Tag: worship

Let the children come to me.

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When was the last time you went someplace that intimidated you?

Maybe it was a party where you didn’t know anyone except the host.

Maybe you were taking a toddler to a restaurant or a family wedding.

Maybe you were starting a course, and had to navigate a classroom and classmates for the first time in a while.

Whatever it was, can you remember how it felt to walk in? Can you remember some of the questions that went through your head?

What if nobody talks to me? What if I do something wrong, and obviously wrong, and everyone can see I don’t belong? What if my kid doesn’t behave? What if they need the toilet? Where will I put the pram? Will I know where to sit? Are there unspoken rules that I won’t know?

That’s what’s going through the minds of many young families as they come to church.  Just think of it – the service might be new and unfamiliar, the people are strangers, the atmosphere might be hushed and reverent (and they have a toddler!), and yet their desire to be a part of it, and for their child to know Jesus, is strong enough for them to brave crossing the threshold into your building.

And what happens next?

Do they find a place that puts their fears to rest? Or do they find a place that extinguishes whatever spark brought them there in the first place?

While no church is going to be the right fit for every family that visits once, there are some things you can do to help make new families feel welcome from the start.

  1. Have somebody in your welcome team every week whose job it is specifically to be there for children and families. They should know, by name, the children who come regularly, and greet them. They should know where the nappy changing facilities are, where Sunday School meets and when it starts (if you have Sunday School) and be able to inform parents of any special provision you have for kids – worship bags, a Pray and Play corner, etc.
  2. Have space available in the church for small children to move around. A toddler stuck in a pew will wiggle and make noise and it’s likely that without intervention, this will escalate to a point where the child will need to be taken out. This means the parent will miss part of the service AND feel self-conscious about their child’s behaviour. If you have a children’s corner in the church, parents can move there at the start of the cycle, and nip the escalation in the bud. Ideally, the children’s corner should have a sightline to the altar, and should be filled with spiritually imaginative toys, not secular ones. But if you have no money and all you have are Thomas the Tank Engine toys, start with that – it’s definitely better than nothing!
  3. Many parishioners who seem unwelcoming to children fit into one of two categories. Either there are pastoral reasons why the presence of young children is upsetting (for example, someone who desperately wanted grandchildren and is coming to terms with not having them) or they’re worried that the presence of children and families means the church is going to lose something they value and love, and that is important to them, spiritually (e.g. a strong choral music tradition, a sense of peace and tranquility). When you receive a complaint about the children “making noise,” try to find out what that parishioner is really saying, and minister to that. It may at times be necessary, however, to address the common unconscious belief that many people have – including parents – that children are, primarily, “visitors at an adult event,” who are welcome “as long as they behave.” This thinking causes some parishioners to resent every noticeable sign of the presence of children as taking away from “my” worship experience, and it also has the effect, when parents internalise it, of causing them to focus on getting their child to “behave” rather than helping them actually engage in worship.  This article on Whispering in Church is a brilliant starting point for helping parents engage children in worship rather than just try to get them to be quiet.
  4. Try and make sure that new families who stay after church for coffee talk to someone other than the vicar.  Research from the Christenings Project has shown that meeting even one parishioner other than the vicar significantly increases the chances of a family staying involved with the church. Maybe there are one or two people in your church who are very good at small talk and networking, and they can be unofficially “on duty” to welcome new people, find out a bit about them, and introduce them around.
  5. Does your church speak a different language?  Do you talk, during worship, about the chancel, the narthex, the legilium, the absolution, the sacrament, the Gospel, and the offertory without some indication, for newcomers, of what that all means?  When you say, “talk to Jo for tickets to our quiz evening,” does Jo stand up and wave, or is everyone expected to know who she is?  How user-friendly are your service sheets?  If aliens crash-landed into your service, would they leave knowing something about why you worship as you do and what it all means?  In other words – is the liturgy made for man, not man for the liturgy?
  6. And finally, but perhaps most importantly: what is the mood? Is your church confident in who they are, open to newcomers without feeling threatened by the possible changes they will bring, or are they closed-in and defensive?  If it’s the latter, how can you begin to change that culture?

Holy Week Ideas, Part III: Good Friday

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Today, a few questions to guide your thinking:

Who are the children that we might see on Good Friday?

Are these children from the regular congregation, or visitors, or a mixture? How much will they know of the story? What will they know about Jesus apart from his birth at Christmas and his death?

Will they be back for Easter Sunday?

At my last parish, when Good Friday fell the day after school broke up, we had several families come to our Children’s Stations of the Cross.

