Imperfect Worship (Friday Devotional)

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”

- Matthew 19:13-14

This past Sunday, our children’s ministry held a “Welcome to Worship” weekend in which our church’s ministerial staff walked through what it means to worship and gave the kids some resources to help them stay engaged during the worship service (especially the sermon…the pastor can be kinda boring sometimes!) As the capper to the weekend, the children led the congregation in worship on Sunday morning, doing everything from reading Scripture to praying to singing in the choir and more.

Something I didn’t fully comprehend until it was happening was just how many moving parts there would be when you put children in charge of something that adults normally handle. And let’s face it, kids aren’t necessarily as predictable as adults, even when they’ve been trained how to do something.

As a result, the service wasn’t quite as tight as usual on Sunday. Transitions from one element of worship to the next were sometimes a bit halting. Passing the offering plate required some extra direction. And despite the best efforts of their parents, there was a bit more whispering and movement during the sermon than on a normal week.

If you were watching the service like a judge at the Olympics, there were some obvious imperfections. But none of them seemed to matter to anyone—not the kids, not the congregation, not me. And certainly not the Lord.

After all, Jesus is the one who told his disciples to let little children—messy, noisy, unpredictable children—come to him, because the kingdom of heaven belonged to them. In that moment and many others, Jesus seemed less worried about order than love.

There’s a lesson there for us grownups, who place a high value on procedure and decorum and optics. Jesus wants us to worship in spirit and in truth more than he wants us to hit our marks. He values our sincerity, not our performance. He cares more about the depth of our faith than about how it looks.

That children-led worship service was a lot like the kids who led it. It was a little noisy, because it was joyous. It wasn’t always smooth, because the kids are still learning. In a technical sense, it had its share of imperfections. But in the Lord’s eyes, I think it was just about perfect.