Family-friendly Worship

I’ve been thinking recently about ways to plan and create the worship experience so families can worship together. Here are some ideas:

 Organize flexible seating so families can sit together comfortably on chairs, large floor pillows, quilts spread on the floor with soft toys for very young children, etc.

 Sit near the front of the sanctuary so your children can see everything.

 Allow young children to bring a favorite stuffed animal or a Bible storybook.

 Use children’s artwork on worship bulletin covers.

 Use a children’s worship activity bulletin that helps children follow the service.

 Use worship/bags filled with activities connected to the theme of worship that help children follow along.

 Help children memorize the Lord’s Prayer so that they can join in with congregation.

 Use sign language or hand & body motions with The Lord’s Prayer and invite children to learn and/or lead it.

 Help children memorize creeds and frequent responses used in your worship service.

 Allow children to “pray in motion” — include solo or group liturgical dance in your worship.

 Invite children to illustrate hymns and then use the artwork on overhead or power point while singing in worship.

 Invite children’s choirs to share their gift of music.

 Place some rhythm instruments in the front of your worship space and invite children to use them as appropriate.

 Use readers’ theater, speakers’ choir, simple skits to give scripture.

 Try a card choir with pictures, colors, words to accompany the Scripture reading.

 Make banner to help tell the Scripture story; carry it in at the start of the service; use of colors and symbols is child-friendly, too!

 Use three dimensional concrete symbols that connect to the theme or season of your worship. [bread, tree, crown of thorns, vine, key, scroll, coat w/many colors, dove, rock, water, fruit, lily, etc.] Let children carry them in to your worship space.

 Encourage children to stand up [if appropriate even on the seats so they can see] when the congregation stands—this stretches muscles and promotes participation.

 Help children participate in the offering by making sure they have something to contribute—no matter how small. When the offering plate is passed, allow children to help pass it to the next person.

Worship that engages sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, movement, emotion, and a sense of sacred time and space, are worship experiences that are more likely to be family-friendly.

Is Your Church Hospitable to Families with Children?

Four places where churches often fail families in Sunday hospitality: signage, nursery, worship, fellowship/coffee hour.

What about the signs in your church? Is it easy for first-time visitors to find a place to park? the nursery? the sanctuary? Sunday school rooms? the church office? the bathrooms?

The nursery is where effective children’s ministry can begin and also where visitors can get turned off a church. When parents return to pick-up their child, an upset baby with a dirty diaper will trump a great sermon.

Creating effective worship for all ages is a daunting task. Liturgy, music, sermon, prayers, creeds, the sacraments of baptism and communion all present unique opportunities for churches to include people of all ages, especially children. Today’s family wants family/intergenerational worship. Churches that continue to divide people by age, that continue to send children out of worship are missing the chance to nurture the family as a whole and to support those parents who wish to worship together.

The fellowship time that often occurs right after worship, but is a term that can also include any informal time where refreshments are served and people are invited to mingle, is usually planned with adults in mind. When children are left to their own devices, they will fill up the time and space with their own games. They may run around, grab food at will, and be disruptive. A progressive congregation understands this dynamic and plans this gathering time to include all ages—with appropriate guidelines and activities for all. Chaotic fellowship times can turn-off members as well as visitors.

There may be an unspoken attitude among adults in churches that relegates children “to be seen but not heard”…to be separate, not included. How can you change the attitude from “adults only” to “everyone is included, everyone matters!”? Approach your leadership now and start some discussions:

• Do the signs inside and outside of your church help visitors know where to go to find what they need? Can the signs be read or understood by children, too?

• Is your nursery staffed with two adults at all times? Does it address the needs of infants, toddlers and preschoolers? Does your nursery staff understand that they are in ministry to these little ones?

• Does your church send the children out of worship causing them to miss singing and praying with adults, witnessing baptisms, partaking in communion? Does your worship include opportunities for people of all ages to participate both as leaders and as worshippers?

• Are your planned congregational events always inclusive of children? Does your church welcome children at fellowship times or do the adults grumble about the children eating all the cookies?

• Is your congregation intentional about children’s ministry and about why it is vital for the church?

• Does your children’s ministry enjoy an equal priority with other ministries of your church?

• If you polled the children in your congregation, would they say they were valued and important to the church?

Raise the hospitality quotient of your church by making it a place where families feel welcome to gather together for mutual, life-giving activities and worship…welcome the children in the name of Jesus Christ!

