Communion Time With The Kids

I have been a part of many different types of communion services. As an "emergent" generation of followers of Jesus we somewhat pride ourselves on creativity. Tonight I was broken by such a different way of doing things. One of our apprentices who comes from the Brethren tradition took us though a somewhat similar communion service that they might go through in their church. After a powerful time of reflection, prayer and song we brought the children in...

Now before I continue, I have a confession to make. Normally, bringing children into any worship time just gets on my nerves. They don't have a very good attention span, usually they make some sort of noise, and overall just distract me from whats going on. I'm also not a parent, so maybe I haven't built up the tolerance to their carrying on and such. Through a few small ways I have been challenged in how I feel about this but tonight was different.

(no pics from during communion, that just wouldn't have felt right)

So, we bring the children in (playing a bit of children style worship) and we handed them the elements, but instead of us serving them, they served us communion. Now, I know there are all sorts of theological and pragmatic reasons someone may try and throw at me as to why this isn't a good idea, but when you have a beautiful 4 year old girl, completely loved and treasured by the Father, serving the element of the blood of Christ with the biggest smile on her face, something inside you breaks. She probably doesn't get it all and it may be a long time before she does, but there was something holy about this small group of children, so innocent, serving us one of the holiest sacraments. I was simply undone and my only thought was of the verse where Jesus said to let the children come. He has called us to be like the children, in all their innocence and wonder, proudly serving this world with a hope and love they we have barely caught a glimpse of.

So in our services, churches, communion times, though it may be a little different and they might not get it all, maybe we should let the children come.