I normally like John Rosemond’s answers very much, but his column on Sept. 5 provoked me to write this rebuttal. Here’s the question and his response:
    Q: We’re having a discussion in our church about when it’s appropriate to allow children to sit with their parents during worship. What is your recommendation?
    A: The folks in your church may be wasting their time and energy. This issue has nothing to do with age. A child should not be attending worship services (assuming they are not exuberant occasions) until he or she is able to sit reasonably still for an hour or more and pay reasonable attention. Church is not where children should be disciplined.
    It’s possible that Mr. Rosemond has fallen into the popular thinking these days that says, "The best place for children at church is with other children, not with their parents." Perhaps some of my 13 readers believe that is true as well. I think the best arbiter for this argument is the Bible itself.
    Why did Paul write his letters to the churches? So that those letters would be read in the churches, right? He certainly did not expect the elders of each church to meticulously copy each letter they received from Paul by hand and disseminate a copy to each family. This was an oral-based culture, after all, and the people expected to be taught by hearing. Paul wrote each letter and sent them to the churches. A leader of the church would stand on the Lord’s Day and read the letter to the congregation. It stands to reason, then, that everyone whom Paul addressed in his letters would be present in the church meetings. Right? OK, so get your Bible and look up Ephesians 6. You will remember that Paul addressed wives and husbands in chapter 5 with some very important instructions. Now see who he addresses in chapter 6: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." What? Why does Paul put that in the letter, when he knows good and well that the Ephesian church is cutting edge? They have the rockingest children’s program in the whole region! People come from miles around every Sunday to drop their kids off at the Ephesus KidZone, where they are absolutely blown away by the stage show, the special effects, the fun, the food, the whole thing. I mean, those kids come out of there fired-up every Sunday, and it’s hard for the parents to get them to even leave the building. What was Paul thinking? That maybe the pastor would leave the "big church" and walk all the way over to the "Dungeon" (that’s what the youth pastor at Ephesus named the hang-out place for teens) and read the letter from Paul again? To the kids? They’re not going to want to listen to the pastor. He is boooring. He is old-school. He is …
    OK, maybe I am just a bit too passionate about this subject. But my research, conducted over many years in the church, has taught me at least this one thing: The most important hour of the week for families is the worship hour. The last thing I want to do is separate children from their parents during that hour. Do they need to learn to sit and listen? Oh, yes. The best place for that to happen is in worship service, with their parents, and during family devotions at home.
    By the way, Mr. Rosemond. Worship should be the most exuberant occasion of our week. We are celebrating the King of kings and the Lord of lords.