Read the October issue of Heartfelt for more about helping your child prepare and participate in worship. Click here.

How Do We Make Worship Truly Intergenerational?

Why do churches divide people by age?

“Nobody ever talks or debates about whether adults should be in worship. But we do debate whether children should be heard or seen in worship. Yet God’s continuing self-revelation is not age-specific. Your children may experience a relationship with God long before they can articulate it,” says Steve Burger, director of children and family ministries in the Evangelical Covenant Church’s Christian formation department.

Churches too small to staff children’s programs during worship should take heart, according to Faith Communities Today 2005. This survey of 884 randomly sampled U.S. congregations found that keeping children with adults can help churches grow—if they also involve children in worship through speaking, reading, and performing.

Howard Vanderwell, Resource Development Specialist for
Pastoral Leadership at the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship and editor of a book about intergenerational worship, says, “The phrase ‘all generations’ appears 91 times in the Bible. Intergenerational worship has all ages present—embodying the truth that the whole church is the body of Christ.”

Steve Burger agrees. “Who or what we choose to exclude from our worship gatherings says as much about our community of faith as who or what we choose to include. And, really, does excluding anyone make sense when you realize we’re spending an eternity together?”

What does your church do well for intergenerational worship? Speak, sing, dance, pray, listen…children can do all of these things too. The sermon is not the only way we hear the Word at worship. The goal for anyone planning worship is to provide plenty of connecting points between the worshipper and God.

Read the entire article “Vital Worship”

• As a whole, does your worship speak to everyone present?
• Does it engage all of the senses?
• Where could your worship service improve so that the whole family of God can worship together?

When Should Children Attend Worship?

When should children attend worship is a parental choice and parents—and churches who encourage or discourage such attendance—choose for different reasons.

Here are some good reasons for children attending worship:

1. Children learn to pray, to speak to God from their heart, by being with adults who model prayer.
2. Children can experience a time to be silent and present to God; a time to talk to God and to listen to God.
3. Children can hear & feel the power of our love for God as they listen to the words and music of worship.
4. Children learn and experience God’s love in the fellowship within a faith community.
5. Children are introduced to music and dance that expresses the longings of our hearts, the laments of our lives, our praises to God.
6. Children hear the stories of God’s people, and begin to understand that those stories belong to them, too.

What do you think? What would you add to this list?

A Wonderful Blessing From God

Scripture clearly says that raising children is a wonderful blessing from God. Among other parental duties, we are to hand down our faith, teach the importance of prayer, and teach our children to love God with all their hearts.

Will your children have faith? Will your children’s faith matter? Seriously, will your children’s faith matter?

When children are a priority, God smiles. In this complicated and often frightening world, children need a spiritual home—literally. Ellen T. Charry, Princeton Theological Seminary, says “We must realize that ALL baptized Christians are responsible for forming one another in Christ… even skilled parents can’t raise children alone; the authority of popular culture is too strong. They need the advice and support of the church.”

How can the church help families? How can you make children’s ministry the priority in your congregation?

1. Churches need to support parents, grandparents, godparents.
2. Churches need to honor and appreciate the work of Christian educators who can keep family education a high priority.
3. Churches need to teach adults to develop warm, trusting, safe relationships with children in order to provide moral and spiritual guidance.
4. Churches must fully integrate children into the life and worship of the congregation.

Charry says, “We need churches to turn their full attention to children, not to simply applaud them, but to lead them gently and steadily to God.”

Amen, Ellen!

Shift by Brian Haynes

Brian Haynes’ new book “Shift: What it takes to finally reach families today” was a book I really wanted to love.  After reading it, I found that I loved the premise and the purpose but not so much the practice. Haynes believes that God’s plan for spiritual formation of generations is found in “the shema” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9):

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

I agree!  And there’s a chorus of voices agreeing as well…George Barna (“Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions”), Ivy Beckwith (“Postmodern Children’s Ministry”), Walt Mueller (Center for Parent/Youth Understanding), Mark DeVries (“Family-Based Youth Ministry”), Ben Freudenburg (“The Family Friendly Church”), Mark Holman (Faith@Home Movement), Kara Powell (Fuller Youth Institute), and Gene Roehlkepartain (Search Institute) to name just some. The voices seem to be getting louder and louder saying not just that parents need to teach their children how to love God but that the church must be charged with equipping parents to do so.  Haynes puts it this way, “To equip the generations effectively, we [the church] must reach and equip parents.”  So simple…yet so hard!