“See you on Sunday!” I called as they were leaving.

“Oh, no, we’re off on holiday tomorrow – we just came to this before we left,” they replied.

Our service had ended with Jesus dead in the tomb, waiting, suspended, for the last chapter of the story on Sunday morning – and these families were going to miss it.  If your children may not be back for Sunday – incomprehensible as it seems to miss that of all days – maybe it’s worth including, at the end of the service, the reassurance that the story doesn’t end here. Don’t do a full-fledged celebration of Easter, but perhaps allow them to peek behind the curtain and see a preview of what comes next.

And then make sure you celebrate the whole season of Easter, all 50 days, so they can join in the celebration of the resurrection when they come back from wherever they are on Easter morning.

(Note: if you have very emotionally sensitive children, especially young ones, you may also want to include some reassurance of the resurrection at the end – I’ve had children burst into tears when Jesus died, and to leave them in that state for two days feels cruel. The disciples didn’t know how it ended, but we do. Again – don’t celebrate – but promise that this isn’t the end.)

What will happen for them between now and Sunday?

If they are likely to be back on Sunday morning, what will happen for them between now and then? Will Saturday be a day of quiet waiting, or of celebrating? Will any of them be at the Vigil?  How will they mark the transition from death to life – will there be middle-of-the-night mystery, or will they show up on Sunday morning and find the resurrection a fait accompli?  What will those different experiences be like, and does this change how you approach your Good Friday service in any way?

Where are their parents?

Are you providing children’s programmes during an adult service, or are you doing a family service? If the children are away from their parents, what experiences, if any, will they have in common with their parents from today?  Can you and the adult worship leaders work together to provide some links for families to carry on observing the day at home – maybe a take-home activity to do together, or some talking points?

How do they experience the space?

Are they in a church or a programme room? What mood does the space set? Is it relaxed and informal – if so, how do you get the awe and wonder of today’s mystery?  Is it formal and dignified – if so, how do you encourage children to relax enough to fully participate?  Where is the light and darkness in the space? Where is the noise and the silence?

What questions am I likely to get?

It’s impossible to prepare for every question that something as raw and primal as Good Friday might bring up, but you may be called upon to address such questions as “why did God let Jesus die?” “why won’t God raise my nan if he can raise Jesus?” “why are there still cruel things like Syria if Jesus has made it all okay?” and so on.  It might help to spend some time in prayer, considering how to address these issues.

It may also help to think a bit about your own theology of what Good Friday means.

The idea of Jesus dying to satisfy the wrath of a vengeful God has become very ingrained in many churches – so much that many people don’t know there are other theories. But this theology is, for many people, deeply troubling, and doesn’t fit with the characterisation of a faithful God who calls his people time and time again, who keeps his covenants with them.  It might be helpful to consider re-framing the event as Jesus dying not to satisfy God’s bloodlust but to do battle with death itself.  The greatest enemy is death, and this is the Good News – not that God is no longer angry with us, but that death itself no longer holds any power over us.

Holy Week Ideas, Part II: Maundy Thursday

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There are many opportunities for child-friendly multi-sensory worship in this service, so I’m just going to do a top ten list! Don’t try to do all of these, but maybe let 1 or 2 spark your imagination:

