So here's my question for anyone brave (yes, this is a challenge) enough to respond...
How do we ballance the need for kids to have kid-friendly environments and God-experiences, Kid-kind-of-Worship geared for kids, to God, with the need for kids to be with their families and other generations, engaged, not ignored, participating in true multi-generational Worship?
I strugle with the idea that kids aren't learning to "do" communion with thier parents or grandparents. Don't get me wrong, I love it when we do communion in the Children's Worship Center! Last month when all the the Kidmo mentors served each of their kids it moved my soul. But the disconect that I see with parents and kids as well as the rest of the congregation nags at my heart. I can remember being a 5 year old talking to my mother about how I was ready. I knew what it meant, Jesus choosing to shed His blood for me, my sin. I was ready to do this thing to remember with the rest of the Christian body. I remember learning at some level that is hard to exactly discribe, as a 5 year old that I belonged to this body. I was a follower just like the old lady in the front pew, just like the teenager in the back, just like Peter, or John right there with Jesus.
How can we balance this? Can we? Is it all one way or the other? In your minds eye, how do you see it? What was it like for you as a child?
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4 comments:
The Children's Message was a way we used to at least try to integrate children into "big church". I still miss it, myself.
What if one (or more) of the praise songs at 8 and/or 9:30 had motions that the children could come forward to the front of the worship center and do with a leader from the praise team (or wherever)? Just a thought. I'll keep thinking.
And just because I said something, it doesn't mean that everyone else is off the hook. Write comments! Make suggestions! Own your congregation and what it does! Go God!!
Truly, I think that we adults have it wrong. We are the ones that need to come to Jesus as "little children" - we need the interactive hands-on approach to our relation with God as much as the kids do. I have long felt that "big church" should look more like "little church" and not the other way around. Jerry
AMEN, brother Jerry! You are preaching to the choir. How do we start to do that?
Dana
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