Faith Formation

Engaging and Welcoming Children in Worship

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREEBIE: If you are interested in receiving a FREE PDF that includes seven suggestions for how you might easily engage children in worship, then make sure you grab this freebie. Click here to download our list of ideas – and then pick ONE to try and implement this Sunday.

Summer = Party Time!

During the summer months, many of our churches get a little more creative. Because of this seasonal flexibility, it can be a great time to try something new that will help welcome and engage children in worship. Maybe you’ve moved to a different worship schedule, gone more lax in attire, are testing out new ways of doing liturgy, or have guest preachers in the pulpit. It’s summer! Party time!

So, we’ve thought up one thing you can try out this Sunday. We hope it’ll help you welcome and engage children who come through your doors.

Simplify

It can be overwhelming to think about incorporating one of those “Top 20 Changes You Must Make” articles to engage children in worship. I don’t know about you, but making twenty changes to anything is too much for me to think about. This can also be difficult for leaders to implement. It’s often confusing for parents and their kids, too. And, really, who wants more difficulty and confusion?! Not me.

Engage Children in Worship Beyond Entertainment

To truly engage children in worship, we have to move our thinking beyond entertaining them. Simply keeping them occupied may keep them quiet. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t accomplish the goal of welcoming, engaging and teaching them.

Engage Children in Worship

As children participate in worship they learn how a life of faith looks and feels. We are experiential creatures as humans. The children will take with them how they were involved in worship as they grow and look back on their faith journey. So, it’s important that worship is experiential for them, and really for all of us. If we engage children in worship, we’re almost certainly going to engage the adults, too. Win win!

Invitation to Participate

Leaders who make an intentional effort to do this help children feel welcome in church. And welcoming children doesn’t have to require a ton of preparation. In fact, this one thing you can do on Sunday morning that would engage children in worship is simply to invite them to be a part of it. If there are sections of the service that would be appropriate for children to assist with, ask them if they’d like to help. Children who are active members of a congregation tend to gain more ownership of their faith journey and often possess a deeper desire to become an integral and lasting part of a faith community in the future.

The significance they will feel as individual parts of their church and their understanding about worship practices is invaluable. If you’re interested in learning ways to specifically invite children into playing an active role in worship, we’ve made it easy to download a few of our ideas! Click here to download our list of ideas – and then pick ONE to try and implement this Sunday.

What are the ways you engage children in worship in your congregation? Share what’s been fruitful in the comments section.

5 Questions to Ask Kids This Summer

Alissa Ellett 3 Comments

Faith Questions for Kids

Summertime Brings New Opportunities for Connection

Anyone else out there ever get into a conversation with your child, feeling disappointed having hoped you’d have a deeper exchange but simply received one-syllable responses? C’mon, you’re killing me, Smalls! Over the summer, parents often have the joy of more interaction with their kids when school and homework have faded into mere memory. Long road trips, lazy pool days, car rides to the movie theater and walks to the park take residence on our calendars instead. Such fertile soil for fun chats! So, over here at ICM, we’ve put together a list of questions to ask kids this summer. We hope they help foster awareness of God in your midst and enrich connections between you and the children in your care as you savor the summer.

We’ve also created it into a free downloadable PDF that you can print out and put on your fridge, or wherever you’re likely to see it often. You can download it here.

5 Questions to Ask Kids

What made you laugh today? As many of us know, work flow efficiency and checking off tasks on our lists can be all-consuming of our minds and time. Kids feel this, too, while in school and even over summer when schedules are busy. Many times, we can focus on what was done rather than joy that we experience. Try this question and other similar questions to ask kids that help change focus from industriousness to freedom of spirit. And you might just find yourself laughing at a story you never would’ve heard otherwise.
When did you help someone recently? Wherever we find ourselves and our families, we can inspire our children’s hearts toward serving others. By simply asking the question, children begin to anticipate it and turn their attention to the opportunities to assist those around them. Kids, even as young as toddlers, are proud when they speak to the good they’ve done in their world.
What are you feeling grateful for this week? We can learn a lot about what our children like by asking where their gratitude lies. They may be grateful for the longer story time before bed the night before, for example. We get a window into what they value and can cultivate more time to do those things together. Maybe it’s pizza… and who doesn’t want more pizza?! Also, there is deep wisdom in gratitude. It’s linked to the experience of sustained joy, which fosters resilience. And what a gift that is to our kids.
What’s been a challenging part of your day? Of all on the list of questions to ask kids, this is one that can lead to great processing together. The response could be anything from an argument with a sibling to missing their friends to a fear of the ropes course at summer camp. Helping our children recognize struggle can be a great way to begin speaking with them about God’s faithfulness and their abilities to navigate hard things.
How have you experienced God this week? Older children will have an easier time answering this question, of course. But younger children can listen in. They will begin searching for God in their own lives as they become ready and able to think more abstractly. If this is difficult for your children to answer, even the older ones, start by sharing with them over a couple weeks how you’ve experienced God. They will begin to understand and connect with God more as they hear from you.

