Sometimes it amuses me when I hear accusations about formal worship services excluding children.

The accusations mostly come from those who have seen the errors in many of today’s established churches and have broken off to form house churches. They rightly see the problem of what children are to do during the worship service. They rightly view Sunday School, the common answer to the problem, as unbiblical. They rightly see that the meeting should be structured with children in mind.

As an answer, they meet informally in a home, keeping their children under the careful watch of their parents, sometimes letting them participate with their own testimonies or prayer requests.

I’m not going to argue with their solution here. I will, however, cheerfully disagree with those who say that home churches are the only answer.

Somewhere between the bloated, commercial churches that so many hate and the informal house churches that so many have been won over to are churches like the one I belong to.

These churches keep the age-old traditions of the church with a formal liturgy, and yet manage to include the children in every part of the service. I’d like to show you that this is indeed possible, and that formality and participation are not mutually exclusive.

First, there is the fact that we have a formal liturgy. Children thrive on repetition and memorization – and each week, we have a specific structure and specific songs. They learn the words to these songs (or approximations of the words) before they can read, and suddenly they’re participating. Never mind that they don’t fully know what they’re saying. Just like with anything, no matter how old you are, understanding comes with time. For now, they learn the words. In a few years, the pieces will begin to click into place. I’ve heard more than once during a family devotion, “Oh! So that’s what we were singing at church.”

I have several young brothers, and they each have parts they look forward to in the service. Some like to say the Lord’s Prayer; others like to shout the responses to the questions before communion: “What is this bread which we break?” “It is the communion of the body of Christ!”

They’re able to participate because they know what to expect. Many of them can’t read, but after a little while they have a feel for what comes next. They know that the liturgy won’t suddenly run off the beaten path, leaving them stranded and wishing they had a few matchbox cars to zoom under the pews.

Second, there is the way the liturgy is structured. Every part of our church service is there for a reason, to tell a specific story through its progression. Our elders constantly exhort the parents to talk to their children about why we do things the way we do, from the call to worship to the confession of sins to the reading of the word to communion to the final benediction. A structured liturgy is wasteful if people don’t see a reason for it – and this has to be reinforced with the children regularly.

Third, each child, however young, is a full member of our church. This is a potentially inflammatory subject, and it would take a longer article than this to justify it. I’ll merely explain how we do it.

Because the parents are members of God’s covenant, His promise applies to the children also. Each child is treated as if he is saved, from the day he is born. He is baptized immediately, to show that he is of the visible church. As soon as he is able, he is given communion as a sign of the covenant.

By not excluding them from any part of our service, the child learns to believe that we hold him as part of the church, as worthy of membership as any adult. By teaching them that every part of the service is there for a reason and tells a story of how man relates to God, the child learns to see meaning in everything he does. By repetition of vital songs and prayers, the child learns the words and tunes, and eventually he begins to understand what they mean.

Christianity is a journey – a constant growth in love, maturity, and understanding. We need to remember that the children are involved in this journey as much as the adults, and we should be working with them each step of the way. By pulling them into our own worship, never excluding them, we can show them that they are every bit as much of a Christian as we are, and that they can look forward to growing closer and closer to God.

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Tim Eaton edits Chasing Hats and lives in New Hampshire, where he worships with a small congregation of more toddlers than adults. Every one of them participates.