From Strong Families = Strong Churches (Wake Forest, Aug 28–29, 2026). Scott Brown on teaching children to enjoy sermons, singing, corporate prayer, and fellowship.

Well, I have one thing that I want to say and I want to use Matthew 21 beginning in verse 14 to 16 and the title of this message is, teach your babies and your other kids to enjoy sermon singing, corporate prayer, and fellowship. Matthew 21 verse 14. Matthew 21, 14. Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple saying, Hosanna to the son of David.

They were indignant and said to him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise. Lord, I pray that you would give all of us, and particularly these parents and their children, to do all they can to find their greatest delight in the worship of the people of God. Amen. Okay so I'm here really for one purpose in this message to issue a strong encouragement to you parents to work hard, to do whatever you can to make the worship of God the most delightful, the most helpful, the most desired thing among your kids.

That's my goal. The reality is parents have a responsibility to create a particular kind of world. This is what parents do. This is what happens when you get married. You get married, you leave and you cleave and you create a new world together for the glory of God.

And I like what Justin said to create a little piece of heaven on earth. And, but this is a responsibility that parents must, they must accept, but they must understand what it means. And it actually means that it requires much of them. You don't just casually saunter into the worship of God. You've got to do everything you can to make it the most wonderful thing in the world.

And also, too for you kids, I'm so glad we have so many children here, but are you listening to me? I pray that when it comes time for Sunday worship, you're saying, oh, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. I hope you see how wonderful the worship of God has been structured for you. He did it to increase your delight. And So I pray that that happens to you.

Now, these words in Matthew 21, they're a picture of children being present in the worship of God. And this is the Lord Jesus Christ said it like this. Let the little children come unto me. He desired little children, even the littlest children, to come into the worship of God. The Bible is very, very clear about this.

The gatherings of the people of God in the Bible were always age-integrated. There was no other kind of gathering but age integrated gatherings in the Bible. In fact, I just preached two sermons about this in our church because I wanted the kids in our church who are growing up, I wanted them to understand in no uncertain terms that what we were doing in a family integrated church isn't some weird homeschooling conservative thing their parents cooked up. It's actually something that's biblical and it was the way that the people of God have always worshiped. Because in our church we really never even talk about being a family integrated church.

We just is and we just do it. And so the Bible teaches that if you if you have any if you'd like to listen to those messages, they're online. But all of this has to do really with perhaps the central matter for church life, and that is that scripture is sufficient. It's sufficient for church life, it's sufficient for family life, for work life, for marriage, it's sufficient for everything and it's where we ought to go. And if you only had the Bible, would you think that you should separate kids from the worship of God?

The answer is absolutely no. There's no biblical evidence for children's church and nurseries and things like that. Yet at the same time, There are places in the Bible where the people were commanded to bring their nursing babies to hear the word of God. And you see this pattern of scripture. This, the pattern is unmistakable.

And so there are many, many scenes of children in the worship of God. God's the designer of worship. He knows how to design it. He designed it right. You don't have to recreate it and redesign it to make it palatable for kids.

And we believe that worship is so important. Worship helps us make sense of everything. It shapes our whole life. Worship is the organizing principle of life And everything that God designed for corporate worship is designed to design your life and to redesign it, actually, as you go into the week. And that's why My favorite family integrated church pastors, like Matthew Henry and Richard Baxter and Jonathan Edwards and John Bunyan, they always preach to children in their sermons.

You can hear them address children. They told parents to bring their children into the worship of God. This is just the biblical pattern. If you look at paintings of church meetings before 1950, the kids are always there because separating kids from the worship of God didn't really start ramping until the 1950s and then it really accelerated in the modern youth ministry movement in the 1960s and 70s. I had a front row seat on that whole movement.

It was an innovative movement. It was a fad that gripped the church. And I've been saying for years, it's time to set aside one of the dumbest fads of the 20th century and bring the children into the worship of God. Somehow, we got the idea that everything needed to be dumbed down for kids. But God obviously didn't think that way because he calls the children to come into the real embodied worship of God where the real things happen.

And you don't have to dumb it down. God designed it because kids can handle it. It's perfect for them. It takes them through the stages of their development the way that God designed it. And you don't need a dumbed down version.

Now people argue against family-integrated churches and they they say well kids can't understand the preaching you've got to get them out of there so that they can you know do crafts or have a have a little Bible story. The Kids are bored in church. Kids distract adults in church. Those are the arguments. They're all pragmatic arguments.

There's zero biblical arguments for removing children from the worship of God. And but I want to talk about skills to develop and to refine for bringing your kids into the worship of God. And I'm going to give you several skills or several ways to really crank up your discipleship of your kids to prepare them for the worship of God. Now The reality is what we do when we gather for worship, there's actually a lot of movement going on. We stand, we sit, we sing, people pray, we take the Lord's Supper, but when you get to the sermon time it requires more training and that's what I want to talk about.

