Why we don't have a nursery at Providence: Part 1

            I often get the blank stare when visitors, or people who are considering visiting Providence, hear that we do not have a nursery or children’s church.  I expect that most of these stares are due to the fact that, in our culture, children are viewed as an obstacle to worship, discipleship, the mission etc. in many cases. I want to share with you over the next several blog posts why we do not have these “ministries” at Providence.  Let me clarify in the very beginning that I am not saying that your church isn’t orthodox if it has a nursery or a children’s church!  Let me repeat:  I am not intending to criticize your church or the church down the road!  I am just sharing with you some of the reasons why we at Providence have chosen not to have a nursery or a “children’s department.”  It isn’t because we are a new church and haven’t organized these departments yet.  It isn’t because we don’t have the budgeted money to hire out help yet.  It isn’t because we don’t have the volunteers or anything like that.  We have some fundamental reasons for not having these programs, and for not planning to have these programs, that I want to share with you over the next four days in this blog.  I hope this helps clarify and I hope you will take a moment to consider the reasoning behind these decisions and see if the benefits do not outweigh the costs.

Reason 1:

            In Matthew 21:16 Jesus said, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.” The King James Version says “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have ‘perfected’ praise.”  This word prepared or perfected literally can mean “to complete thoroughly.”  It is translated “mending” referring to fishermen mending or repairing or completing their nets.  It is also translated as “perfectly joined together,” “restore,” “prepare,” and “made perfect.”  So, we see the sense of this word translated in the ESV as “prepared” and in the KJV as “perfected.”  It can really be explained as “completed.”  Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have completed praise. 

            Think about that with me for a moment. So often our churches, the worship leaders, and the worship teams arrive early on Sunday, stay late on Wednesday, and even have special weeknight practices to “prepare” the worship services for Sunday.  They pour much time and energy and planning into the music.  It is my opinion that we should be as prepared as possible for leading worship.  It is also my opinion that when we do things for God and God’s people that we do those things with excellence.    Much time and effort is put forth attempting to perfect praise and complete praise and prepare praise with our instruments and the voices of the most gifted adults, but Jesus says that the ones who really are able to complete praise are down the hall in the nursery quarantined from the rest of the congregation!  Think about that a moment.  What we often view as distractions, God might view as the missing ingredient in worship…the mouths of infants and nursing babies. 

            What can infants and nursing babies do?  They cannot sing a solo.  They cannot strum a guitar or play a keyboard or beat a drum or clang a cymbal.  They cannot sing in a choir or take part in the congregational singing.  What can they do?  They can coo.  They can attempt to sing in their own way.  And according to Jesus, they can really prepare praise.  Maybe the best worshippers are the most incapable of doing much.  Maybe, the best worshippers are found in our nurseries.  And maybe, God would have them in the congregation.  It is just a thought and it is one of the reasons we do not have a nursery or children’s church at Providence.  But there is more…but you will have to wait until tomorrow to hear it.