In our recent discussions about family worship, a practice came to mind which may benefit some again today. It certainly helped and benefitted many families previously.

It was the practice of families worshipping together in the morning worship service, and while the children are young, the parents alternating going to worship in the evening service. The other parent would stay home to look after the very young. When the children are a little older and able to cope with later bedtimes, they were then given that special privilege and sign of them growing up, of also going along to the evening service.

There are a number of advantages to this way of doing things. Each parent gets some special time with the children, and when going to a worship service, that time is highlighted with a special event. The children also learn and see that meeting together with the congregation of God's people is something Mum and Dad value. They learn to accept this is what the main activity of the Lord's Day ought to be. And, it provides the children with another point in their lives in which they are granted and rewarded with a privilege because they are able to act more responsibly and maturely.

All of this presupposes of course that we ourselves as adults and parents regard corporate worship with a high sense of importance and desirability. Robert G.Rayburn opens his book on worship ("O Come, Let Us Worship") with this sentence, "The worship of God is at once the true believers most important activity and at the same time it is one of the most tragically neglected activities in the average evangelical church today."

Children, in my experience, are very much like dry sponges, who when they come into contact with information of any kind draw it in without any effort at all. Much like a dry sponge which when it comes into contact with liquid, children are constantly absorbing lessons from the environment in which they live. Those lessons can be positive or negative.

If, as Christians we agree that the teaching of the Word of God is that the most important activity a Christian is to be involved in is worship, and that the Lord desires us to come together in corporate worship as well as personal and family devotions, then teaching this to our children is equally important.

John 4 records the single most important statement that was ever made concerning worship. When the Samaritan woman tried to divert the Lord's attention from herself and introduced the subject of worship, Jesus declared in verse 21 that it is the person who is the subject of worship that is important, not the place. He then went on to say, "A time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks" (vs 23). Please take note of that last phrase. There is no other thing in Scripture which tells us God seeks something from His people, but true worship. (See also Heb 9:14; Rev 22:3)

The Westminster Shorter catechism tells us the same thing: "What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Here is the purpose for which God created us - to bring glory to God - to worship Him (1 Cor 10:31; Rom 11:36)

One key and principle part of the training and leading little ones to the Lord is to raise in them a love for and a desire for worship, and meeting with God's people in worship at the feet of the Lord God Almighty.