The practice that he lays out in “Shift” involves equipping families through seven age-appropriate milestones “that every person growing in his or her relationship with Christ experiences and celebrates.”  The child or youth (or adult) must learn key truths to progress from one milestone to the next.  The church teaches each milestone to the parents and the parents reinforce them through “faith talks” at home and resources that the church provides.  There are church events that teach and celebrate each of the milestones and that connect parents with one another.

I see one gaping hole in the plan…the connection to community for the kids.  As it should, “Shift” describes a structure of stability for the family and sets up an environment for the parents to learn and grow together.  But without a strong system of relationships for the young people—in addition to those with their family—there is a lack of connectedness to the wider body of Christ.  Children and youth in the church need plenty of opportunities to build and deepen relationships with one another and with mature Christian adults…in addition to their parents. Inter-generational relationships within the church community are critical for building disciples of Christ.

Kara Powell, executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and a former youth pastor says in an interview in Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal that the standard ratio in youth ministry is one adult for every five kids. “My colleague here at Fuller, Chap Clark, says we need to reverse the ratio and strive for having five adults build into one kid…I’m talking about five adults who care enough about a kid that they learn her name, ask her on Sunday how they can be praying for her and then the following Sunday ask her, ‘How did it go with that science test?’ Our study shows that even these baby step connections can make a real difference.”

I agree with Haynes that each milestone is critical, each should be taught, each should be celebrated and that the parents should be at the helm.  But despite the church-based events proscribed for each milestone, we create individual “silos” around each family when we don’t intentionally bring families together to live out experiences of community. He lays out a great plan where the church and family are supported in traveling one common path (and rightly so) but not connecting with one another. Maybe I missed that or it was implied? Where are the children while the parents are in each preparation seminar?

And okay…there’s something else that concerns me.  As I read about each family’s faith talks and the celebrations (simple or grandiose) around the passing of every milestone, I imagine the “perfect” or “good” church families participating.  I’m sure there might be stories to prove me wrong but I struggle to see the plan drawing in the adults and/or the children who are troubled or confused about their faith or life in general. I’m all for setting the bar high and creating high expectations to grow the faith but again think the relational context needs to be there in order to help many of our families step into the process. Does this work on those “marginal” families or those “marginal” children within our church families? Does it draw in those from the community–a non-churched population that is growing larger and larger?

Brian Haynes is wise in counseling his reader (the church leader) to rethink how to engage families and change the culture within each church’s own context and culture. And I love the question that he encourages each church leader to ask, “How would our ministry paradigm need to shift to integrate church and family for the spiritual formation of the next generation?” It’s a critical question that too many avoid. Kudos to him for bringing it to our attention.  But let’s complete the picture with intergenerational connectedness within the body of Christ.

Brian Haynes’ “Shift: What it takes to finally reach families today” via Amazon.com

Dinners Make the Difference- A Step Toward a Healthy Family

Do you want better family relationships and less issues to contend with in your family? We have mentioned it before.  In 2006 we provided the first information that appeared in this blog about family dinner and at-at risk behavior (Look Who’s Coming to Dinner).  Then we discussed it again last year in relationship to Family Day. Now we are at it again because we believe this is such critical information for the health of your family.

It is Family Day on Monday, September 28, 2009.  In preparation for that day, new research was released in August of this year once again affirming the importance of eating together as a family without distractions at least 5 times a week.    The research shows that grades go up, relationships strengthen and at-risk behavior goes way down.  The problem is 69% of us are not doing this.  Here is a summary of some of the findings:

1. Young people who eat less than 4 family meals together regularly are twice as likely to use marijuana,  1.5 times as likely to use alcohol and 1.5 times more likely to see their parents drunk.  Of which, 34% have seen their parents intoxicated.
2. In addition to that if they have less than 4  family meals and texting, twittering, facebooking or talking on phone occurs during this time, those percentages jump to a 3 times more likely hood of marijuana use and 2.5 times more chance of using alcohol.
3. Young people who have less than 4 family meals together are 1.5 times more likely to have grade problems.
4. Young people with less than 4 family meals together are twice as likely to say they can’t talk with their parents,  more likely to have relationship problems in the family and less likely to attend religious services.

All in all the message is clear.  Eat together as a family and make your dinner table a no technology zone.

