How to engage children and young people in communal worship

In thinking through how you can get children involved in the church you need to think through all the aspects of what you do weekly. Below are some tips you can use to get kids and teens involved in the praying, singing and communion but also some questions to help each church work out what their approach is. There’s a lot of ideas below and there’s no need to do them all each week, but tryingout these ideas can get everybody involved and feeling that church is for them.

• Prayers
  If you’re having a call and response in your prayers that’s a great way to get kids paying attention. Write it up on a screen so that older children and teens know what’s coming. Teaching it at the beginning of the prayer and explaining why we’re saying it can help those who can’t read.
  If you’d like to involve young people in leading prayers from the front make sure you give enough notice so they have time to plan. I’ve seen this done extremely well by families – each reading a part of a prayer about an issue or event important to them, or ask some members of your youth group to plan and pray together. This is a thing you can easily get young Christians doing, but it’s great to set an example by having all sorts or people up front – the older people you know are ‘prayer warriors’, youth leaders, parents, married couples, singles, international students and visitors: there are no qualifications for prayer other than faith.
  If a ‘time of prayer’ is opened up for anyone in the congregation to pray then it’s a great opportunity for youth leaders and Sunday school teachers to set a good example by praying out loud; we can show that it’s possible. If we know that’s going to be part of the service we can help YP and kids get confidence for this by writing or practicing short prayers before the service.
  Another way to practice public prayer is when praying in your children’s groups get them to pray out loud so they are used to it. Popcorn prayers are great for this in that you can start whenever (like popcorn in a pan), they are only a sentence, you can pray more than once and it encourages everyone to join in.
  If you’re praying the Lord’s prayer: use the same version every time. I can still say the one we used when I was a kid off by heart even though most translations use debts or sins rather than transgressions these days. When they know it then get a Sunday School class to lead the congregation through it, have it on a powerpoint (use the same one every time so that even the littlest can feel like they are reading it). You don’t need to explain it every week but it does need talking through at some point in Sunday school/church services or whenever appropriate.

• Communion
  You can become a Christian at any age so a church should have a policy (although not necessarily written and definitely not carved in stone) on when communion is offered to children. Is it when they have made a confession of faith? (Who will let the servers know?) When they’ve been baptised? Do they sit with their parents and it’s at each families discretion? It’ll also depend on whether you go to the front to receive the bread on wine or you stay in your seats and it is bought to you, Either way you’ll need to explain sometin=mes how it works. Are people of all ages and especially visitors going to be aware of whether your bread is gluten-free or if that option is available? Or if your wine is alcoholic or grape juice (this might be an important question for those in recovery or from a Muslim background as well as young children)? There are any number of ways that communion can work well and include children and young people; it is important that it is thought out and well communicated so that the whole church can take part as a family.

• Songs
  If you have young people who are competent musicians, put them in the band. Asking them to join practice sessions a few times before playing in a service is a good idea, as is making sure songs are chosen far enough in advance that they can practice at home.
  Lots of children’s songs come with actions. Play a video or have someone learn the actions and guide the congregation (Our whole bodies are made to worship – adults can do actions too!) They don’t have to be children’s songs either: Rend Collective lend themselves to actions very well. Can’t think of how to do actions? Look up some key words in sign language or steal the actions from other songs.
  Little ones can be given a shaker or bells for one or two songs. You may want to have a box that toddlers and carers can come to in order to keep the noise in one area of the church. Sign post it so families can plan to sit nearby and those who would find it annoying can sit further away.