Getting Started with Need

 by Pastor Paul Cannon

For Pastor Carrie Smith and me, this whole thing started with a conviction: kids need to be in worship.  'Need' might sound like a strong word here.  Some might say 'ought to,' others might prefer 'should,' but such legalistic terms may be part of the reason so many kids rebel against religion in the first place.  It's a struggle almost all Christian parents go through at some point in their lives. Maybe you have been a part of this conversation before:

"Mom, Dad, I don't want to go to church" 
"You are going to church if I have to drag you there."

Or as my mother was fond of saying "You have two choices.  You can go to church and like it.  Or you can go to church and not like it."  Let's just say that most Sundays I chose option B.

It's the way of the teenager - a constant struggle for power and control over the great tryant known  as 'Mom' or 'Dad.'  This power struggle occurs at nearly every phase of life for teenagers - what they can and can't wear to school, what friends they should be hanging out with, how late they can stay up, which websites they can and can't go on...the battle rages on.

It's little wonder that church is one battle that parents don't want to fight.  Sunday is supposed to be a day of peace and rest.  Why start it off by dragging their children kicking and screaming someplace they don't want to be? 

For Pastor Carrie and me, the answer is simple: kids need worship.
You might ask yourself, "Need?  Really?  They need to mumble along to fifteenth century hymns, awkwardly chant the psalms off key and snooze through the droning of a terribly dull homily on the hermeneutics of the Trinity?"
Well, not that exactly.  It's not what they do in worship that makes it so valuable.  It's what God does.

Whether your kid is a four year old eating Cheerios out of a plastic bag or a fourteen year old in the throngs of puberty, they need God.  They need love, forgiveness, mercy and grace just as much as any other person in the pew.  Worship, whether we are aware of it or not, is the place where we come together as a community to receive these gifts from God....in bread...in wine...in water...in word.

That's where our conversation needs to begin.  It's not about what they want. It's not about what we want.  It's not about what's easiest or most convenient.  It's about what they need; it's about what we need: a connection to the source of life and a connection to a community that finds itself in need of the cross.