Children in church: another perspective

We haven't talked about including kids in worship for a long time. Most of the first year or two Emerging Kids was mostly about that.

This is a Church of England page Children in Worship: New Patterns. . . It's a few years old. I'm assuming these are generally liturgical churches. There are examples of things being done in churches, ideas for visuals and activities to accompany the reading of scripture, the theme table idea is a very neat idea, simple questions and responses for children to learn and use.

The questions for discussion at the end would be a very good starting place to start some discussion or for anyone wrestling with this.There are some elements I hadn't pondered before but the questions are a nice starting place for discussing, planning, looking at goals and objectives. They can even be a very good place to gauge how you're caring for people with different needs.

I like the way they looked at both sides because if your church is divided I'm someone who believes it's important to hear one another and wherever possible address and resolve legitimate needs and concerns at all ends. Not everyone agrees on what "legitimate" means but there are issues that are easy to solve and just involve people being considerate of one another and teaching children to be considerate of other people. There are other issues where it's a little harder to find common ground. Better to spend your energy there.