Family Friendly Worship
Activity Bags during worship
Post-it-notes, stickers, crayons in ziplock bag, small activity pad, small clipboard to put the colouring pages, word searches on. Plastic animals or figures, small hand puppets or small animals, duplo lego blocks.
Pipe cleaners are amazing, fun for little ones and open ended enough for older kids, inexpensive and reusable.
Children love church when there's something for them www.sermons4kids.com have puzzles and children's bulletin to tie in with most scripture themes.
Include children in worship
Be intentional about including short relevant prayers for kids and families whenever appropriate as part of your worship service. This underline the reality that God is there with you, actively involved.
- Invite a child to read a prewritten prayer to pray for the service they'll be part of or before the kids leave the service for their program.
- Ask a family to prepare a prayer and each have a part in praying it in church.
- When someone shares a need (like 'We went to see Grandma in hospital yesterday') say 'Let's pray about that' and say a simple sentence prayer. Sometimes ask 'Would someone like to pray for (Joe's) Grandma now?'
- Start a prayer followed by a silent time for kids to complete the sentence, eg 'Lord, please help our family to...'
Recently I was at a corps where each week the worship leader intentionally includes the children (especially the younger ones) in worship, the children bring along their toy guitars and come out the front and dance as the whole congregation sings their worship songs.
What I notice happening is:-
- The children are natural, free, spontaneous and open in their worship.
- The adults relax and seem comfortable as they sing.
- Everyone is smiling and enjoying God.
- I’m sure God is smiling.
It’s important for children to see adults worshipping. There are times when all generations are to stand before God together. 2 Chronicles 20v 13 “And all Judah stood before the LORD, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.”
Allowing children to praise Jesus and to be able to hear from God themselves is a wonderful sign of their developing spiritual maturity.
Sometimes by our attitudes, we say, “If you come to worship with us, you must sit quietly and stop talking. One day you will be able to join us fully, when you can understand what the officer says and when you can behave exactly like us”.
However, Jesus said “unless we change and become like little children we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven” Matthew 18 v 12-14
God wants every child to be saved, He doesn’t want any of these little ones to be lost.
He wants children to be part of the church family, sharing the fun and helping with the responsibilities. Children are active members of your corps.
There are plenty of opportunities in our corps where children can serve Jesus. All they need is encouragement and training. Encourage children to pray. They can lead games, discussions, worship. They can give their testimony and share the Gospel with others.