So I want to encourage you to do everything you can to make the worship of God a delight for your kids, that you prepare them, that you get them ready for it, that you yourself love it. So here we go. Number one, these are the skills. The first is create a strong culture of love for the church in your family. Create a strong culture of love for the church in your family.

The church isn't some like by business, it's the central business of your life. And it really begins with you. Before you can teach your children to behave in the church, you've got to teach them how to love the church. And do you think that the local church is the hope of the world? I do and I think your children should think that way too.

The Church of Jesus Christ is the only institution that Jesus Christ established in the world. Do you think that in the church we speak of the only savior, or the only authority, the word of God? Do you think that the church has the finest designer, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church? Do you think that the church has the best commands to live by? Absolutely.

Do you think the church has the best program? Do you think the church has the best structure known to man? Well I do and I think the Bible makes that very very clear. Do you think your church needs to outdo Hollywood to make it interesting? I don't.

The church is the most remarkable institution in the world. Here's what I'm trying to say. I'm just here to exhort you to bring your children with confidence and joy into the only institution that Jesus Christ, your savior, called you to devote yourself to. And to create that culture in your house. A culture where everybody in their hearts genuinely can say our family loves the church.

You have to train your children to love. And you know what? You get to train them to love all kinds of things. Parents, be really careful what you train your kids to love. What you build your kids' affections for, it's going somewhere.

And it's really critical that you train your kids' affections for the most beneficial things. You know, create a culture where our family loves the people of the church. Yeah, they are a little bit weird and sometimes they do really bad things, but we love them anyway, okay? Make it so that your family says we love the worship of God God made your kids that so that they could handle the worship of God and the gatherings of God's people and help them to grow and thrive in it. If your children are bored in church, I'm gonna blame it on you first because you didn't set them up to see the glory in it.

This is what leaders do. They explain what something is about and how good it is, And then they lead their troops into those good things. That's what leaders do. And that's what parents should be self-consciously doing. And I would just say, Make, we love the church part of your family identity.

Here's another way of saying it. A more serious way of saying it. Teach your children to love what Jesus Christ loves. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her and so should you and so should your family be known for that. So that's the first point.

The first is create a strong culture in your family of love for the church. Number two, prepare for Sundays. God has given you a weekly rhythm. Seven days, six days work and one day of rest. Make the Lord's day the best day of the week.

The market day of the soul. You know, actually tomorrow I'm actually preaching on what do we believe about the Sabbath day. Use the day before to prepare for the Lord's day. Build anticipation with your kids. Maybe that means you read the sermon text, you know, on Saturday night.

Maybe you did it before. In our church, we really encourage parents to walk their kids through the passage of Scripture we're preaching on on Sunday. And we send an email out every week, and they have all the songs and what we're preaching on and what the service is like. Why do we do that? We do that because we want parents to inculcate their kids and get them excited about what we're doing.

Maybe it's about a particular song. Maybe it's something in that passage of scripture. And make it a day of delight. John Piper said it like this. He gave recommendations.

Pray that God would give you a good and honest heart. Make me humble in me, give me a fruitful heart, give me a heart for you, he says. He says, meditate on the word of God, read portions of the Bible to stir up your hunger for God before you come. He says, get a good night's rest on Saturday night. You know, I don't do, I don't go to parties and gatherings on Saturday night.

If you invite me to some, I dare say, I've probably gone to one or two birthdays or something on a Saturday night in recent and maybe in 25 years. I just don't. I'm I'm settling in. We're getting ready for the Lord's Day. He says, Piper says, come in a spirit of meek teachability.

He says, when the worship service begins, think earnestly about what is being sung and prayed. Here's what he said, and everybody knows this is true, Satan works overtime on the Lord's Day to keep people from giving serious attention to the Word of God. Oh yes, Satan is working on Sunday morning. He is showing up all over the place to distract you, discourage you, make you mad at your kids, make your kids mad at you, make you and your wife have an argument on the way to church so you dust yourself off and walk in and you just look so good but you know it's not good. The devil is at work.

So prepare for Sundays. Prepare for Sundays. Be intentional about it. Number three, arrive 10 minutes early. Arrive 10 minutes early.

It can happen, But you have to make it happen. You have to be a good leader. That's what leaders do. They make things happen. Number four, practice daily family worship.