  1. If you’re in a school, baby and toddler group, or other setting where you have some time, the children can make bread. There are lots of unleavened bread recipes on the internet – even very young children can help add ingredients, stir, and shape the dough. Some unleavened bread recipes bakes in as little as 15 minutes – while it bakes, you can tell the story, do some singing and prayers, and finish by eating the bread you’ve baked.
  2. Start with a bring and share dinner, replicating, to some extent, the Last Supper.  While Passover celebrations in Jesus’s time would have been very different from modern ones (and there’s some debate as to whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal), if you ask people to bring a dish based around lamb, bread, or grape juice, you have a way in to telling the Passover story, connecting it symbolically to the Last Supper, and affirming the central roles played by these foods in both stories.
  3. Why not have the congregation was each other’s feet, instead of having the priest do it all? This gives children a chance to serve as well as be served, reinforces that we all serve one another, and allows them a more hands-on experience with water and with care-giving touch.
  4. If possible, include at least a few children in helping with stripping the altar.
  5. Have prayer stations around the church related to the Maundy Thursday story – plants to touch and smell (the garden of Gethsemane), bread and grape juice (the Eucharist), silver coins, and nails (Judas’s betrayal and the crucifixion).  Write a short reflection or prayer for people to read or use as they go from station to station.
  6. If your Eucharist service will have children present, and they don’t receive communion, what other opportunities will there be for them to engage with the centrality of the Last Supper story to this particular Eucharist? How can you help them feel less left out?  Maybe you can have a bread tasting table as people arrive, with bread from different parts of the world – naan, brioche, matzoh, scones, etc.
  7. If you have a separate children’s event for Maundy Thursday, don’t lose the drama of the adult service, with its transition from light to darkness. This is a really potent way for children to experience Holy Week – light to darkness and back to even greater light. Don’t shy away.
  8. If you have music during the stripping of the altar or processions, make it child-friendly – Taize chants are very good for this, and this one is particularly appropriate for Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.
  9. Display, around the church, a variety of artists’ interpretations of the Last Supper and Jesus’s arrest in Gethsemane. Invite the congregation to walk around and look at them (if your congregation isn’t the “get out and walk around” type, you can provide copies of the images in their service sheets or on screens) and reflect on  the different feelings created by the different images. Provide blank paper and pencils/markers for children to draw their own version of the story during the service.
  10. Send your congregation on a treasure hunt – this works best as a gathering activity or as part of an event that’s not the main Eucharist. Give them a piece of paper labelled in four parts with BREAD, WINE/CUP, WHEAT, GRAPES, and see how many times they can find these images within your church – in pictures, stained glass windows, memorials, carvings, etc.  In many, though not all, churches, there will be lots, which provides a way in for exploring the centrality of the Eucharist. (You can add “LAMB” if you want to include the image of the sacrifice whose blood saves the people – see previous note on the connection with Exodus!)

Holy Week Ideas, Part I: Palm Sunday

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palm-sundayProcession:

If you have a live donkey, encourage children to invite friends to come to Palm Sunday.  The donkey can be a real selling point, and allow children who might otherwise be shy a way in to asking friends to church.

If you don’t have a live donkey, spend your children’s time this Sunday making a banner, or donkey puppets, or posters (which you can then laminate and put on sticks to make placards) or something else, for children to carry or use in the procession.

Buy real palms, not just palm crosses.  The fun of waving around big branches adds a real element of participation and excitement to this festival.  And they’re not that expensive.  If you have a large church garden, or parishioners with large gardens, you could ask people to bring in a branch or two from whatever shrubs or small trees they have, or provide branches from the church garden.

 

Storytelling:

The Passion reading is very dramatic, but many churches stick to the traditional way of reading it – a few adults standing in a line at the front.

With an hour’s rehearsal, the adults can dramatise it – act it out, use simple costume pieces – or with a bit more time, you could include children.

Include the congregation as the crowd and the soldiers. The drama of going, in half an hour, from shouting “hosanna!” to shouting “crucify him!” is incredibly powerful, and underlines the culpability of all of us in the death of Jesus. It wasn’t a few specific people in a faraway time who bear the guilt of his death – it’s the sin we all share.

 

Music:

Many churches will be singing “All Glory, Laud, and Honour” – the chorus is easy to learn, and allows children to participate more fully in the procession. Take some time the week before, or a few minutes at the start of your procession, to teach the chorus so children can sing it with the rest of the congregation.

 

Holy-Week-Box-all-contents-inside-300x300Take-home:

Send home materials for the Holy Week Box, a wonderful way of extending children’s exploration of the story at home throughout the week.

Mothering Sunday

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motheringsundayOkay, so this is a bit late, but if you’re still struggling for ideas for Mothering Sunday, here are a few:

  1. The Old Testament story (if you’re using Exodus) easily lends itself to being acted out, with no rehearsal needed.  Grab a baby doll, a basket, some blue fabric to be the river, and a crown for Pharaoh’s daughter, and ask for volunteers from the congregation to bring it to life as you read it.  Be careful that you don’t play it for laughs, though – this is a serious story of a mother’s sacrifice, that led ultimately to the liberation of God’s people.
  2. Pass out heart-shaped paper to every member of the congregation as they come in. During the prayer time, ask them to reflect on all the women who have played a mother’s role in their life, and write their names down. Young children can draw a picture.  Collect these hearts and display them somewhere in the church. Bless them, and the women whose names are on them.
  3. Don’t forget to pray for: adoptive mothers, foster mothers, stepmothers, godmothers, grandmothers, and all those who play a mother’s role in a child’s life.  Don’t forget people who have suffered from abusive mothers, for whom the celebration of motherhood may feel like an affront.  Don’t forget those whose mothers have died, and who are grieving.  Don’t forget those women struggling with infertility, who long to be mothers and feel left out and isolated.  Don’t forget women whose children have died, for whom Mother’s Day is another reminder of their loss.  Be pastoral.
  4. Think about the tradition of “Mother Church.”  This can provide the start for a great talk, or for wondering together – in what ways is the church like a mother?  How do we all mother each other?  How can we do it better?  How can we mother our community?