What have you found to sprout fruitful conversations in your families? Share below in the comments!

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FRIDGE SIGN: We have taken these questions and designed a free downloadable sign that you can put up on your fridge or another easily visible place in your home. You get two versions: One 8.5×11 that you can just print out and hang up, and another that is an 8.5×11 with two half-sheet signs on it, so you can cut one out for yourself, and give another to a friend or other family member to help others get into the fun of asking questions. You can access that free PDF here.

An Interview with The Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows about our Lenten Family Resources

Adam Walker Cleaveland 3 Comments

Lenten devotions for families

In a few weeks, we will be launching our second series of Lenten devotions for families called An Illustrated Lent for Families. It will include devotions, coloring activities and more, for the weeks during Lent, leading up to Easter. We are really excited about this project but unfortunately can’t share much more than that for now. However, it will be very similar in form to our last Illustrated Lent for Families project.

A few months ago, I met The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows at an Episcopal event in Chicago. Baskerville-Burrows told me about how she had been worshipping at a church that handed out our Illustrated Lent for Families last year, and she was able to have a copy and use it with her son. It was so encouraging and energizing to hear just how excited she was about our Lenten devotions for families, we thought it was worth having her share a bit more here on our blog.

The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis. Good paper, pens, pencils and living the way of Jesus are among her obsessions which she is diligently passing on to her 5-year-old son. It’s an honor to have her guest blogging for us today, and I think you’ll be blessed by her comments and wisdom.

ICM: How important do you think faith formation at home is for children today?
JBB: I believe faith formation in the home has always been vitally important. Parents/families are the first teachers—not just for grade school academics but for all aspects of life, especially faith. The formation that takes place in the home is the foundation upon which faith formation in the church can be built.

ICM: Why do you think it’s difficult for parents to know where to start?
JBB: Though there are books out there—ones by the Rev. Anne Kitch come to mind, there aren’t many resources to help parents feel confident about igniting conversations about faith and religion in the home. Most of us were not raised with home spiritual practices beyond night prayers and table graces. Having age and faith appropriate entry points for engaging conversations about faith, teaching the stories of our scriptures, and making time to introduce new practices into jam-packed lives can be really daunting.

ICM: What resources from Illustrated Ministry have you found helpful at home?
Lenten Activity Sheet JBB: I was overjoyed when St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Wilmette sent each child home from its Ash Wednesday service with “An Illustrated Lent”. I love colored pencils, fountain pens, and good paper and my kindergartner loves crayons so it was a match made in heaven. Once a week we would read the featured scripture verses, talk about the theme of the week, “serve, give” etc., and post it on the fridge. Then after dinner each night, or whenever the desire struck, we would spend time coloring the page of the week (we each had our own book). Now to be clear, my five-year-old and I were not having deep spiritual conversations but, as importantly, we were making time in the day to slow down, spend time together—sometimes talking, sometimes not—and every time we opened the fridge we’d ask how we were doing with our commitment to “serve, give, listen” that week.

St. Augustine’s also used the huge coloring posters that multiple people can color on the floor. We’ve used those on play dates as one of the house activities to settle the boys down from running around. I believe the spiritual practices of slowing down, resting the mind and creating something of beauty is important faith formation work.

ICM: What made An Illustrated Lent for Families particularly helpful or accessible for you?
Lenten Coloring Sheet JBB: The illustrations are beautifully drawn and invite—almost compel—one to get out the markers and spend time with it. The devotions that are assigned to each week are easily adapted for whatever age person is in the conversation. They don’t presume that you’ve been to seminary to engage the questions and they serve as prompts for how we are called to live as Jesus would have us live.

ICM: What do you think Illustrated Ministry is doing well?
JBB: Illustrated Ministry is making faith formation fun, beautiful and creative. I’m mindful that kids don’t spend a lot of time coloring in kindergarten anymore. It is wonderful to reclaim time for being artistic which frees the mind to be open to the Creator. Coloring and pondering are natural tendencies, I believe, and ICM uses those opportunities to enter what could be an intimidating conversation and reflection spaces. But those spaces become accessible because our hands are busy creating (co-creating) something beautiful.

To view our Lenten family resources, you can visit our store here.