Teaching Children The Four Acts Of Worship: The Children's Worship Center

The following article describes an effective method for teaching children the meaning of each act of worship. Children gather in worship centers, where they lead through stories, prayers, songs, and gestures that introduce them to the mystery of Christian worship.

Our experience with young children convinces us that they know, love, and worship God. But corporate worship is structured and full of words and symbols based on stories and memories children do not yet have. For children to participate meaningfully in corporate worship, they must first experience the essential parts and stories of worship through sensorimotor means. Our children's worship centers permit this. In the worship centers, the flow of activity corresponds to the order of congregational worship, instead of the traditional sequencing of nursery schools. In Christian worship, the scattered people of God come together to praise, listen, and respond to God by celebrating the creative and redemptive acts of God, particularly the resurrection of Christ. The order of the service helps us do this. Christian worship has a fourfold structure, regardless of denomination or tradition. Your service may be highly liturgical or informal, even spontaneous, but the fourfold order is there. This order reflects the ordinary social activities of family celebrations: gathering, listening, thanking, and going. Expressed in the language of worship, this weekly celebration of the family of families uses terms, such as the following examples to order the time together: "?Assemble in God's name,?" "?Proclaim God's Word,?" "?Give thanks to God?" (Eucharist), and "?Go in God's name.?" The first and fourth parts of the order are preparatory in the sense that the first helps us get ready to be with God in the Word and sacrament, while the fourth helps us get ready to reenter the ordinary world to do Christ's ministry and mission. The two middle parts are sometimes called the liturgy (or service) of the Word and the liturgy (or service) of the Lord's Supper, respectively. Sometimes the terms are different. You might call these four: "?The approach to God,?" "?The Word of God in proclamation,?" "?The Word of God in sacrament,?" and "?The response to God.?" Substitute your names, if you wish. We have used the Presbyterian order here. To work with young children, we focused on the foundational and essential components of worship and on the biblical stories that give content to the images, symbols, and actions of worship. We took each part of the order of worship, selected the most essential parts for young children and developed our approach around these parts. What follows is a description of the four parts of the order of worship, and what we chose to do with our young children for each part. (1) Assemble in God's Name Each Sunday as we gather around the Lord's Table (altar), the first part of the order of worship helps us move from the world of ordinary time and place to the holy.

Call to Worship

Hymn of Praise Confession Declaration of Pardon Response of Praise As we gather we need a way to get ready to be with God. We need to move our attention from ourselves and our world to God. So our approach to God, our gathering in God's name, is a time for preparing ourselves to listen to God. While getting ready comes from within, the liturgy helps us refocus and center in God as it shifts our everyday language to religious or biblical language, images, symbols, and signs of God. We greet one another in the name of the Lord. We sing and speak our praise to God. We confess our sins so that our relationship with God is restored and nothing stands in our way of being ready to listen to God. Two things are essential in the first part of the order for worship: our awareness of the presence of God and our ability to get ready to be with God. Just as pastors and elders meet before the worship service for preparation and prayer, so the children's worship leader and the greeter (or greeters) arrive early. While the greeter prepares the "?feast,?" the worship leader sits on the circle on the floor, praying and becoming centered in God in order to be ready when the first child arrives. The greeter moves to the door to meet the children. While still outside the room, each child begins to prepare to enter this special place to be with God. The leader greets each child as he or she sits down on the circle. New children are introduced and conversation continues until all have arrived. Then the leader helps transform this ordinary time and place into a special time and place to be with God. The Call to Worship. "This is a very special place," the leader says. "It is very special because God is here. In this place, we have all the time we need. So we don't have to hurry We can walk more slowly. And we can talk more softly, because someone might be talking with God and we don't want to disturb them. This is a special place to be with God, to talk with God, to listen to God, and to hear the stories of God. So we need a way to get ready to be in such a special place with God. You can get ready all by yourself. You don't need me to tell you to get ready. Quietness comes from inside you, not from someone telling you to be quiet. You can get quiet all by yourself." The Greeting. When the children are ready, a formal liturgical greeting in the name of the Lord is exchanged. We use greetings that coincide with the seasons of the church year. But for the youngest children, perhaps two are enough. From September to Easter we say, "The Lord be with you," and the children reply, "And also with you." This greeting is used in various places in the liturgy and is the first part of the greeting exchanged at the beginning of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving. From Easter to September, we exchange the great Resurrection affirmation. The leader says, "Christ is risen," and the children reply, "The Lord is risen indeed." Songs of Praise. We sing one or two songs of praise, such as "?O God, We Adore You?" or "?Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.?" We end by singing, "?Be Still and Know That I Am God,?" as a way to get ready to hear a story of God and to mark our transition to the second part of the order of worship. Your church organist or music director can help you find music. (2) Proclaim God's Word The second part of worship involves hearing and responding to the Word of God. It looks something like this.

