From Pastor Steve
February, 2008  
  One of the things you’ve probably noticed about worship at Hope is the presence of children - lots and lots of children. Little children.  Squirming children. Children who make noises.  You may have sat next to, in front of, or behind a wiggly little body intermittently struggling to keep awake or quiet. You have seen parents labor to keep their little ones from disrupting your worship, and feeling far more embarrassed by such small infractions than they should.
At times these sounds annoy you. Occasionally you find them cute.  Welcome to life in a diverse church! I have spoken with many pastors who’s congregations have few children.  They say that having squirmy, noisy kids in church is a problem they wish they had. 
Theology, not convenience, informs our worship. One of the central tenets of our theology is grace. If you have witnessed a baptism here, you have seen the parents and congregation ratify God’s oath to be God to His people. Through the sign and seal of baptism we are assured that we belong to God.  God makes his covenant not only with those adults who can make a credible profession of faith in Jesus as their only comfort in life and in death, but also with the children of believers, who cannot yet make such a profession. This simply means that baptized children are members of this church and are, therefore, entitled to all the blessings of the covenant, every bit as much as their parents are. The issue, then, isn’t whether or not children should be in the worship service.  The issue is the physical ability of children to remain in a service that runs longer than they are able to handle.
But rather than encouraging parents to train their children to sit through worship - because even though it’s hard, it’s the right thing to do theologically - too many churches exclude children from the service altogether. In many churches, particularly seeker-oriented ones, children are viewed as a hindrance to the mood of worship - especially if it’s entertainment based. Young ones are warehoused in the nursery, then children’s church, then youth services, until they’re mature enough to appreciate the morning performance or catch the jokes in the sermon. The message coming through is, “Not only will we entertain you, we’ll entertain your kids as well!”
Sure, there are times when sitting next to a noisy crumb-cruncher makes you want to send them and their parents to a sound-proof warehouse stuffed with the latest playground equipment and videos. But we should not see children as a hindrance to our worship - even if they do make it tough to concentrate sometimes.