How do you measure important?

"robust" . . . great describing word for worship! Another potentially long comment that I'll turn into a post instead.

Here's the thing. Even if you have a different lay speaker every week, 10 minutes is 1/3 of a 30 minute service, 20 minutes is 1/3 of a one hour service and 30 minutes is 1/3 of a 90 minute service, etc. A Protestant service might spend a comparable amount of time on music but what other part of Worship fills up that much time*? And don't all the other parts of the service revolve around the sermon? If all these things are true aren't we saying this must be important; this must be "what worship is all about"?

I'm not neccessarily saying it's bad, I'm just asking a question. What is the heart of worship? That's the challenging question. Does time spent and focus reflect that? It's definately the part of service most challenging for children and their parents and I don't mean just intellectually.

We have to have a sense of what worship is and agree, if we want to tackle the challenge of intergenerational worship.

*Ok, when I was little, the pastoral prayer was right up there on the clock with the sermon. But if Father's house is a house of prayer, prayer is a non-negotiable. And for it to take that much time, it must have been important to our worship. How do we cross generations with things we deem important elements of worship? Is it enough just to make them kid friendly or to plan in a way that keeps the kids quiet or is there more?

The next chapter in Children's Spirituality is coming up fast.