To help you with this we at the LOGOS Ministry offer three years of weekly preplanned family nights, with meal  and conversation suggestions,  to help begin the process of eating as a family and spending time together.  We call it LOGOS at Home/Family Round the Table and you can find it here .  A sample of this is found every month in our parenting newsletter, Heartfelt, under the link Family Round the Table.

We know it is a busy world with lots of obligations and distractions but besides our relationship with God what could be more important than a strong, healthy family?  So turn off the technology, sit down together and listen to each other.  You will be glad you did!  I know  it has been a benefit to our family.

You can see a  complete copy of the Study from Columbia University here.

A Daughter’s Poem- God’s Call

This is a poem that my daughter wrote after her devotions a few days ago.  When I saw it I asked her if I could share it with the world.  The LOGOS Ministry has always focused on discerning God’s call.  I am sure it is no accident that a lifetime LOGOS kid would experience that as well.

A Voice, a Call, that Reigns Most of All-by Kiersten

Do you hear it?

It’s a whisper and a clamor.

It’s a voice filled with power speaking upon the hour.

Do you hear it?

A tender voice calling you by name.  A voice that can send gentle chills down your spine.

It say’s you are mine.

Do you hear it?

In your heart it resonates, “Be still and know”

Only some may hear it.  Only some may recognize it.

It’s not just a few words, but a life calling, a way of life.

It’s not an ordinary conversation.

But the voice that in the beginning spoke the foundation.

Do you hear it?

Shhh, listen.  It’s Him. The God of the Universe asking you to listen eagerly to His love.

I can hear it. Can you?

4 Things Youth Want in Youth Ministry

So often we think we have to make youth ministry so spectacular that they won’t be drawn away by the distractions of the world around us.  However, youth and many of those who study the culture of youth tell us that is just not true.  So why do we continue to think that bigger is better and spectacular is special?

So, here are 4 things that are key for youth today.

1. Focus on Relationships- studies from secular to faith based tell us that small groups of invested relationships are better for learning, involvement, development and growth than large “you all come” gatherings.

2. Focus on Involvement- these relationships should create a sense of belonging to the larger body of the church.  Be intentional about creating  inter-generational relationships that involve the youth in relationships, leadership and the life of the body of Christ.

3. Focus on Service- everyone wants their life to count for something and to make a difference.  Young people today especially desire to be able to participate in causes that make a difference.  Use this time of service to both support the cause and build the inter-generational relationships.

4. Focus on Faith- young people are not coming to church to be entertained.  They want answers to tough questions.  They want to know whether there is a bigger purpose in life.  They are seeking questions about their faith that can be best addressed through the comfort of deep, honest, intimate relationships by mature adults with experience. Remember they are all at different stages.  Don’t try to reach them all with the same message and method.

All of this is to say, youth ministry is a serious and complex ministry that takes a lot of planning, dedication and intention.

Getting Kids Involved Matters

I was at the ONE conference for Youth and Children’s Ministry Leaders last week.  One of the prerequisites for attending was your Senior Pastor had to attend.  I went with my church and my Senior Pastor.  To set the framework, Perry Noble opened with a keynote address.  Perry spoke strongly on these seven key issues about Youth and Children’s Ministry.

1. Youth and Children’s Ministry has more potential than any other ministry in the church. (Most people make a decision for Christ before they are 18 so every dime spent on them is money spent on mission).
2. Healthy Youth and Children’s Ministry must be supported by the Senior Pastor with time and money. (Youth and children’s ministry should be one of the best resourced areas of the church)
3. Senior Pastor needs to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.  (Do you want to try to control the movement of God in young people or unleash it?)
4. Age Appropriate Environment matters.  It should be inviting, comfortable and fun.  (if it is not fun then that means it is the opposite, which is boring)
5. Keep it simple- Have a clear and contagious vision
6. Tension and conflict between ministries must always be addressed. (unresolved tension is sinful)
7. CALL (his words not mine) the right people to the right places in youth and children’s ministry NOT according to their wants and desires but according to gifts needed and their passion to serve.

We need to work together to help churches put a priority on children and youth in the church.  In the Summer 2009 edition of Leadership Journal, Kara Powell from Fuller Theological Seminary says, “At this point in our research, we’ve found that one thing that really makes a difference is getting kids actively involved in the life of the church before they graduate.”

The key is let’s invest- time, money, relationships, the church- in the life of children and youth so they might grow up to be life-long disciples of Jesus Christ.