Let's be honest. Anyone who has taken children to worship and said things like this, or at the very least thought them. When I leave worship, I want to feel fed for the week ahead. Refreshed, renewed. However, worshipping with children often drains me more. It's hard work. When my boys were young, I had thought it would get better as they became school age. On some Sundays, it is better. On other Sundays, it's more difficult.
Let's face it, worshipping with children is tough. It's hard work. We often wonder if it's worth the effort. Maybe we should just stay home. After all, we could just worship on they days that the children can conveniently be carted off to Sunday School. The attempt to worship in the midst of a fear that your child will rip the pages in the hymnal, ask an inappropriate question too loudly, make you appear like a poor parent, drop a toy into the pew in front of you, laugh/scream/cry during a moment of silence can feel like it isn't worth the effort.
IT IS!!!
In the middle of a Holden Evening prayer service one evening, I was becoming very frustrated with my then 7 and 10 year old boys. I could understand the 5 and almost 2 year old playing and lack of participation, but surely the two older boys were capable of more. Yes, we were in an informal setting, yes it was a family style event, but come on boys! Get out from under the chairs, and quite playing with the battery operated tealight candles. My frustration and annoyance was peaking and I bent low to tell them to get off the floor and worship with us when I saw what they had been doing. They had taken the extra battery operated tea lights under the chairs and with them built an illuminated cross. They had huge smiles of accomplishment and asked if I liked their cross. Later, the 7 year old told me that they built a cross with candles because Jesus is light.
Let's not forget the times that each of my boys has "baptized" himself or a brother in the bathtub.
What had looked to me like play was them worshipping. Did their worship look the same as mine? No, but should it? The teacher with a master's degree in education knows how important developmentally appropriate learning, not to mention the immense need that children have for hands-on, concrete learning opportunities before they can move to abstract concepts. The early childhood educator in me is well aware that many children learn best through play and movement.
So why is it that I KNOW all these things and even applied them into my years of experience as a teacher, but fall short when giving my children worship opportunities. In the last year and half, I have left classroom teaching and now serve as the Director of Faith Formation at our family's church. This has made me more mindful of trying to provide my children with authentic, age appropriate worship experiences like our family summer worship experience planned with the kids where offering included them choosing a toy to donate, a message delivered by a 9 year old, and where the body and blood of Christ was served to all, including the dogs, in the form of saltine crackers and grape Kool-Aid. There is no doubt in mind the Jesus was there in our backyard that Sunday morning as much as He was in any sanctuary space. My children enjoyed our non-traditional yet traditional worship service immensely and look forward to making it a summer tradition.
While our backyard worship was an awe-spiring experience for our family (and Wookie and Ewok, our family dogs), how feasible is it to bring this type of experience to the whole congregation? If we leave it to parents, how equipped do they feel to plan and lead this type of service themselves?
I can plan and lead the best Sunday School units in the world, the most engaging VBS experience ever and still fall short to give the families I serve what they thirst for. Authentic, engaging, worship opportunities for the family to experience together. A common experience they could talk about together beyond Sunday morning. A tool that helps them take their faith beyond Sunday morning, into the rest of their week. As amazing as that sounds, how on God's great Earth is that ever going to happen?
When I first took my idea to the Pastors and worship coordinator at my church, I suspected there was a good chance it would be shut down. I was elated when it was embraced and I am ecstatic, but nervous, to have our model of worship go live for a trial run this coming January. After the holiday season, we will be inviting our whole congregation to worship in multi-generation and interactive style. We have named this maiden voyage of our interactive worship "January Journey with Jesus". Beginning with the first Sunday in January, we will journey with Jesus from his infancy through His baptism.
What does it mean to have in interactive worship service? The best way I can think to describe it as as a Sunday School meets worship collision. We will begin with traditional worship elements, including gathering music, Word and prayer. When the service gets to the place where a sermon would normally be, people will be invited to choose from a host of stations. Each week, people will be able to worship and learn in a way that they are drawn to whether it be creating a craft, trying a science experiment, playing a game, participating a Pastor led discussion about the scripture, doing a crossword or reflecting on a series of images projected. As our activity time draws to a close, we will regather as a community to round out our worship experience with more traditional worship elements including Holy Communion, music and a blessing.
As I mentioned, I am eager, ecstatic and also quite nervous to try this style of worship with our whole congregation. I am praying that God will help us all to keep open minds while giving us faith like a child so we too can be drawn closer to Him through this process while also inviting the youngest worshippers closer too.
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