Well, I have been called to account over my apparent lack of blogging by someone who really doesn't have a leg to stand on but, as we are accountable to each other in our blogging community, I will blog!
Over the course of today, I taught 100 children about The Salvation Army and Easter, and I have to say God Bless teachers who do this teaching business every day.I am shattered!
For those of you who might go to school and lead assemblies or do lessons from time to time,or just out of interest, I can really recommend the SA Schools and Colleges pages on the SA Website for some great resources and lesson plans http://www1.salvationarmy.org.uk/uki/www_uki.nsf/vw-dynamic-arrays/5C76A8FCB068C69E80256F890034A919?openDocument.
At the end of both sessions I taught the kids 'Our God is a Great Big God' and it was pretty cool. Hearing kids sing always makes me emotional, but this was special, and there was one little boy who already knew the song from his own church, so I invited him to do the actions with me, which ALL the kids and teachers were joining in with - he was jumping about all over the place!
Speaking of actions and kids worship songs, we had the opportunity this Sunday to sing 'The Way it's Gonna be' which is now a bit of an anthem after it became cool at the commissioning last year - thanks Matt. Now in the normal course of events, I might be up on the platform exhorting the kids and the congregation to join in, but this week I had the special privilege of sitting amongst the congregation.
Of course I did the actions - are you mad? But why? To support the kids or to enhance my own offering of worship or to make some kind of a statement or stand? 'Look, grown up's can do the actions too and not look at all silly!' ...well some can :)
Kids Worship Songs? What do you think? Are they enjoyable for anyone out of the context of purely kids worship - or do the children feel awkward too when all around them people they love, respect, look up too etc are looking out of the window or cleaning some invisible spot off their tunic rather than join in? At the same time I recognise that this SPECIAL style of worship really isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Can I suggest that a child's that sence of freedom in worship is shaped when they are old enough to notice how the rest of the church responds in various situations, and that can be even before they understand a word!
Children's Ministry? It's everyone's job!!
8 comments:
Ooh! You bring up a very good point here Liz. I guess we are often so worried about ourselves in worship we forget about how 'we' impact others. Especially children.
hey liz...
i completely agree. i love kids worship songs. they can be so simple and gets straight to the point (a bit like chilren themselfs!)
with mum doing toddlers i have the privilidge to make up actions for the toddler songs and its great, what a way to worship!
also.. on the simple point... its great when loads of things are going on to be able to just sing / listen to "simple" songs... our god is a great big god - you cant read anything else into that apart from god being so big!
this is a side sweeping comment based not particularly on the content of your blog but on the title...."Are we there yet?" I find it a both a struggle and an excitment to know that we will never be there yet ! Until we reach heaven.....but the side of me that likes to get it right all the time, and "be there" with everything hates the fact that we will not "be there yet" until we see Him face to face :-) mmmm make any sense?
But then how exciting is it to know that we don't have to get stuck in a perceived "There" - things have to keep evolving and changing otherwise "being there" is quite boring. Now on a bender because I know I have to keep the momentum going :-() confused or what (ha ha)
Ann - you've had a very deep thinkin day...you've commented on lots of blog...you truely are on a 'blogroll'!
Ha ha! Good one Dawn!
I struggle with playing most kids songs cause I'm not sure the kids less than 10 years get anything from it and over 10 its just painfully silly songs. I think generally contemporary songs with simple lyrics and without the need for a theology degree to understand what they means (that therefore exludes most hymns - hooray) are best. And yes, kids notice adults response in their worship and that's the most important point is that they are in an environment where freedom to express their joy in worship is paramount. Try Doug Horley's Okey Dokey! for worship songs for a good age range!? Liz and Keith, thanks for letting me know about Rush. I'll get some standing tickets tomorrow on general sales to say a few £. Have good w/e and maybe meet you in October!
Hi Nigel - Keith seems to think that Wembley isn't a standing venue, unless you mean something else by 'standing'. He is going to take our son Joe with him. It'll be his first concert and Keith is very excited that it's going to be Rush - he honestly thought they wouldn't tour any more....ever!!
RE Kids worship - yep Doug Horley is the King of Tracks, but I am also finding that Hillsong do some great kids stuff that's a slightly different style to Doug.
Kids get something out of everything if it's presented in a relevant way to them - don't loose heart when you're accompanying those crazy songs - my theory is that if we really don't like them,then the kids really do :)
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