This article was first published by The Critic and is reproduced by kind permission.
During my years as a Presbyterian minister, I have learned an important truth about first-time fathers. It’s this: if Dad is a football fan, he will without fail buy his son or daughter a baby-sized team strip. Then as soon as the little one is up to it, he will start to take him or her along to games. If being a parent means anything, it means teaching your children from their earliest days to love what you love.
If there is one thing which has typified the collapse of confidence of Christian churches in Britain in the last century, it has been the strange assumption that Christian worship is not for children. An anonymous X account went viral recently with a post (now deleted) about being admonished after a service by a curate for his fidgeting toddler because the boy was distracting the adults.
Not only is this sort of thing common, but across the whole spectrum of denominations it has become completely normal for children to be hustled out of a side door before the service has gone too far, or perhaps steered in a different direction from their parents the moment they enter the building. Or even for entirely different events, with paint and glue and games, to be put on for the children at different times or on different days. For surely Christian worship is for adults; and children will find it far too boring.
