directory itself; but seeing as the phrase “those things” was used and not “the Directory”, “those things” can also be read as only those things which contain the substance of the service and worship of God in the Directory.

Likewise, only a “consent” is mentioned, but not the practice of such.  That is, partial or full conformists (who were many or most in that era, and were often courted and accommodated) were often willing to toleratingly practice much they did not otherwise fully approve of or consent to, and yet, while doing that, they could consent to the undefined “substance of the service and worship of God”.

In a similar vein, regarding Westminster’s Directory being instituted in Scotland in 1645:

When the Scottish General Assembly said they “agree to and approve” the Directory, they did so “unanimously, and without a contrary voice”.  But this was qualified as being “in all the heads thereof, together with the Preface set before it…  That according to…  the intent of the Preface [left undefined], it be carefully and uniformly observed…”¹  More so, it was stated that other particulars not appointed in the Directory were not forbidden.²  Such qualifications allowed for votes to be unanimous.

¹ Westminster Confession of Faith (Free Presbyterian Publications, 1994), p. 372

² “…That this shall be no prejudice to the order and practice of this kirk, in such particulars as are appointed by the books of discipline, and acts of General Assemblies, and are not otherwise ordered and appointed in the Directory.” Westminster Confession, p. 372  Donaldson makes this point in “Covenant to Revolution” in History of Worship in Scotland, p. 61

When civil parliament said they “agree to the said Directory” it was qualified as “according to the act of the General Assembly approving the same,” respecting “all the heads and articles thereof”.  The last phrase of course might mean (1) all the details of every head or article thereof, or (2) it might be understood to mean only all the heads and articles thereof in general, without necessarily entailing any details beyond that therein.  This agreement was made “without a contrary voice”.²

² Westminster Confession, p. 371

In conclusion, whether any English or Scottish churches ever used anything akin to children’s church in conscious consistency with Westminster’s Confession or Directory would take a lot more research at the granular level, but it is apparent from the consensus wording of Westminster’s Directory and its institution in Scotland that both these had the flexibility to allow for something akin to children’s church in a service if churches or ministers chose to do this.

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3. Separate Children’s Church

It is also possible for young children to separately be led in their own worship together, at an age-appropriate level (Ps. 34:11-18; Prov. 4; Mt. 19:13–15), while the adult service is going on.

This is by some regarded as breaking up families.  But what law is there that families must always be in close, spatial proximity?  That is against nature’s laws.  Did Jesus break up families when He addressed segregated women and children separately (Mt. 19:13–15)?  Was it immoral for Hannah to give little Samuel to the Church ministry (1 Sam. 2:11)?  Did twelve year old Jesus sin being with, hearing and asking questions of the Church teachers for a prolonged time apart from his parents?  “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Lk. 2:49)  How is it that the family of God is spread throughout the earth (Eph. 4:6)?

The more ecclesiastical minded may object that separate children’s church breaks up the congregation and cuts children off from the church’s worship and its ordained blessing.  Yet, is it wrong to have cry-rooms, with mothers and babies segregated by walls and windows?  Was it wrong for the congregation in Jerusalem to worship apart in different houses (Acts 2:46)?  Is it immoral to have two services on Lord’s Day morning if the congregation is larger than the meeting space?  What if it is not, but it is more convenient for the Christians?  Are they not yet one congregation and so tied in Christian love (Acts 2:46) and government together (Eze. 34:23-24)?  Did Israelites that fulfilled 1 Kings 8:37-39 lose the blessing of God by praying throughout Jerusalem instead of together in the Temple?:

“If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew…  whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be: What prayer and supplication [singular] soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this House [they being outside of it]: then hear Thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive…”

“But these cases are all due to necessity.”  And may it not be necessary for greater edification in some circumstances for children to worship God in a way more suited to their natures, psychology and needs?  Children remain part of the congregation, and it is catholic, orthodox theology reformed to the Word that the same congregation may worship in different places when justified by nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, including for what is most profitable (1 Cor. 14:31):

‘On Adapting the Assemblies of the Church’  at ‘On Social Distancing & the Church’s Adaptation in a Time of Spreading Disease’

‘On Holding Public Worship & Church Courts by Distance Through Technology, & on Using Satellite Churches, under Necessity & for Edification’

The contrary practical arguments are often heard:

“Having young children in adult worship acclimates them to it, so they become accustomed to sharing in and feeling a part of God’s people and their worship; and the preacher ought to address children in the congregation, as instanced in the New Testament.”

