Living Our Vocations, Season One, Episode 3: "Teaching Children to Participate in Church" with Ruth Meyer.

Have you ever heard the saying, "children in church are the devil's instruments?" Yet children, too, are part of the church; and children, too, need God's Word. In this episode I chat with Ruth Meyer about the theological basis for bringing kids into the Divine Service as well as practical ways to help them learn to participate. The questions we talked about include:

1. Why bring a potentially noisy bundle of cute distraction into church in the first place?
2. Why is, "How can I keep my child quiet in church?" the wrong question for parents to be asking?
3. What are practical ways to help kids behave well and listen to what is going on around them?
4. What about older kids who once participated with gusto, but now have lost their enthusiasm?
5. How can people without kids help support parents in the pew?

Links:

Getting Kids to Behave in Church

Four Reasons It Is Good Your Children Are Being Too Loud in Church

Whisper, Whisper: Learning About Church (a helpful picture book by Mary Moerbe)