After posting this earlier today, I had another thought about training our children to worship God.
"Worshipping God" means different things at different ages. Younger children, who may not know God yet, may still participate enthusiastically in various external forms of worshipping God. However, we want their worship to be from the heart, and not simply a matter of conforming. They need a clear knowledge of who God is and what He has done. That includes His nature, His attributes, and His works, especially our redemption through Christ. As the Holy Spirit enables them, they will become increasingly aware of their sinfulness before God, accept His gracious gift of forgiveness through the Gospel, and be included among those who will forever be growing in their love for and worship of God. In the mean time, our job is to help them be "dazzled" by the glory of Jesus Christ (quoting Paul Tripp). For one thing that means using more songs that tell us about God than how we feel about Him.
When our seven year old raises her hands, sings out exuberantly, and pays attention to what’s going God may indeed have done a genuine work of conversion in her heart. It’s just as possible that she is comfortable with her surroundings and is trying to fit in. True motives are revealed as children grow older. As parents, we should respond to a lack of responsiveness by focusing on internal issues, not merely external ones. Our children’s greatest need is not simply to have "worship experiences" but a come to a saving knowledge of God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Bob,
I was just referred to your site by a friend and was encouraged by this entry. I have an eight year old sister who is being raised by godly parents. Their perspective with all four of us children has been to have us in worship with them that we might learn more about what it means to worship as we grow. Such has been the case, by God’s grace, that we learn to know him more. I am a worship leader at my church here in Valencia, CA and at my church in Oakhurst when I go home and didn’t ever realized the significance of making worship in music something which could be embraced by all generations until I came home from work one day and heard my sister in the bathroom doing her hair singing “God of Wonders”. It was encouraging to my heart to ask her thereafter what she was doing; her initial reaction was a blushed face, but then her response of “I was praising Jesus because I know he loves it when my heart is in the right place.” She proceeeded to tell me that it didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing, but that we could praise him nonetheless. How challenging and convicting it was to me that we need to remember that children need to learn about what it means to worship just as much as we do as adults.