Children at Church

So tonight was my first "children's worship" session. The parish holds bi-monthly worship services for the community and serves dinner afterward. So when I was asked to work with the parish full-time back in September, one of the things they added to my job description was starting, planning and leading a children's worship time to coincide with regular worship.

When I was asked to take on this "new" program I was a little apprehensive but figured "What the heck? I have taught Sunday School, I will be fine." At first I had no idea where to even start. I asked Barb, back at BSPC (the Christian Education Director), for a few suggestions and she gave me some great ideas but I quickly realized that I had no budget. I also knew I wasn't going to have much freedom to follow a pre-made curriculum. Essentially I wasn't going to have Barb hand me a packet with all of the scriptures and activities for the fall classes. I also realized that I really had no idea how many or what age of kids I would even have show up.

All of these things seemed to be important and once again left me with an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. As I began to look for free resources, one fell into my lap. I was talking to one of the parish pastors and she mentioned the Parish Resource Center. The Parish Resource Center is run out of the basement of a Presbyterian church and if your agency is a member you have access to all sorts of religious resources. This is a service that DICP is a member of and I gained access to all sorts of curriculum, activity books, music, movies, and games. Even though it took me three buses and an hour to get there I was excited to find something that enabled me to use more than the free online coloring pages that I had found.

So tonight was my big night to shine. I had been planning for two weeks what we would do. Per request of the head pastor I made an outline for the night and began to prepare the wonderful activities I had put together. Two women who participate in the worship service volunteered to help out and so I knew my night would be great. I mean what could go wrong; I had my outline, my letters cut for human scrabble and the "plant your seed" activity all ready. I obviously had no idea what I was getting myself into because 5:15pm rolled around and 10 kids came down the steps screaming and my two volunteers hadn't shown up.

Needless to say the night got better and after making name tags and reading Mark 4:26-29 we started to learn "This Little Light of Mine.” Before I knew it, it was time for the kids to join their parents for the end of the service and dinner. I know now that I am going to have to recruit another one or two volunteers to help out. (One of the two did show up.) I also learned that I can't handle 10 children from the ages 2-13 all by myself.

Although we didn't make it through everything I had planned I think it went pretty well and I am looking forward to our next worship time together. We will be celebrating Dia De Los Muertos and building alters.