I recently reviewed this book at a Children’s Ministry Day held at our local church.

Does it scare you that Christian children are leaving the faith when they reach their teen years? The statistics are quite high.

Though the statistic say that of the adults who are Christians most of them made commitments in their childhood, the statistics also show a rising trend that youth are waking away. This grieves my soul. It grieves me for the youth themselves, and it grieves me for the body of Christ.

The author of this book, “Teaching Kids Authentic Worship” was also grieved and she set out to discover what would be the ‘glue’ that holds kids to Christ. She says, ‘It had to be strong enough to withstand the unpredictable journey through the teen, college and adult years. It had to be guaranteed to adhere through feast, famine, or unbelievable pain – a sort of spiritual Super Glue!’ What would it be?

Kathleen Chapman came to the conclusion that it is worship –- not ‘worship as we may have experienced it but worship as the Bible describes. If children are worshipping God the way God intended and Scripture instructs they don’t walk away from him.

The first two-thirds of this book sets out to explain the biblical meaning of worship. – With studying the original text in both Hebrew and Greek we learn that worship is about God –and His worth. Worshipping God is focusing only on God. Worship is one-directional. It isn’’t about me.

The last section of the book is a resource of teaching opportunities to help us change our mindset about worship. I think if we were to pause here for 5 minutes and just talk about God, not talk about what God has done for us, but just who he is regardless of me then we would find it hard. It needs practice and this is what these 52 teaching opportunities in the back of the book are for – helping us, who can then help our children express God’s worth.

So the glue is not church attendance, it is not Bible study, not prayer meetings, not music or singing, not memorising verses, nor faithful service.The glue is worshipping God. Understanding and practising this is what will keep our kids close to God for life.

I find this idea very challenging – being raised in a Christian home, and raising my children also in a Christian home – sometimes God, His worth, who He is gets lost, or clouded in the familiar.  Worship becomes what we do on Sunday.  But I want my children to know that they can worship God all day, at any time, and in many different ways.  I want to create a family culture where we see God in every situation – we remember Him and we give him praise and thanks.  I want my children to turn to God in whatever situation they find themselves in because they know that He is God, that He is holy, all powerful, all loving and ever present.  For my children to know this I need to be living it out so they watch and learn and live it out along side of me.

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