So it is, but this must be compared with the practical benefits of other alternatives.  There is no doubt children in children’s church also feel a part of God’s Church and her worship, and transitioning to the adult worship when appropriate, where they will spend the rest of their lives, is not usually difficult.  Preachers addressing children 10% of the time is great, but what about the other 90% of the time?  The remaining question is which of the alternatives is more profitable?

Scripture does not assume it is that which is put forward by the objectors: “as long as he is a child…  [he] is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.” (Gal. 4:1-2)  Scripture also speaks of a special blessing of God going along with the development of growing, righteous children (1 Sam. 2:26; 3:19; Judg. 13:24; Lk. 2:40, 52).

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4. Sunday School during the Service

Obviously if not being at the adult worship is morally possible, then so is children’s education during that time.  Sunday school does not need to be much different than a time of children’s worship, but if it is:

The complaint arising from some, or sneer, is that not all the distinct parts of worship are exercised in the mere teaching of children.  Yet this reveals a basic ignorance of Scriptural and reformed theology: The right knowledge of God, which is precisely what young children need, is foundational to, and requisite for salvation and all acts of worship.  As willingly received, rightly knowing God is the most foundational worship, from which all other worship flows.  In apprehending Him, He is adored:

Jn. 17:3  “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

1 Tim. 2:3-4  “God our Savior…  desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Jer. 24:7  “Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people…”

Isa. 43:10  “That you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He.”

Ps. 9:10  “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You.”

Prov. 9:10  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

Jer. 9:23-24  “Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me…”

Isa. 11:9  “For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD…”

Jer. 31:33-34  “They all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.”

Dt. 4:39  “Know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God…”

Dt. 6:4-5  “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart…”

Jn. 4:22-24  “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship…  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Hos. 6:6  “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Ps. 100:3-4  “Know that the LORD, He is God…  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving…”

Col. 1:9-10  “That you may be filled with the knowledge of His will…  increasing in the knowledge of God.”

1 Cor. 14:15  “I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding.”

Ps. 47:7  “For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with understanding.”

Often in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, that most basic foundation of the “fear” of the Lord is virtually equivalent with the worship of the Lord.  Prov. 2:5 uses the fear and knowledge of the Lord synonymously: “Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.” (cf. Prov. 9:10; Isa. 11:2)  Isa. 28:9-10 addresses the unique growth, development and psychology of young children and what is appropriate for them:

“Whom will He teach knowledge?
And whom will He make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”

Hence it ought not to be surprising that theologians reformed to the Word, in a better era, often taught that believingly apprehending the right knowledge of God is the most foundational worship in this life¹ and the next.²

¹ Search for “know” on the page, ‘On the Definition of Worship’ and note that internal worship is more important than external worship: ‘On Internal & External Worship’.

² ‘On the Beatific Vision’.

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Summary Conclusion

Young children attending congregational worship (with moderate parenting) is not here being discouraged, but rather the religious necessity of it is.  There is no positive Scriptural obligation above nature’s light constraining such.  When persons erroneously believe there is, or make it the ordinary expectation, and take measures unduly against nature’s light to conform children, it may not be for the overall welfare (both natural and spiritual) of some children, but against it.

Young children don’t fit into a box.  Don’t worry, in giving up the box of Biblicism, you’re only growing by the Lord’s will into something better: Christian maturity (Eph. 4:13-16; 1 Cor. 13:11; Heb. 5:12-14).

Nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules (WCF 1.6), by which the issue of children attending worship ought to be determined in particular circumstances, are capable of different syntheses, taking into account (as Scripture does) the natural laws respecting human growth and development (Dt. 1:39; 1 Sam. 2:26; Ps. 131:2; 144:12; Isa. 7:15-16; 8:4; 28:9-10; Hos. 11:3-4; Jon. 4:11; Zech. 8:5; Lk. 2:40, 52; 1 Cor. 3:2; 13:11; 14:9; Eph. 4:13-14; Heb. 5:12-14) and that spiritual edification comes through understanding (1 Cor. 14:14-18, 26).  It has been shown the alternatives of:

(1) young children not attending adult worship (and possibly worshipping at home),
(2) children’s church either in the congregation’s service or
(3) separate therefrom, and
(4) Sunday school

may all be sound alternatives, and are not sinful.  Which might be chosen ought to be measured by their benefits, for both children and parents.  Do note what you will never hear in some churches: ‘Self-Care and Upkeep may be Legitimate Reasons for Missing Public Worship and Church Activities’.

