Let the children lead

seven nails are hammered in a meandering line along a board

The nails in this board have been hammered in by the 3rd – 5th graders of my church during their children’s worship time — the worship group that, even though I have other leaders lined up, I’m having to force myself to make the schedule, because I love being with them so much.

Before this past January, my church was like a lot of others: we ended the children’s worship program at 2nd grade. I’d been wanting to expand it for a couple of years, partially because many kids that age don’t want to be in the big service and I was the one who’d see their crestfallen faces at being told they have to go back downstairs. Partially because kids that age are not necessarily developmentally ready to listen and take in a sermon; I say “not necessarily” because I was one of those kids who listened to sermons from a ridiculously young age, but I know that makes me unusual. And partially because of a unique demographic we started seeing more of: kids coming with their grandparents.

A number of these kids don’t attend church with their parents, and might not have any Christian practices in their home, so Sunday morning with their grandparent is the only time we have them. I felt like I was failing them by not offering them faith formation aimed at their developmental level. For a few years, we only had one or two of these kids at a time, which makes it difficult to have a program for them. But we’ve grown, and now there are over a dozen regularly-attending kids between 3rd and 5th grade. And then I got hired as Children’s Ministries Coordinator, and things that were overwhelming to me as a volunteer, became possible. #HolySpiritTiming

So in January we started the group even though we didn’t have a program. I lead every Sunday and searched for a curriculum. I found one, but it was too extensive to put into effect quickly, so I found an interim that I love so much that I’m going to combine it with the other curriculum in the fall.

I won’t give it up because the kids lead almost the whole thing.

We use a book on family worship, Teach Us To Pray, by Lora A. Copley and Elizabeth Vander Haagen. It has a Scripture-based liturgy for every day of the year, but we mostly use the Sunday ones. The liturgy is broken down into 7 or 8 moments, most of which the kids lead. When we first sit down together, we decide who’s going to do what, and then we go through it.

The first thing is a physical act that brings us into a worship mindset and is a representation of something about the liturgical season.This is an important moment, not only because they are good reminders, but also because it gives kids who aren’t as confident reading aloud a way to lead.

Before Lent, one child lit a candle and led us on a stroll around the room to remind us that Christ is the light and we are to follow him. And some of those kids led us around and around and around until Miss Natalie had to whisper, “I’m getting dizzy. Are we going to sit down soon?” During Lent, one (or sometimes more) kid hammered a nail into a piece of wood to remind us that Jesus died for our sins.

I’ll be honest, the first session was a nightmare of questions and interruptions and interjections and we didn’t even make it past the Bible reading. And I usually had to whack the nail one more time so it wouldn’t be wobbly enough to tempt twitchy little fingers. And we wind up on some crazy tangents during the discussion portion. But when I recently ended the prayer without transitioning to the kid-led portion, they let me know, and I corrected my error. There’s something very right about this program if kids are objecting when we don’t go through the whole thing properly. It makes me glad.

It also makes me sneaky. You see, we’re also training kids to be involved in leading worship from a young age, so that when the time comes to lead the wider church, they’ll already have practice. Which is good, because the worship committee wants to have 5th Sundays as youth emphasis services, and I think those work better when there’s regular leadership development.

This past Sunday, I got to see all that in action in a minor way. I wound up being double-scheduled with my preschool and 3rd-5th grade worship rooms; there weren’t a lot of kids on that last Sunday of Spring Break, so I combined them. The two older kids hammered the nails into the board and did a reading in the middle of my felt board story, and it felt really good. I got to watch the little kids looking up to the big kids, and I got to watch the big kids showing the little ones how it’s done.

And it was well with my soul.

 

 

 

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