How Can We Welcome Kids to Big Church?

5. Engage the kids in worship – Kids love to be a part of something. Give them the opportunity to help lead worship, hand out bulletins, take up the offering, participate in communion, help with the sound/lights, read Scripture, share a testimony—anything that lets them know they are a vital part of the congregation.

6. Reaffirm your covenant – When children are baptized or dedicated in churches, often the church will recite or affirm a covenant with them to walk with them as a community of faith. Every now and then, let the kids hear you re-affirm that out loud and with your actions.

7. Consider your traditional service line-up – Kids are used to things being pretty dynamic and fluid in their world. The structure of service may be familiar to you, but maybe it’d be nice to change things up a bit. Do the sermon earlier in the service or break it into chunks.  Do songs that have motions every now and then. Collect the offering at the end instead of in the middle.

8. Give parents easy wins – The time in church is just the start of the conversation.  Help parents continue it at home by creating a “Faith Talk” insert for the bulletin with questions from the sermon. Older kids can fill it out during church and parents/caregivers can use it to continue the conversation at home.

9. Engage the congregation – If having kids in service is new to your church, give the congregation fair warning, provide a time for them to meet the kids (put faces with names and parents with kids) and encourage a time of fellowship for all before adding the kids to the service. Some churches start with once and month and grow from there.

10. Give kids a voice – You’d be surprised how much we can learn from children but often we still follow the “Kids should be seen and not heard” rule. Give kids an avenue to share what God is speaking to them by affirming to them that they can and do hear from God and giving them a space to share that. A bulletin board where they can hang a picture they drew in service or a note they wrote about what they learned can create a space where the whole church can hear and affirm their hearts for God.

This article about welcoming kids into big church was originally published here, and is used by permission.