Let me suggest five reasons why we ought to keep our children with us during worship and why they must be trained to attend to worship reverently. The first reason why we should keep our children in our worship services is that God is not only concerned with us individually, but with our families. This is also why we baptise our infants. The Church is essentially God s covenant people, whether in the Old or New Testament. It is an organic body comprised of families and not just individuals.
Children form part of the tree, as branches.
Naturally, then, when the church gathers for worship, the children, being members of the church, should be included. Secondly, I believe that it is a biblical pattern that children be included in congregation worship, together with their parents. In the Old Testament, the Jews were seldom required to come together to worship the Lord in the hearing and exposition of the Law, but when they did come together the children were normally included in the worship. For some reasons the disciples tried to stop them. Perhaps they thought that the Lord should not be encumbered with anything other than preaching or healing the sick.