Can Kids Worship God?
Can KIDS worship God? Well, I guess it depends on what is meant by “worship”. Noah Webster defines worship as to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission to. We see throughout God’s word that he created his creation to worship and to worship him. God is to be the object of our extravagant love and extreme submission. Psalm 95:6 says, “Oh come, let us bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!” The Bible goes on to inform us how to worship God. In order to truly worship, the way that honors God and means something to him there is something that the Bible says is required.
Biblically speaking, true worship is something Christians think and do as a result of their intimate knowledge and clear understanding of a holy God. John 4:23-24 states, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” So, worship has to do with the right knowledge of who God is and a right relationship to him through his Son, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, worship can be defined as an understanding of the worth of God that is demonstrated in a person’s life. It’s both an internal understanding and an external demonstration or display. And, it is directed to God alone. This demonstration or display of God’s worth in one’s life can be seen in a variety of ways. For example, in one very limited way, it can be displayed when one sings about or to God in a church service. It can also be broadened to include prayer, confession, repentance, an act of serving in the church or others as a result of one’s love for God and a right understanding of his worth, or, it can include making good and godly decisions in business or within the home. Worship is how a person lives their entire life, surrendered to God, not merely singing songs about God during a church service.
Often times, in the context of KIDS Ministry, when kids are being directed to a time of music about God or his Son, Jesus Christ, people use the word to describe this time as “worship”. But, caution and clarity are needed, especially when directing kids. When the terms “worship” and “music” are used interchangeably, there is a potential danger of deceiving children into believing they are doing something they are not. If we are going to train children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6), we need to be careful with our words and the terms used about what kids are doing, especially while at church.
In Matthew 15:8-9, Jesus warns the Pharisees and scribes, as he quotes Isaiah 29:13, asking was this about you when he said, “This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me.” Here Jesus is talking about a person’s entire life. Not just when someone is singing songs about him. Jesus is saying unless a person’s heart, that is, his will, his emotion, his understanding of God is near God, that is, closely connected to and identified with God, his worship is in vain. What does that mean? The word vain implies it is worth nothing, zero, zilch to God unless the worth of God is understood. If the heart is not connected to God, then whatever a person is doing is not worship and it is meaningless to God.
While a time of music with kids is important to their faith formation and a time well-invested and worth doing, let’s not call what we are doing with kids “worship” but instead call it what it more accurately is and that is “music time” that is focused on God and his word to train them in how to worship. It’s important to give kids a time of music where the lyrics are rightly teaching about God, his holiness, his big-ness, his awesome-ness, as well as, provide kids a time to tell God, through music, how much they love and honor him, rightly directing their attention to and focus on God. There is no question, God uses music as a tool to help people connect with him. Lyrics are easily remembered and recalled. Bible-centered music can also be a powerful way to connect kids with God and his truth.
During a church service, children can come together, with their peers, and, continue to grow in their understanding and love for God through a well-orchestrated and purposeful time of music that can have a powerful imprint in their lives. KIDS Ministry can and should train and prepare children how to worship God through a time of music when songs are sung that accurately teach who God is and how to love, honor, respect and obey him. But, until a child is regenerate, what a child is doing is singing songs not participating in an act of worshipping God. And, obviously, we can’t assume every child, just because they are at church is saved. So, it’s best to assume they are not until we can be assured that they are.
Let’s be careful and clear how we are training kids so that we don’t risk deceiving them into believing what they are doing is actually worship when their hearts may be far from God. Let’s continue providing meaningful musical experiences for kids giving them good and godly examples of what musical worship is so that hopefully, through the solid ministry being provided, children will grow closer to God, day by day, with their hearts, minds and all of who they are, becoming people who are genuinely worshipping God with their lives for their entire life.
As the spiritual leaders of kids, may the children God has entrusted to our care and nurture of his word grow up living out Romans 12:1, ... “by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your spiritual worship.” Let’s continue to work hard to clarify rightly what true worship is, hope for the day when the children in our ministry understand who God is and how to worship him with their lives and let us continue to pray for that time that they themselves become true worshippers of God honoring him through their extravagant love for him and extreme submission to him that he is so desperately seeking for his glory, honor and praise.
