Because of Memorial Day weekend, we had a 'planned pause' in kids ministry. Our school year team finished up last week and our summer team begins next week. Today we encouraged families to worship together in big church.
Driving to church together as a family was wonderful change from my usual pre-dawn solo Sunday commute. We dropped the little ones off in the early childhood area and headed to the worship center with our two grade schoolers. Justin was immediately disappointed when he realized that he'd have to sit in big church - "It's boring!" he said.
When the music began, Emily looked at me and said "We sing this one in Sunday School!" She was right, but something was missing without the fun motions and dancing!
Then my husband pointed to the sermon outline. The topic for the morning: HELL. Fortunately the kids picked up their pads of paper and occupied themselves with drawing during the message. Later, over lunch, I asked the kids if they knew what the pastor talked about at church. Justin spelled the answer: "H -- E -- L -- L," as if he were afraid he'd get in trouble for saying a naughty word.
Oh boy! The joys of 'worshiping together as a family!' This is what I'm chewing on after this experience:
1. Families need to have shared spiritual experiences. Simply sitting together in an adult service doesn't necessarily create the opportunities for springboard conversations throughout the week. This service was just over-their-heads. Perhaps a family discussion guide stuffed inside a kids bulletin would be a useful tool.
2. Familiarity is a good thing. When the band played music that my kids knew, they perked up and were able to engage. If we do this in the future let's coordinate with the worship staff so that they can select some songs that kids will recognize. Better yet, let's get some kids up front to help lead worship.
3. When family worship is a once-in-a-while thing, we need to be more intentional about preparing kids, families, and staff for it. I can't just look at it as a break for me and my volunteers. I need to continue to advocate for kids, looking out for their spiritual formation.
4 comments:
Excellent post! Not only did you nail some issues but supplied solutions. The family discussion guild is a great idea. [I'm thinking of preparing something that tells the parents what is going on in children's church and springboards for home discussion/activities. For all you who already do this ... be gentle with me.]
"Better yet, let's get some kids up front to help lead worship." Awesome!
Your desire to continue to learn and do what is best for the kids shows that that you are in a good place in God and the children at your church have a faithful leader.
What a neat blessing. Thanks for sharing.
Do most of your parents appreciate these times, or do you get any complaints about how distracting it is to have kids in the service?
We attend a small church and so kids over the age of 5 worship in "big church" every week. I think part of the battle is consistency. We have good weeks and bad weeks with our kids. But the more they attend, they are learning the songs and listening to the sermons, they begin to learn to worship. Once a year sitting in big church might not be enough for them to suddenly "engage" in a setting they are unfamiliar with.
Every summer our k-5th grade program closes down for 6 weeks and we run a family summer series. It's been a great way to allow the families worship together and learn together. One year we did a bunch of skits from the Promiseland curriculum and the other years we made our own. This year we are doing a series on Hero's, our first weeks sermon was titled "All Hero's don't wear Spandex". The teaching was from the story of Gideon. Our kid's worship team performed on the stage one of our kid's fav's-Jesus is our Super Hero. It's fun to work in conjuction with the adult worship team to make it all happen. I loved the idea of doing a family discussion guide for use after home.
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