Sunday Morning Starts on Saturday Night

In her book, Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship, Dr. Robbie Castleman has many insightful and informative things to say. One chapter that I found particularly helpful and practical is called “Sunday Morning Starts on Saturday Night.” The core truth is summed up in the chapter title, but if you stop there you’ll miss some real treasures. To give you a taste, here are some highlights…

The Sunday Morning Struggle

Castleman knows the Sunday morning routine of preparing for and getting to “church” is a struggle for many families…

In an unabridged dictionary, worship comes right after worn, worn-out, worry, worrywart, worse and worsen. Sometimes on Sunday mornings, worship follows the same sequence. Getting children and young people to the worship place is often as far as we get in helping our offspring to worship. As the church dropout rate of older kids indicates, there has got to be a better way.

This chapter provides a healthy dose of suggestions for this “better way.”

Working to Worship

“Work” is a “better W word” when it comes to worship. That’s because “worship is work,” but it is “worthy of our best energy, not our least.” Yes, worship can take place anywhere and on any day of the week, but worshiping with God’s people is like a birthday cake rather than a cake on any other day…

A birthday cake is the person’s favorite; the frosting is sweeter, and the anticipation is so thick you could cut it with a knife. An any-day cake can be eaten without much introduction, but a birthday cake is eaten after candles and songs and ceremony.

Technically, cake is cake. It’s the day, the parents and the preparation that set birthday cakes apart. Birthday cakes are cakes with an attitude!

Worship is loving the Lord with an attitude. We love the Lord every day, but Sunday is God’s favorite flavor, and the frosting is sweeter.

Heart Preparation

Engaging our kids in corporate worship requires the right heart on our part as parents…

Parenting in the pew begins with an attitude check… Is worship priority time? Do you talk about preparations for worship during the week? Do your children sense that, just as they look forward to birthdays, you can hardly wait for Sunday to get here?

I suspect many of us as parents (and non-parents) will confess that we rarely anticipate corporate worship this way. Perhaps that is part of the problem.

Home Preparation

Are we making the needed and appropriate preparations in our home to facilitate genuine worship with God’s people?

It is true that Sunday mornings seem more complicated than other mornings. The schedule is different; the entire family may have different responsibilities for the morning at church; and usually all members of the family leave home at the same time. In addition to this, the Christian family must recognize that we have an enemy, one who delights in hypocrisy and distraction. The devil, in all his evil power, wants to undo the worship we prepare for God. It is no surprise that Sunday morning can be a time of spiritual warfare… Sometimes putting on the “full armor of God” (Eph. 6:10-18) begins with finding a pair of socks that match.

Dressing for Worship

The fact that Dr. Castleman addresses clothing reveals the practical and personal nature of this book. You’ll love this…

I actually believe my husband [a pastor] got a raise once because the church thought our son Scott had only one shirt–his favorite purple one. I think that for an entire year purple was his personal liturgical color. The point is, I never wanted what my children wore to compete for their attention in preparing to encounter God in worship. We allowed them to dress as they liked–as long as it was ready to be worn by Saturday evening.

Good words. Dress can be a challenge when you’re “guiding your children into the joy of worship.”

Thinking Ahead: A Tithe or a Tip

Helping children develop a good understanding of biblical stewardship is an important responsibility of Christian parenting. Castleman speaks to this as well…

Too many parents give their kids pocket change to put in the plate, just as they let their children push the buttons in elevators. Not only is this not an offering from the child’s resources, but it communicates that God can be honored with spare change we don’t really value or need rather than a tithe… Children need to learn the joy of generous giving as a part of the family of faith and the community of the church.

Coming to Worship

One of the foundational principles that Dr. Castleman addresses is the simple commitment to weekly family worship…

A family’s commitment to weekly worship can also help many other things be less distracting. Helping children develop a stable and worthy fixed center for their lives is invaluable in a culture with exhaustive options. “Over-choice” is a less-than-helpful reality of children who experience burnout from a myriad of things meant to enrich their lives…”

Often times many of the challenges that come with parenting in the pew can be addressed easily once kids realize that attending worship is non-negotiable.

Simplifying Sundays

Focusing our attention on genuine worship can be difficult on a good day. The expectations that come with after-church activities can be distracting…

I always try to keep Sunday simple. Breakfast is juice and rolls or doughnuts that we don’t have other days of the week. I don’t prepare a special lunch or leave anything cooking in the oven…

Keeping Sunday simple can help keep the day special for God too. We need to recapture God’s intention for setting aside time for community worship as a part of the Lord’s Day…

This is a practical chapter in a practical book, but it underscores the simplicity and common sense that can, and should, accompany the privilege of “guiding your children into the joy of worship.”

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