Hearing the Word of God

Prayer of Illumination of the Holy Spirit Old Testament Lesson Psalm New Testament Lesson Sermon Responding to the Word of God Hymn or Creed Baptism, Commissioning or Confirmation, Reception of Members Prayers of Intercession Offering

When we are ready to listen to God's Word proclaimed through Scripture and sermon, we want to receive it as God intends, so we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as we hear and respond. After Scripture is read, a sermon provides an interpretation of and witness to God's Word today. But just listening to God's Word is not enough; the Word of God invites response. We respond to the Word in a variety of ways: with a hymn, a confession of faith, baptism, prayers, and offerings.

The actions of receiving and responding to God's Word are the heart of worship in the children's center. For young children, one biblical or liturgical story each session is enough; and it needs to be told and responded to in ways appropriate to young children. As we have said, this requires a sensorimotor approach that uses materials children can work with after the story is presented and that fosters an environment of appropriate freedom in which they can repeat the story and incorporate it into their lives. The parable of the good shepherd and the lost sheep illustrates our procedure. The storytelling and the response time are so important, they are discussed in separate sections. For now, we will say that after the singing of "?Be Still and Know That I Am God,?" the story begins as the leader walks to the shelf where the parable or story is kept. The materials are visual translations of the Bible and are treated as such. The leader returns to the circle and places the materials on the floor. In good biblical fashion, the story is told using as few words and materials as possible. The response time follows the story and takes two forms: a time of wondering and reflecting together on the story and a time for personally responding and continued working with the story and art materials. After the wondering, each child personally decides what "?work?" he or she will do. Since the orientation sessions have shown the children how to select a place to work and how to get their materials and put them away, they are now free to move about the room "all by themselves." In this way, they can interact with the materials as the Spirit moves them. To give closure to the response time, the children return to the circle, where the story or parable of the day is read from the Bible. Having seen the story presented and having personally worked with it, they can now picture the story and bring memories to it as they hear it read, a skill they will carry into corporate worship. Their offerings are presented, and the transition to the third part of the order of worship occurs. (3) Give Thanks to God (Eucharist) Each Sunday is a feast day celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; therefore, we gather around Christ's table to be fed by him.

Preparation of the Lord's Table

Great Prayer of Thanksgiving The Lord's Prayer Words of Institution Breaking of Bread, Pouring of Wine The Communion

At this solemn but joyful feast, we offer our thanksgiving to God through the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving (the eucharistic prayer), which summarizes God's mighty acts from Creation to the promise of Christ's return. We thank God for Creation, for the covenant, for the Law and the Prophets, and for Jesus Christ and the promise of Christ's return. Together, we pray the Lord's Prayer. Then, we listen to the words of institution and witness the taking, blessing, breaking, and giving of the bread and wine. United in one body, we commune together.

In most Protestant congregations, the Lord's Supper is not celebrated weekly, but the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving and the Lord's Prayer are offered. Of course, the Lord's Supper is not celebrated in the children's worship centers. But indirect preparation for the Eucharist is. The atmosphere is one of joy, warmth, thanksgiving, and fellowship. The children offer their own prayers of thanksgiving, in place of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, by saying the last two lines of the exchange. The leader says, "?Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,?" and the children reply, "?It is right to give thanks and praise.?" (Later in the year, when the children have learned these words, we add the following two preceding lines of the exchange: The leader says, "?Lift up your hearts,?" and the children reply, "?We lift them up unto the Lord.?" Then, the children continue with the two lines they already know.) A "feast" follows. The children prepare "tables" with their white napkins. Fruit, cheese, bread, and juice are served. This is a pleasant time of talking and sharing. Sometimes, we talk about food and the great feasts Jesus gave, such as the feeding of the five thousand, or about Messianic banquets. (4) Go in God's Name When the feast is over and the cups and napkins collected, we move to the fourth part of the order of worship.

Hymn

Charge

Blessing Going Into the World as Christ's Ministers Just as the first part of the service is a time for getting ready to be with God, so the fourth part is a time for getting ready to go into the world as the body of Christ, living as Christ's ministers and missionaries. Having experienced God and being renewed by God's grace, we know that the God who is present in this special time and place can be present with us in every time and every place. We sing a hymn of praise and are commissioned to be a source of God's healing in the world. We are then told to go out into the world in peace, to render no one evil for evil, to love and serve the Lord. Finally, we receive the benediction as a sign of God's presence, the presence of the Holy Spirit empowering us for ministry and mission. In the children's worship center, we sing until the parents arrive. The greeter tells each child when his or her parent comes. Then, the child goes to the leader, is hugged or touched, and receives a good word said quietly, so no one else can hear. This word names a gift for ministry observed that day, such as "Your smile made me feel so good today" or "Thank you for helping serve the feast?" or "The storybook you made for Jim will help him while he has to stay in the hospital." Then, a benediction is given, ending with "Go in peace."