Parenting in the Pew:  Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship

by Robbie Castleman

Taking children into a church worship service strikes fear in the heart of many parents.  We wonder how we will keep them entertained; if they will disturb the people around us; or if we will get anything out of the service ourselves.  For many of us, our goal is to teach our children to be quiet.

Robbie Castleman helps us to re-think our approach to having kids in corporate worship.  She challenges the idea that children should be taken out of the service for alternate programming.  Instead she helps us see the value and importance of helping our children experience God in worship.  Practical ideas and heart-warming stories effectively communicate these ideas.

Training children to pay attention to God in the context of corporate worship has the side benefit of helping parents focus on what is really important.  As we become purposeful in the training of our kids, we learn to pay attention to God ourselves.  There is no greater privilege than to enter the house of our heavenly Father and saying, “Daddy, I would like you to meet my children.”(P. 21)

Suggestion: order copies of this book and get together with others in your church to discuss and reflect on its contents.

Review by Jan Mutter