The Worshipping Community

ministerial gifts to offer the congregation. We take this concept further than most by claiming that, whether or not they are baptized (and in most Baptist churches they are not), children, too, are members of the body of Christ and as such they have gifts to share. They have a need to worship God, a need that isn’t met by taking them out of the service to engage in Sunday school activities (however excellent the activities). We believe that faith is not something we get when we have learned enough doctrine, but is a gift from God, encouraged and nurtured by exposure to the patterns of the faithful. Children and other catechumens obtain this exposure primarily by standing alongside the faithful as they engage in worship; the relationships they build there will carry into all other aspects of church life.

For their sake and ours, children are

full participants in our worship service at South Yarra. To enable this, we have had to interrogate our worship practice and find ways to enable their participation, and we have had to be honest about the parts of the service that don’t work for them. Overall, we have added more music, movement and

activity to our service to encourage their participation; we have provided activities for them to do during the service; and we have changed some of our views on what constitutes a worshipful stance. We have largely experienced

the participation of children in the worship

Children have a need to worship God.

service as a great gift. We included them primarily for their sake, but the rewards have been abundant. In their freedom of movement, children have given us permission to move around the service more freely ourselves. In their avid curiosity and absorption, we have been challenged out of our distraction and encouraged to pay attention. In their hugs and in the way they welcome others each week, they have modeled loving, pastoral care. In their absolute trust, they demonstrate very real faith.

Their presence has reminded us that Jesus came to us as a real

Above: Young and old at worship in Rwanda

Facing page: Children play an important role in worship at the South Yarra Community Baptist Church in Melbourne, Australia

little baby

who cried and wore nappies and kept his parents up at nights. That as a grown man he welcomed little children, encouraged them to draw near and instructed his disciples to become more like them – with all their irruptions into the silence, difficult questions, vulnerability, wonder, trust,

unquestioning love and ecstatic

expressions of joy. We are all children in God’s eyes. For us as church leaders, the challenge is to take seriously the needs and gifts of all of the children of God – young and old, able and physically challenged, quick witted

Left: Worshippers at the 2015 Baptist World Congress in Durban, South Africa

churches is to leave the use of hymnbooks altogether

them with

An ever-increasing tendency in most and substitute

memorized texts or song sheets. In more affluent churches, projectors and screens are used for the lyrics. Even though this is a time of abundant

T

The Lost Art of HYMN SINGING By Joel Sierra Cavazos

he impact of the “praise and worship” style has been tremendous in evangelical churches, such as in Latin America. It has shifted discussion from more pressing issues (those of the relevance of worship for the renewal of the mission of the church) into whether or not churches should adopt this or that form of singing and dancing or whether this or that instrumental ensemble is more suited for worship. Many churches have substituted the pulpit for a drum set in the center of the front stage, thus signifying that centrality of the worship gathering has moved from the Word of God proclaimed and celebrated to the instrumental accompaniment of attractive songs during the service.

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production of new songs and hymns, there is a widespread practice of disregarding the hymnbooks altogether and substitute them with recordings from the latest “Christian artist.” This risks losing the liturgical wealth of hundreds of years of hymns and of the hymns of the global church. A congregation will lose the historical

connection by leaving hymnbooks behind. Christians will be in danger of falling into the trap of believing there is no history behind them. Spiritual pride and historical myopia can result from such an attitude. Another danger in abandoning hymnbooks is the lack of intercultural liturgical breeding in the local congregation. Hymnbooks make

available to local