Preparing for corporate worship has a precursor, and that is family worship. There you teach your children to listen to the reading of the word of God, teaching them to be still, you're teaching them to manage their emotions, you're teaching them that they can't scream, that it's not right to be screaming. Now little babies, little babies you have to work with them a little bit more but you're teaching your children to manage their emotions from from the time that they come out of the womb. It's a very steadying thing in a family to have to open the Bible every day and bring your family before God and maybe sing and maybe pray but practice in family worship. Number five, teach your kids to sing.

Singing is commanded by God. We don't do it because singing is just some neat thing. We do it because God prescribed it. There are dozens and dozens, over 50 commands in the Bible to sing. And there's so many helpful things you can do to teach your kids to sing.

Actually, there's a book back there called The Family That Sings. It's a book that I wrote about singing. Some short chapters just to sort of define what the Bible says about singing and how your little family and your big church family can gather together for singing. One of the things that we did early on with our kids is when they were really little, we would hold them and we would sing right into their ears, you know, sweetly. And we encouraged them to hum before they knew the words.

They can do that. Teach your kids to hum the tune of the song. And over time, they'll pick it up, and they'll just keep picking it up better and better. You know, in the back of the book, there is an appendix. And Chelsea, right here, wrote in this index something about children.

One of the things that she said in there, she said, don't let your kids mock one another for the sound of their voices. Don't let any mocking go for singing. Let singing roll however it might come out. You know, we have babies in this congregation. They're singing, but they're not singing words.

You know, you can hear it. You know, it's really neat. Make a playlist of songs that you're gonna sing on Sunday and play it. We just sent out an email to our church that has a playlist of the songs with links to those songs. So teach your kids to sing.

Now next, teach them to love listening to sermons. Teach them to love listening to sermons. There are many, many messages and articles that are out. You can search for them about how to listen to a sermon. The Puritans wrote extensively about this, how to listen to a sermon.

Jesus said, take heed how you hear. And skillful listening is a non-negotiable skill for everyone who enters a church building on Sunday. I just quoted John Piper. I'll say it again. Skillful listening is a non-negotiable skill for everyone who enters a church building on Sunday.

It's a skill to develop. And Richard Baxter in his directions for profitably hearing the word of God preached in his Christian directory he says this, come not to hear with a careless heart. You know how many times have you walked into a sermon with a careless heart? It happens all the time. Resist that temptation.

He says, come not to hear with a careless heart as if you were to hear a matter that little concerned you, but come with a sense of unspeakable weight, necessity, and consequence of the holy word which you are about to hear." And then he says, "'Make it our work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it.'" Now, you know, I just am here to encourage you parents to teach your children how important that is. When they come to hear the preaching, they are hearing one of the most important things they'll ever hear. They will hear the word of God. Baxter says don't cast it on the minister to do everything. In other words, don't blame the minister for it.

You make them love it. Joe Beeke preached a sermon on this at one of our conferences a few years ago, and he gave lots of directions and practical things. First of all, he said, pray with your children beforehand, pray for the minister, pray for understanding, pray for conversion, pray for spiritual profit. He said, if you know the sermon text, read it beforehand. He said, you should ask this question, and maybe your children should walk into a church with this question.

How does God want to change me through this sermon? How does God want to change me through this sermon? Teach them to take notes and then review it in the day afterwards. So here are just some really practical steps. Prepare them first.

Second, expect from them that they heard something and you might help them by drawing it out. Third, help them to listen. Fourth, question them. Fifth, explain it. Sixth, apply it.

Seventh, repeat it all week and feed on it. In other words, make it the market day of the soul. Make it the best day of the week. Make it the central part of your family life to come to the preaching. You know, Joe Beeke says that's what his parents did.

They they made the preaching the central event of their entire week and his parents, they just jacked up their family to get ready for this central thing that God provided the church. So parents, I'm just here to encourage you to take pains and to be creative. I believe that the most important place you ever take your family is to a local church. Give your children 10, 000 reasons to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He really is the Good Shepherd, the best shepherd ever, that all His ways are pleasant ways, that he is good. Be simple and thoughtful and deliberate and inspiring to your family in the ordinary means of grace and don't think that everything needs to be dumbed down for your kids.

Yes, explain things to them as much as you can, but nail this down in your heart. God designed corporate worship for kids just as much as he did for adults. They can handle it and you should make it clear to them and to yourself that they can handle it. They don't need a dumbed-down version of the worship of God. And it should be normative, as it was in Matthew 21, that you will hear children crying out in the temple, rejoicing in the worship of God.

Would you pray with me? Oh God, I pray that you would give these parents such skill in all these areas that they would rise up and train their children, bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord and saying, oh how I love your law, it's my meditation all the day. Lord, let the word of God fill these families and let Jesus Christ be the sweetest thing to them and the fellowship and the singing and the preaching be one of their greatest comforts in life. Amen. Thank you.