Nonetheless there will be some out there that yet say there are so many practical and spiritual reasons, in their opinion, why young children attending adult worship is the best, that this ought to be the only choice.  That’s interesting, that they appear more wise than God (Eccl. 7:16) who never required this and has left it in both Testaments unto liberty and edification.  All the Old Testament evidence for children in worship regards extraordinary circumstances; the New Testament evidence does not equate to young children being disciplined in God’s name if they are anything but quiet and still for an hour and a half (or longer) every Lord’s Day, maybe twice thereon.

The large share of Church history is in accord with the Scriptural teaching, and was often not family-integrated, with families needing to sit together.  If we don’t react against abuses in culture (which is the worst way to do theology and ethics), young children making disturbances in congregational worship is a natural factor that much of Church history regarded as bearing significant weight.  They often did not expect youth to attend congregational worship till they were seven or eight years old, or at puberty (around thirteen).  Sunday school and children’s church during congregational worship, as noted, may have been precedented in the Post-Reformation with Geneva and the Anglican Church respectively.  The whole matter is not a confessional issue; and to put it on par with that level of importance, or anywhere close to it (intentionally or not), is to unnecessarily disturb Christ’s Church.

Be encouraged in the truth and take the means to raise up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4), teaching them to love to worship our great God, that the Lord’s gracious promise may be your own desire (Isa. 44:3-5):

“For I will pour water on him who is thirsty…
I will pour my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your offspring;
They will spring up among the grass
like willows by the watercourses.

One will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’;
another will call himself by the name of Jacob;
another will write with his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’
and name himself by the name of Israel.”

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Related Pages

On Truth

Ignorance

On Error

Worship

The Regulative Principle of Worship

A Commentary on Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1 on Worship & its Theological Context

On the Definition of Worship

Family

Godly Stories & Books for Children & Youth

Contra Biblicism

Bible Verses Against Hyper-Patriarchalism

Light of Nature

Natural Law

Church Membership

On the Permissibility of Distance Church Membership

A Local or Particular Church Covenant is Not Necessary for Church Membership

Raising Children in the Covenant of Grace

Family Worship

Natural vs. Instituted Worship

Distinguishable Aspects in the Elements of Worship

On Posture & Gestures in Worship

On Natural Gestures, Signs & Customs about Worship, & of Reverence & Veneration as Distinguished from the Worship of Adoration

On Customs, Holy Kiss, Foot Washing, Anointing with Oil, etc.

On the Order of Worship & Liturgies

Church Government is Secondary

Acts of Church Government & Discipline are Worship

That Opinion of Sanctity & Necessity is Not Essential to False Worship

On Things Indifferent (Adiaphora)

Indifferent Things in Worship

Principles for the Use of Indifferent Things in Worship

On Circumstances

Benefit may Justify Circumstances in Worship

When Circumstances Join in Acts of Worship or Not

On Ceremonies

Original Reasons for Anglican Ceremonies

On Holding Public Worship & Church Courts by Distance Through Technology, & on Using Satellite Churches, under Necessity & for Edification

On Social Distancing & the Church’s Adaptation in a Time of Spreading Disease

On Reforming & Reformation

On Impurities in Worship

God may Graciously Accept Impure Obedience & Worship

On Occasional & Principled Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism

On Infant & Household Baptism

Sunday Schools

One May Miss Services & Leave a Church due to Providence without Permission, & a Letter of Transfer is Not Necessary

One May Leave for a More Profitable Church

When it may be Right to Abstain from Attending Public Worship

The Sufficiency of Scripture

Does Scripture Regulate All of Life?

All of Life is Worship, in General Respects

Worship Includes Conscience Issues

Taking Scripture’s Sufficiency Too Far

Need & Validity of Natural Knowledge, vs. Biblicism

The Covenant of Grace

What Respects Covenant is Conditional

Similarities & Differences between the Old & New Testaments

The Visible Church is Outwardly in the Covenant of Grace

Church History

Reformation History

Scottish Church History

Critiques of the Book of Common Prayer

Westminster Assembly

Commentaries on the Westminster Standards

The Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God: Commentaries on, Discussions of & Historical Documents Related Unto

On Schism & Separatism

Union in at Least Christianity’s Fundamentals is Obliging where Secondary Teachings & Practices do not tend to Overturn the Fundamentals or the Power of Godliness: Against Separation from True Churches

Hermeneutics

On External & Spiritual Legalism

On Spiritual Abuse

On Cultic Characteristics

How to Leave a Group with Systemic Spiritual Abuse or Cultic Characteristics

How to Help Others Get Out of Churches with Cultic Characteristics