Pray and Play 2

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A few more images of great children’s areas have come through.  If you’d like me to feature yours, email pictures or links to cme@stalbans.anglican.org

This one shows an area focused on providing different activities for children to do at different times in the service.  This type of idea might need an adult helper, or clear notes for parents.  This corner supports the “gathering” time at the start of the service – many different items made of different pieces that can be put together.

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There are lots of seasonal ideas for children’s areas. This one is set up for Advent and Christmas (the gathering area above can be seen just at the right):

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While many children’s areas are specifically designed for Under-5s, there are ways of providing opportunities for older children as well.  Here are a few.  For the first activity, a book of the story is available for children who don’t know the story:

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Pray and Play

Published on by stalbanscme1 Comment

Many churches have children’s corners.  It’s hard for little ones to sit still for the whole of a 1-hour service, or to come back in from a Sunday School session where they were allowed to move and play, and suddenly be expected to sit quietly in a pew.

This can mean children get restless and fussy, and parents end up taking them out. Parents feel embarrassed, both parents and children miss out on the service, and worship can get disrupted by a large-scale tantrum.  Not good.  By providing a children’s corner, where parents can take their children at the first sign of restlessness, this escalation can be largely prevented.  (Though kids will sometimes kick off regardless – it helps if it’s a vicar or churchwarden’s kid, so other parents feel more relaxed about their own.)

It’s easy to make the children’s corner just an ordinary secular playspace, but with a slight change in mindset, this can actually be turned into an opportunity for developing children’s spirituality.

Here’s one I made earlier …  the “Pray and Play” space at St. George’s Church, Campden Hill, London. Each basket is themed.  We have Baptism, Christmas, and Easter, as well as a Noah’s Ark with animals, a book corner, and a small toy altar with liturgical items and a toy church.

The focus is both on the Christian STORY and on Christian WORSHIP.

You can see how the colour of the cloth on the altar shows the liturgical year (except for when we lost our cloths and had all blue for a while while we replaced them!), and how extra items are sometimes added at festivals.

There’s a poster of the Good Shepherd on the wall, and the altar is visible from the Pray and Play area, so children and their adults can still feel connected to the worship.

The treasure boxes contain items similar to the Spiritual Child Network’s liturgy boxes.

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This one was used as a “Meditation Tent” in a Holiday Club in Nottinghamshire, and therefore can be more of a roped-off space than one used during corporate worship. This allows for fantastic creativity in terms of lighting and the overall atmosphere of the space.  Note the sign, which reads, “slip off your shoes and lay down your phone, for you are entering sacred ground.”  This one would work really well for older children and teens.

You can see more of the Meditation Tent here.

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The rug here really reflects a lot of Biblical landscapes (they’re from IKEA).  Note the pillow on top of the purple cushions – it has a heart and hands, which is great for cuddling, and which echoes the imagery of God used in the Beulah Land storytelling sets.  The table and chairs provide space for creative work – make sure you provide materials allowing for open-ended creation and not just colouring sheets.  The coat hanger features Bible-based story sacks, with storybooks and toys connected to that story.  Also note the vicar doll!  The child is playing with a wooden ark, just visible to the right of her.

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pray-and-play10This was a special installation for Pentecost.  Its creator says, “in MY head the doll’s house was meant to be the upper room in this case, but with children it could become anyyhing in their heads! It’s also been house-with-stable for Christmas, wedding feast house for water into wine, anyone’s house when we talked about hospitality and sharing things in common…quite versatile!”

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The image below shows how baskets can be used to encourage play based around worship as well as stories.  The coloured ribbons can be changed according to the season of the year.  For more ideas on children’s area, see the Spiritual Child Network’s page on them.  (Wooden egg cups make very good play chalices, by the way!)

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I’m getting lots of pictures sent through with many more ideas, so keep checking back for more!

In the meantime, if you’re thinking of setting up a Pray and Play area in your church, and you’d like some help – either in what to include or how to do it without scaring your congregation and starting World War III, do get in touch via cme@stalbans.anglican.org or on our Facebook page!

Julie Goes To Church

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Today, Julie Bear went to the Teddy Bear Service at St. Albans Cathedral.

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Like many who are coming to baby and toddler groups, she didn’t quite know what to expect, since she hasn’t been to church for a while.

