Worship as Dialogue: Blessing Our Children

Our worship service is a conversation between God and us. God speaks to us by his Word in Scripture and moves upon us by his Holy Spirit in inwardly apply the grace of the gospel. He engages us not just in our minds, but in all of our senses to confirm that we are not our own, but we belong to Him and that He is for us. And we are reoriented to see our lives in light of God’s redeeming work.

In the previous posts we’ve looked at how God gets the first word in the Call to Worship, how this call pulls us out from ourselves to sing—not perform—with one voice to his glory and our good, how God continues to assure us of his love for us as we confess our sin, and how our hearts/minds are reshaped as we confess our faith. That leads us to the next aspect of our worship service: The Blessing of our Children.

We who have brought our sin to God to see it forgiven, who are being transformed by his grace, are now enabled to open our mouths and bless in his name. In our world, so marked by words used for deceit, slander, and violence we are being formed into people who use our words for truth, beauty, and goodness.

One of the ways we do this in our time of worship together is declaring a blessing on our children. Our church offers a time of children’s worship for kids through 1st grade, though some of our kids prefer to remain in the worship service with everyone else. Either way, our children hear this every week: a question and answer where the congregation joins in one voice to answer this question:

What is our prayer for our children?

That the word of the Lord will grow in their hearts!”

This doesn’t simply mean that we hope they successfully memorize the words of Scripture, though that can be a powerful way to mature in grace. The prayer for God’s word to grow in their hearts is a prayer that the gospel—the good news that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus God bring forgiveness, transformation, and hope—becomes the center of who they are. 

This blessing is a reminder to our children and to us that worship/church isn’t something the adults to which they are dragged along. The kingdom of Jesus and the grace that he brings is theirs. It belongs to them just as much as it belongs to a pastor, an adult who has followed Jesus for a long time, or anyone else. As we use our words to bless them, we affirm this as a first step of embodying God’s love to them. May they hear not only our voices, but the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking grace to them!