What should we do during the service?

Taking Part In the Service

Just prior to the service, make every effort to have your kids visit the bathroom. It is a mystery how kids can go for hours without using the toilet. But suddenly (and inevitably), during the worship service, they have an emergency situation. Train your kids to avoid the potty parade on Sunday mornings. Emergency situations do happen, but more often than not, your kids are hypersensitive to their bodies, because they are not wanting to pay attention to anything else.  Again, emphasize the importance of worship and teach them not to be a distraction to others.

Set clear expectations for your children’s behavior during the service...

• Sit, stand, and close eyes with the rest of the congregation.
• Sit up straight and still - no lounging, fidgeting, crawling.
• Keep papers as quiet as possible.
• Stay awake.
•  Look towards the front. No people-gazing or clock-watching.
•  If you can read, read and sing along with the words. Read along in the Scripture passages. 

(It will help your children to have the same version of the Bible as is used in your church.

When your children need to be corrected, much can be handled keeping them close to you and whispering in their ears.
But if children become loud and disruptive for more than a few seconds, you should take them out of the service and find a quiet place for their correction.

During the sermon, you may want to allow younger children a notebook in which to draw. But as they get older and their reading and comprehension skills improve, begin to encourage them to listen more closely to the sermon. They will probably find they can understand more than they thought. Encourage them to take notes on what songs were song, what Scriptures were read.
They may be allowed to continue to draw, but encourage them to draw something they hear from the sermon itself.

Eventually, encourage your children to take notes and to attempt to outline the sermon for themselves. You may consider helping them learn to take notes, quietly drawing their attention to relevant points. Your child may have questions that arise in their minds from something the pastor says. Some quiet interaction between you and your child might be appropriate (as long as it is not a distraction to others).

However, do not just turn their participation into your project. They need to see that you are participating for yourself, that you are personally affected by the truth of God’s Word, that you value it for yourself.  At times, remind them that you want to listen too.

At first, interaction with your children in worship can seem like a distraction from your ability to worship yourself. It can feel like work. You can begin to resent the effort it takes to help your children and also to pay attention yourself. But worship sometimes is work. And working at your worship may actually grow your appreciation of it all the more. 

Taken from (blog.faithchurchpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Parenting-In-the-Pew-booklet.pdf)