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11 Tips on How to Involve Kids in Genuine Worship

Looking to get kids involved in genuine worship? Check out these 11 worship tips!

Children’s choirs. Children’s bulletins. Children’s sermons. Children’s church. Sounds like kids in our churches today are really a part of the action, right?

Wrong!

I’ve asked pastors and other worship leaders how they involve kids in worship. These people usually list the standard things-bulletins, choir, sermons.

Are these the only ways children are part of worship services? Sadly, yes. The churches that break this pattern are few and far between.

And the kids are paying for it. Two-year old Morgan cries when no one speaks to her during greeting time. And 11-year-old James is really in between — too old to be part of a children’s sermon, too young to join the “adult” choir. Kids such as Morgan and James need to be involved in relevant worship experiences.

In a Children’s Ministry Magazine survey, 60 percent of churches say they provide alternative experiences to involve kids in worship. Forty percent of churches said they involve children in the regular worship service. For both types of churches, involving children in the worship life of our churches should be a priority, a privilege, and a blessing.

But how can you make children feel part of an adult corporate worship service? Try these kid’s ministry ideas:

Worship Tip 1: Form a committee!

Not just any old committee, but one that includes children of several different age groups. Also include at least one adult who’ll be the children’s advocate when discussing changes with the worship committee. Some of our best ideas in children’s ministry come straight from the kids themselves. Do they want to help pick hymns to sing? light the candles? be ushers? What about having a regular Kids’ Sunday where kids do everything-from reading the gospel message to singing special music?

Worship Tip 2: Include children.

Get kids doing things often during the service as readers, soloists, acolytes, greeters, and ushers. Give them each a job and teach them how to do it. Pride of ownership is an important part of belonging.

Worship Tip 3: Teach kids about your worship traditions.

Incorporate the parts of the worship service, such as a special prayer response or offering hymn, into the Sunday school hour. Periodically, kids can learn a new part of the worship service-it’s more fun when they can join in!

Worship Tip 4: Involve specific classes.

Have different Sunday school classes and their teachers lead the prayers of the church during the worship service. And remind congregation members to pray for the children throughout the week as well.

Worship Tip 5: Have kids create prayers.

During Sunday school, have a class write a special prayer or litany to be used during the service by the entire congregation. Then allow that class to lead the congregation in that prayer or litany.

Worship Tip 6: Use kids’ artwork.

Ask different classes to design bulletins to be used for the worship service. Photocopy their artwork to make the bulletin covers for everyone in the service.

Worship Tip 7: Educate parents.

For the smallest children, print a brochure for their parents with suggestions about appropriate church toys and snacks. See the “Church Survival Kit” box for ideas. Although some people object to these diversions during the service, it’s better to make the worship experience enjoyable for small ones. A gradual introduction to the worship service is a good way to teach children proper behavior during the service.

Worship Tip 8: Provide resources.

Put your children’s library books on a cart or shelf near the church entrance and encourage children who might be restless to check out a book or two to look at quietly during the service. So much the better if the books you place on the shelves correspond to the sermon message!

Worship Tip 9: Make sermons relevant.

Encourage the pastor to include examples that involve children’s lives and experiences within the sermon. If the pastor’s sermon is about loving your neighbor, why not use an illustration about two friends fighting over a bike and how to resolve the conflict? Children have an easier time grasping the true meaning of the message when they’re clued in that it also includes them.

Worship Tip 10: Use various mediums.

Although children thrive on predictable routine, encourage worship leaders to vary parts of the service. A drama that retells the Bible story or even a puppet show can share God’s message in a meaningful way to children and adults alike. Have the children act out the Bible story as an adult narrates.

Worship Tip 11: Revamp the children’s sermon.

Encourage the children’s sermon leader to sit and speak on the kids’ level. Suggest that he or she focus on one point at a time, using props, and citing examples from a young child’s perspective. If a children’s sermon is truly for children, then it must be simple and to the point. Advise the children’s sermon leader to avoid abstract object lessons that often go over a child’s head.

Another point: The children’s sermon is just that. It’s for children, not adults. If your children’s sermon leader is using the sermon to subtly (or not so subtly) communicate to adults, gently correct him or her. If a children’s sermon is all your church does to involve children, it’s a crime to make it so heady and adultlike that kids still feel worship is not for them.

Take another look at your worship service. If you have children running cars over the pews, climbing between parents’ legs, or just bored to tears, you need to do something. When you welcome and involve children in worship, you’ll follow Jesus’ admonition to “let the little children come to me” — for they belong to the kingdom of God.

Debbie Trafton O’Neal is an author in Washington. 

Looking for more posts on worship? Try these articles!

4 thoughts on “11 Tips on How to Involve Kids in Genuine Worship

  1. I think it is essential to involve children in worship, however I disagree with you. Firstly you call it the ‘adult service’, which immediately says that it is not primarily for children. I believe that we don’t want to entertain our children in worship. Children are not disciples in the making. They want to pray, sing, and serve. They must be included as a natural part. They are included because they are a part of the congregation just as all other age groups are. It is essential that we involve all ages in our worship. Yes it’s great to have special services that are relevant to children but the next week we go back to ‘normal’. I hope that we can think more about making our worship relevant to all ages, using props, humour, object lessons, volunteers to help deliver the message. It is ok for adults to enjoy worship too and when we make it more interactive and creative everyone learns more and we create stronger communities. A church in my denomination is including children in their worship by giving them the responsibility of leading the prayer time. This started when the kids brought their prayer activities home from kids camp in April. Every week they have been leading interactive prayer for the church. The church has a new enthusiasm and joy, and their worship services have come alive as they recognize that they can minister to each other. It has bridged a gap between the generations. And the ministers are thinking creatively about how they can continue to make worship relevant and interactive for all ages. These are just my thoughts and as you can tell I am passionate about this issue. If anyone wants any of the prayer resources the children have been using then please let me know.

  2. Karen willis

    Thank you so much for your response. I believe also that all ages should be included in service. A lot of times during a lot of services the pastor is so busy trying to impress the adults with his/her elaborate complicated vocabulary that the children miss the message. Children need to be in service with everybody else. It is our job as adults to consider them. I love what I read about including them in the service by letting them be apart of the service by reading scriptures and such.

  3. Maureen Zeiss

    I am a coordinator of a religious ed program for children /teens with special needs.The children /teeens come to class once a week just like the rest of he children in our parish. The only difference is that classes are shorter than the 1 hour and half mandated by the Archdiocese. I ecourage the parents not to start bringing food and “torys” to church every week. In time wer are going to not allow these things to be brought and the kids rebel when they are older.So why start? Engage them by sitting up frone. Learn the words to the songs , encourage them to be able to tell you what is happening next quietly. I see behaviorsfrom parents and children getting out o f hand ..I’m waiting for pizza to be delivered next.

    • Christine Yount Jones

      Maureen, thank you for your insights. Every generation of parents is quite different.

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