Over the past few months we’ve been looking at different ways to get the kids more involved in services at church. Having all ages worshiping together is really important to us at Holy Nativity, we don’t want the young people shut off in another room feeling like the main worship isn’t for them, but at the same time its good to have their own space and things to do.
So how to keep them involved and active in worship as well as doing the activities they enjoy?
Back in January we introduced the Liturgy clock. We’ve got words and images for every part of the service, so now every week we can keep up with what’s going on while we’re doing other stuff.
We don’t have rotas, so the kids who want to can always pick up a card from the welcome desk and volunteer to help lead, and many of them do. Running the sound desk, lighting the candle, leading prayers and doing the collection are popular options.
During Lent we are looking more at prayer, and we’ve shared what we are going to be doing with everyone else by sending them home with a creative activity booklet.
There’s a prayer and activity for every week which links in to what is happening during the service, so now everyone can join in and the adults can be part of kids church.
Last week we started by building our own prayer tent. The plan is to add different ways to pray each week and it’s already proving a popular place.
This week we looked at the Labyrinth as a way of praying. Everyone got their own labyrinth prayer to take home and we learned how to draw our own and did some more decorating of the prayer tent before having a play with a finger labyrinth. Watch this space to find out what’s next, or pick up a prayer booklet at the back of church and join in.
One Comment
Pat
I absolutely love everything about this.