On the Children's Sermon

I’m amazed that there are still people out there who think that by adding some fad element to the liturgy, we can “grow the church” by “attracting the youth.” One of the worst of such techniques is the “children’s sermon” - sometimes euphemistically called the “children’s message.”

First of all, it doesn’t work.

Children hate them. Especially boys. Especially introverts of both sexes. Especially as the children get older. They come to dread being the center of attention. As well they should. And then they come to dread the Divine Service all together. I remember one time going to an LCMS church with my wife and son - who was about ten at the time (and who routinely served with me at the holy altar as an acolyte). All he ever knew was our congregation. The pastor of this congregation called for all the children to come forward. My son was sitting on the other side of my wife. He discretely leaned forward and side-glanced at me with an alarmed look in his eyes. I looked at him, gave him a reassuring nod, and motioned for him to stay put. We talked about it afterward, and he was pretty disgusted by the whole thing - the pastor awkwardly squatting in his alb in the holy chancel, the children being turned into a mini-show, the interruption of the liturgy.

Why do you do this? It’s gross.

Church is about Jesus - not about putting your children - or more likely grandchildren - on yet another stage so that you can fawn over them and video them. And children, being raised in the digital age, know very well how to act when the camera is on. They know when something is real and something is a show. By teaching them that church is a show, you are teaching them that this stuff isn’t real. Because if it were - if you really believed that the Divine Service is a miraculous, supernatural appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament - you would react with reverence and awe, not flippance. You would focus on Jesus and not on turning the whole thing into a badly done school pageant.

I think that any church that has the usual “children’s sermon” should insert another age-based liturgicus interruptus right afterward called the “boomer sermon” - in which the pastor invites all boomers to come down front to where they can become a spectacle for everyone’s entertainment. Boomers say the cutest things, and the pastor could even quiz them on their Catechism - and we can all get a chuckle at their responses and put it all over social media. That might even attract more boomers and “grow the church.”

Seems legit.

Some people seem to think that children are easily cowed and used as props, because we can fool them some of the time. We can make them believe that stories and myths are true. We can perform magic tricks and they don’t realize that they are tricks. But children also have a good nose for hypocrisy. In that sense, they have fully developed Bubulum Stercus detectors. They see right through your acting one way in church and another at home. They see you not praying before meals - except at church events. They see you worshiping at the altar of the TV. And when you make the service about them, they know that it isn’t about Jesus.

Here is the straight talk: we started dabbling in the church-growth ouija board in the 1980s to cover up the real problems that started leading to the declines in numbers that we are seeing coming into fruition now: infertility and unfaithfulness.

Christians followed the secular culture to the demographic slaughterhouse by drinking the small-family Koolaid. “Get an education first,” we said as our children were encouraged to delay marriage. Of course, this led to a culture of premarital and even recreational sex, as well as a selfish, materialistic worldview that taught them that having children is economically irresponsible and the cause of unhappiness. Feminism taught young girls that motherhood was for chumps. Birth control and the acceptance of homosexuality also taught us that sexual relations were not about procreation (which means making families!), but about self-gratification.

And right on cue, led around by the nose by our cultural lords and masters, the cumulative effect of all of this was a decline in family size.

Also, the cultural Disney World worldview of chasing after one’s dreams, and to be “happy” above all, led the Christian faith and life to be relegated way down the priority list - lower than “education,” sports, recreation, cultural events, parties, proms, vacations, etc. Marrying within the faith was no longer even on the radar screen. We didn’t care whom our children married, so long as they were “happy.” A lot of our formerly faithful families presided over the repaganization of their own children and grandchildren. And it really didn’t concern them a whole lot - until they began to see entire pews empty as their own generation began dying off and not being replaced. Empty pews grew to empty sections. Offerings declined. Many formerly robust churches now teeter on closure, as boomers realize that they may not have a pastor to minister to them in their old age, or even to officiate at their funerals.

And so they look with desperation to fads and failed Church Growth Movement monkeyshines from the 1980s: getting rid of hymns, “creative worship,” “contemporary worship,” casuality, changing up or abolishing the liturgy, skits, getting rid of vestments, and of course, the children’s sermon.

To paraphrase Hank Hill, you’re not making children’s ministry better, you’re only making Christianity worse.

What lesson does it teach when one minute, the pastor reverences the altar, but the next minute, he squats in front of it, legs awkwardly splayed out under his alb and disheveled stole, with buttocks planted on the chancel steps? Again, children pick up on incongruities. They pick up on the nonverbals. That’s no different than telling your kids not to smoke in between puffs,

The “children’s sermon” has also led to other liturgical monkeyshines - like having a layman - often a female layman - to come forward and engage in preaching. And yes, that’s what it is - even if you call it a “message” and claim it is only for children. If you do a google image search on “children’s sermon,” you will see an overwhelming female presence among such preachers - both lay and “ordained”. Specifically teaching children can (and should) be done at home, and in Sunday School or confirmation (or early first communion) instruction. But when you do it as part of the Divine Service, it is something entirely different. It is no longer private teaching but public proclamation. And how often do you hear the boomer canard: “I get more out of the children’s message than I do out of Pastor’s sermon. Haw haw.” If that’s the case, maybe the problem is that you have been infantilized and dumbed down by not reading the Bible and living the Christian life. Just sayin’.

On a practical note, a pastor once told me that he killed the children’s sermon when he first came to a new congregation that insisted he do them. He brought all the kids down and instructed them how to make the sign of the cross. Apparently, the parents and grandparents - who were not of the Gottesdienst Crowd - were horrified. That was the end of it.

I need to put together a “Gottesdienst Children’s Message” series as a strategy to put them out of our “Missouri.” Maybe we should bring the kids down, show them how many times the word “catholic” appears in our hymnals, teach them what the word “catholic” means, and how we Lutherans are Catholic Christians. Or how about bringing in a thurible and teaching the kids about incense, and how wonderful it is to make our sanctuary like heaven, with the incense of our prayers and the smell of Jesus filling our sanctuary? Maybe we could teach the kids about the Book of Concord and how our Confessions use the words “Mass” and “priest” and use the title “Father” for our pastors. Or maybe read the Words of Institution with the children, and have them explain whether these words of Jesus call for one cup, or many, for the Holy Supper.

Either one of two things would happen: the “children’s sermon” would stop, or we would gas the fire of the current generational rebellion against gimmicks and inauthenticity in our Christian faith and life. Our Lutheran young adults are yearning for authenticity, for something more profound than the superficial American lifestyle in which our Christian life is compartmentalized, de-prioritized, and marginalized. Young Lutherans want the real deal. Let’s give it to them in spades.

At any rate, what we really need to do is once more become countercultural.

Encourage young people to marry young, have big families, quit the sports, turn off the TVs, pray before meals and during the day as families, and have dad lead those prayers. Dad needs to lead the family to church and inculcate the beautiful reality that Sunday is when we “get to go.” We need to find ways for our Lutheran youth to grow up with piety as Christians committed to the Bible, the confessions, and within our biblical and confessional tradition - and then to meet other pious young people who want to start families and raise them in the faith. No gimmick will fix this, and frankly, most gimmicks are actually counterproductive.

The one sermon, delivered by the pastor, focused on Christ and the Gospel - and a no-nonsense explication of the Word - is the children’s sermon, the boomer sermon, and everyone in between’s sermon. Preach for everyone. Preach Jesus. Abolish the spectacle, and restore the Mass.

To be continued…