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There was a sign on the door that helped her know where to go.  Some churches are small, so they may not need signs, but for a small bear trying to find her way around a big cathedral, it was very helpful!

She followed the teddy bear signs to the right place, and got a sheet with the words to the songs on it.

She said hello to some of the people who were running the service. It was clear that there were three or four people all helping out, so no one person was trying to do everything at once. This meant that there was somebody to welcome Julie and show her around, and someone to set up the tea at the same time.  Different people were going to lead different parts of the service – some were doing music, and some were doing talks, and some were doing prayers.  Since this service is only once a month, it’s easier for lots of people to be involved.  Doing this every week might be very hard, especially if you have jobs or children to take care of.

Julie noticed how beautiful the building was.  The service was being held in a place that felt different from where she usually spends her time.  There were lots of things to look at, a comfy rug to sit on, and lots of teddy bears to be friends with any child who hadn’t brought their own.  Julie knew that what was going on in this space was going to be something different and special.  Also, it was right in the middle of the big church! She felt really important and like the people at church were happy to see her.

She looked around at the statues, and lit a candle, and looked at the pictures in the coloured glass.  Her adults explained to her what some of the statues and pictures meant.

There was a board showing what the theme of today’s service was, and some pictures to go with it.

The service started with Abbey Bear coming out and saying hello to everyone. Abbey Bear’s waistcoat was purple, which Mother Sally explained means it’s LENT.  Abbey Bear has different waistcoats, and sometimes has props, for the different times of year.

We talked about how Lent is 40 days long and sometimes people give things up so that we can be really ready to celebrate Easter with a big party.  We remembered the story of how Jesus died and rose again, and how that means Easter is really special – and giving something up helps us be ready to celebrate at the end.

We also heard that Lent is about saying sorry and being forgiven.  We found out that Mother Sally’s Stripey Cat was missing and Abbey Bear had hid it and said he hadn’t.  When we found Stripey Cat, Abbey Bear said sorry and promised to try not to do it again. We heard how Mother Sally FORGAVE Abbey Bear, and how God’s love for us is so big that he forgives us whenever we say sorry.

We held our arms out to try and stretch as big as we could, and even that wasn’t as big as God’s love!

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We sang some songs that are the same every time, so the children who come a lot know them very well, and we sang some songs that were new.  There was no story this time, because we had the talk about Lent instead, but sometimes there’s a story too.

We finished by putting the bears’ (or unicorns’ or Gruffalos’) hands together to pray.

Then we went downstairs for a biscuit and a play.

Margaret adds: I really enjoyed going along with Julie Bear to the Cathedral today.  Weekday worship with Under-5s can be really difficult, and it was great to see many families who came even though it was half-term.  I was impressed by how consistently certain elements were clearly used from one service to another – the character of Abbey Bear as a way in to talking about the colours and seasons of the church year, for example, and the way teddy bears were used throughout the service as a way of physically engaging children. It was pastorally thoughtful to have extra “Prayer Bears” for children who didn’t bring their own.

The fact that the service was held in the cathedral itself was really important – it created sacred space, made a church setting feel familiar to them, and put the children in the very heart of the building.

It was also good to see a team being used effectively.  I was told that several of the leaders had done different roles – first attending as a parent, then playing music, then leading the service.  Doing all the setup, leadership, and cleanup for a group like this would be exhausting, so try and share the responsibility.

Of course, the service is constantly having to adapt to the changing population – you may have a group full of 4-year-olds who all go off to nursery and then you suddenly find yourself with a group of nothing but babies!

If you’re planning your own, here’s a list of things you might want to include – some are used in Teddy Bear Worship, and some aren’t. No one service can do everything, tempting as it may be, so take some time to think about what you’d like to emphasize:

  • Using sign language
  • Songs to nursery rhyme tunes – easy for parents to pick up
  • Other music ideas: Taize chants, Bible songs, call-and-response
  • What storytelling methods will you use? How will you choose which stories to tell?
  • How will you respond to the story – a talk? Wondering questions? An activity?
  • Can you have instrumental music?
  • Starting by marching into the worship space together and singing
  • Starting by hiding an object used in worship (like a Jesus doll) and having the children find it and bring it into the space
  • Marking the seasons and colours of the church year
  • Passing the peace
  • Action songs
  • How to pray – using words, objects, silence, music, darkness and light, movement …
  • How to adapt for babies vs toddlers vs pre-schoolers
  • Using a character, like Abbey Bear

 

Images of children used with permission.