Children do what they know. . .

Play is not without educational merit.  Children practice at things and, though they might call it play (and so might we), it is so much more.  They are expressing what they know and what is important to them.  They are also rehearsing for their future as husbands, wives, employees, employers, and, yes, Christians who worship the Lord on the Lord's day in the Lord's House.

Children do what they know.  If your children are not play acting church or mimicking what they experience in worship, could it be that they do not know the things of God and His house well enough for them to rehearse them in play?  I well recall my children belting out the ordinary of the Divine Service while we would drive on long trips or hymn stanzas they knew (I Am Jesus Little Lamb) and speaking the parts of the Divine Service (even the parts reserved for the pastor).  It was because they knew them.  I did not intend for them to do this or even ask them to but it was natural.  They were in the Lord's House so often that the words that came easiest to their hearts and minds were the words of the liturgy and the prayers of the faithful.  God bless them.

I certainly do not hold myself up as a perfect parent and, truth to be told, while they were in the pew it was their mother who sat with them while I was in the chancel.  But I am proud of the fact that they knew the things of God and His house so well that they were embedded in their hearts and minds and these became the songs they turned to for comfort and in joy as well as the familiar routines of the liturgy their play.  Would that it could be said of all children that they knew the things of God and His house so well, they rehearsed them in play in preparation for the day they would stand before the Lord with the rest of the baptized!  Children do what they know.  Pray that they know well enough the things of God and His house so that they will do it at home and wherever they are!