Worship for the generations.

How can you help your congregation become more mindful of children in services and to have a more intergenerational approach to worship? I recently read about a man who began by choosing a group of eight to 12 people made up of the different generations of the congregation. Together they studied the purpose of worship ("not their current or preferred way of practicing.") He then gave them a "worship diary" in with they would record their feelings and reactions to the parts of the service. Next, their diaries were copied, without their names and distributed to other team members. They would then come together to discuss how worship could be practiced in the most meaningful way.
The power of this approach is the way it helps people understand and empathise with one another followed by the search for a common approach that embraces the generations.
The reason why many churches do not practice intergenerational worship is that they lack a forum in which to discuss and implement meaningful intergenerational worship practices.

Question: What is the forum in your church that facilities this kind of discussion and openness? How does your church shape the services to ensure that it reaches everyone who comes?

New material for Intergenerational Events

The CRCNA has prepared a new raft of material simply called 'WE' designed to help churches create faith shaping, genuinely intergenerational events (see below why these are important.)

These are not services where children are given activities while adults are addressed, nor are they simply beefed-up Sunday school lessons. Rather around a meal, people of all ages gather, talk, learn, sing and participate in activities that are designed to help the generations mix and share faith. Each event goes for about 1.5 - 2 hours and all the resources needed are included in the outlines.

The event has three parts (with a meal or snack).


Step 1: Welcome, gathering, and building community

Step 2: Learning experiences for all ages

Enter the story through things like dramatic readings or a photo montage combined with a reading. Then live into the story as you do a fun activity.

Step 3: Reflect and praise
Share what you’ve learned, praise God in song, and learn how to “take it further” with ideas for living out what you’ve learned.

You can get a sample here.



Behind the 'WE' curriculum is the belief that intergenerational interaction is vital for healthy faith development. It was certainly the pattern God established for Israel (see Deut 6.) While our traditional  approach of separating children, youth and adults into separate groups has some benefits, it also has had some unintended consequences:

• Children and youth don’t feel like they are an integral part of the church’s life and ministry. They’re a part of “children’s church” or the “youth group.” They feel a sense of belonging to their particular silo rather than to the church as a whole.


• They don’t have an opportunity to see their parents and other adults talk about and live out their faith close-up. They miss out on hearing the “faith stories” that abound in the church—the struggles and triumphs, the doubts and deep faith—that make faith real and ground it in practice.


• Adults lose the opportunity to learn from young people’s faith. Anyone who has spent time around children and teens knows that they can be excellent teachers if adults are listening.

For these reasons WE is a welcome addition to the stable of Reformed material that can be used to build up the people of God.

Why not download the sample and let me know what you think.

Has anyone tried this or another kind of intergenerational event? How did it go?

Children in Worship.

When it comes to integrating children in worship, what is your approach? Read the following and see where you fit.

"Many congregations will claim to have a concern for the inclusion of children in worship. What this precisely means however, will vary greatly. For some congregations, this merely represent a wish for children to be bodily present in corporate worship, with no particular desire to modify practices of worship in any way to reflect the presence of children. Children are there to learn what it means to worship like adults, and to grow into "appropriate" forms of behaviour. We might call this a locative view of children in worship.

For other congregations, including children in worship means additions to the forms and environment of worship to make it more palatable to children. This is commonly done through the use of children's sermons, children's choirs, activity sheets and "busy bags" for children. However there is no essential change to the basic practices of worship. We might call this a supplemental view of children in worship.

There are far fewer congregations who have gone beyond this point to embrace children as equal participants in the whole of worship, experimenting with the entirety of worship and its settings to fully involve children as members of an intergenerational worshipping community. We might call this an integrative view of children in worship.

Beyond these congregations there is of course another grouping: those congregations which have effectively taken the view that corporate worship is not for children, excluding children from involvement through parallel programming. In these congregations, Sunday school takes place at the same time as worship, and there are frequent nurseries for caretaking of the youngest of children during worship services. Children may be present for sections of the service, but then are enjoined to depart so that the adults can get on with the "real" business of worship... the basic message given is that "real" worship is the province of adults." (By Greg Priebbenow, Toward an Integrative View of Children in Worship.)

Where are the children?
What approach does your church take? We too believe that children are integral as members of the church yet, what does this really mean for the practice of our Sunday services? What might an integrative approach look like? How would it be different to other approaches? Is it worth considering?

10 Ways to engage Parents in the Children's ministry

To keep parents engaged in your children's ministry is vital for a number of reasons. First, parents are the primary spiritual nurturers of their children and the work of a children's ministry is to support parents in their task; parents therefore must be involved and engaged. Secondly, parents have the biggest investment in their children's spiritual health. Therefore, involved parents are your biggest supporters. Thirdly, children are blessed when parents are involved because through parental participation children perceive and receive the spiritual support, encouragement and direction of the most significant people in their lives.

Here's how you can keep parents engaged.

1. A regular email update outlining what's happening in Children's ministry.

2. A regular article in the newsletter that underlines the importance of children's ministry as well as updating what is happening.

3. Invite a parent as a special guest to speak about their faith or topic at hand.

4. Invite parents to volunteer to provide food or do other acts of service at the children's ministry.

5. Create a roster of parents to pray for the children's ministry. If possible include some specific prayer requests for any given week.

6. Phone or speak directly to parents at least once a year specifically about their child's participation in your children's ministry. Ask if there are any concerns, encouragements or blessings to share; give feedback and share your insights into their child's spiritual growth.

7. Create 'take home sheets' that provide further activities, discussion questions, etc that enable parents to engage with their children.

8. Heighten the profile of children and you children's ministry in church services. For example, make sure they are prayed for (how about a specific prayer by the elder before they go to Sunday school?). Or have a dedicated children's service. Or engage children in the service of the church in such things as greeting, taking up the offering, leading in prayer, the music team or serving after church.

9. Commission the children's ministry team and invite them regularly to 'report' in church services or congregational meetings.

10. Schedule group meetings with parents once or twice a year to discuss the direction and plan for the children's ministry. Get their input and share how they can support the ministry.

Any other ideas?

Fathers shepherding children.

While this blog normally focuses on the church's ministry to children I thought I'd slip in an inspiring and practical article about fathers caring for the spiritual development of their children. It has a couple of suggestions about how to do this. It also focuses our attention on the power of personal ministry to children and for me, sparks ideas about how we can mentor children one on one.

Here's a snippet. You can find the rest at: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/07/21/how-can-i-make-sure-i-am-individually-shepherding-my-children/

How can I make sure I am individually shepherding my children? – by Brian Croft

This faithful father shepherded his seven children by taking one morning a week to meet individually with each of his children. Seven days in a week–each of the seven children got one morning each week with their dad. They prayed, read scripture, talked, and read a book of that child’s choosing. Inspired by his amazing example, I came home and established a similar model in our home that I remain faithful to this day. Here is what I do to individually shepherd my four children regularly in addition to our regular time of family worship, as well as implications attached to it:
1) Monday through Thursday each child gets a day and on his or her appointed day stays up 30 – 45 minutes later than their siblings to meet with me before bedtime. I thought they would be excited about it for a few times, but then grow bored with it. Not so. Years later, they look forward to that time more than anything, which provides a natural accountability when you are tired from the day and are tempted to skip for that evening.

Have you heard or used any other practices? Let me know what you've discovered or used.