RELEVANT CHILDREN'S MINISTRY: worship for kids

Today, I'm excited to have Yancy share an article with you. Yancy is a long-time friend and is a worship leader and songwriter for kids and families. She travels the globe doing family concerts and training worship leaders. Her worship resources for kids include the popular series: “Little Praise Party” and “Kidmin Worship."

“Heartbeat” is a new, 5-week curriculum series from Yancy that teaches kids about worship. It is available at YancyMinistries.com/Heartbeat.

In the following article, Yancy shares how to develop a heart of worship in the kids and parents in your church.

I believe an active mission of every church should be to help believers become who God created them to be. One of the things that God created all of us to be is a worshiper. Worshiping God is one of our greatest purposes. Although a lot of churches check the box of worship off the list each week, I feel there is still a lot left to be desired in how we are leading others to encounter the presence of Jesus during our times of worship when they gather. I have a burden to help teach this generation so they can understand why we worship God and what that looks like in their life.

I know that many of you who are reading this are involved in adult worship. I want to invite you to think about how your church is raising Christ followers up to be the worshipers that God intends for them to be? As a young child, preteen or student how are they experiencing God’s presence and growing in their expression of worship?

One thing I’ve noticed when ministries work as silos, as opposed to with a strategy and mission, is that worship happens all over the map. You could have one age group that has great worship where people are engaged and then another age group that has weak leadership and let’s be honest, a major disconnect.

Worship is happening at various speeds and levels of intentionality because there’s no overall vision of the house for worship. Because of your role and position in your church I want to invite you as children’s ministry leaders to start a conversation with your Worship Leader/Pastor/Director and student ministry pastor. Go to lunch or grab coffee and start dreaming about what worship can look like for your church. This could be the beginning of an ongoing relationship and solution in which you can all dream and work together to raise up worshipers within your church.

Have you ever stopped to ask your Pastoral leadership what kind of worshiper you want adults in your congregation to be? One of the ways you can accomplish seeing that vision come to pass is by starting the process in the preschool ministry of your church, and then building upon that foundation in the elementary ministry. It doesn’t end there, the roots can grow deeper as a preteen and middle-schooler and the impact spans even greater as a high school student. A wise friend of mine once shared with me: "Teaching kids to worship is not the issue. They know how to worship. Directing their worship to Jesus is the issue. Help them put God first."

I believe over the span of one generation you can completely change the way that worship is cultivated within the life of your congregation. The possibility of results of this effort is to have men and women that understand that worship is a communication tool in responding to God. What a win! I want to cultivate in the hearts of God’s people that there is safety in His presence.

Imagine what this world could be like if we learned to run TO God with whatever we face as opposed to running FROM Him while we try to handle things our self. I believe the Word is true, if you will give people an opportunity to experience God’s presence it will be something that they taste and want more of.

Psalm 34:8 says: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.” (NIV)

So, you might wonder where to begin. Start with the end in mind, “what kind of adult worshipers do you want to have?” And then begin to work backwards to define and develop what the goal needs to be for each age group and classroom within your church. You have 936 Sundays in the life of a young person. That’s over 900 opportunities, as you gather, to help kids fall in love with Jesus through worship.

Help toddlers and preschoolers gather to WORSHIP.
Help elementary kids gather to WORSHIP.
Help preteens gather to WORSHIP.
Help middle-schoolers gather to WORSHIP.
Help high-schoolers gather to WORSHIP.
Help adults gather to WORSHIP.

As you define your vision and determine what you want kids to learn about worship when you gather, be sure to communicate that to the leaders and teachers working in those classes. This helps set the bar of what they are aiming to do with the songs that they lead and the words they share. It gives them a box that they should work within. It determines the purpose of the kind of songs they should be doing and the type of engagement that should be getting. Help those leaders understand the importance of teaching kids what worship looks like in their life. How do they do it? Why is it important? These are all things that they can point to and underline as they plan the words that are shared each and every week as they lead.

This process could also lead to building a team that can serve in multiple areas. There could be positions and rooms where you develop musicians and worship leaders to serve your church for years to come. (Think “farm club “ system.)

Psalm 145:3&4 says, "Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure His greatness. Let each generation tell its children of Your mighty acts; let them proclaim Your power. (NLT)

Worship happening in another room isn’t competition to what you do in adult worship. For every age, worshiping God is a key part of why we gather as well as our personal walk with Christ. As you begin this conversation and develop a relationship with these other leaders in your church, I believe what you can accomplish together will be far greater than what you can each do on your own. Developing a vision for worship at every age level is a worthy and important task. I can’t wait to see the harvest that comes from the seeds you plant.

Yancy is going to give away a copy of the new Heartbeat curriculum series to one of our readers. All you have to do to enter is email me at dale@buildingchildrensministry.com. We will randomly select someone next Monday and announce the winner here on this site.

You can see more of Yancy's resources at www.YancyMinistries.com.

Take a close look at the boys in your ministry next weekend during worship time. You'll probably find many of them just standing there.

Over the years, I've observed this in most churches. Many boys don't sing during the worship time. I've seen this happen in all size churches from mega churches to smaller, rural churches. Why is it boys don't sing during worship? Let's take a look at 5 reasons and how you can make changes to get more boys involved in worship.

There are few, if any, males up front leading. In the elementary years, boys steer clear of anything that appears too "girlish." When they look up front and only see girls leading the worship, they put up a wall and refrain from singing. Many children's ministries work hard to get male role models in key areas like teachers, small group leaders, mentors, etc. but then neglect to place males in worship leading. And it shows in the boys who stand with their mouths closed during the songs.

You can change this by making sure you place some males leading worship. And if you have a female leading, make sure you have some males front and center with her.

You're doing too many motions. Motions have been used for years to help engage kids in the songs. But if you're not careful, you'll use too much of a good thing and see it become a hindrance to boys worshiping. When kids are more focused on trying to keep up with the motions than they are in singing to God, then changes need to be made.

Use simple motions that are easy to follow. And less is more when it comes to motions. You want the focus to be on the words more than they motions.

You're singing too many slow, emotional songs. Girls are naturally more emotional than boys. Boys are not going to engage as much in songs that are filled with slow, emotional lines. While it's important to sing songs that cause kids to slow down and reflect on the love of God, heart matters, devotion, etc. - it's also important to sing high energy, action-based songs if you want more boys to engage.

Here's an example:

Will boys engage in singing a slow, emotional song like "Your LOVE never fails?" some will

Will boys engage in singing a high-energy, action song like "MOVING Song?" more will

The volunteers aren't singing. When volunteers are standing in the back of the room during worship, the kids notice. When volunteers aren't engaged, the kids won't be engaged. When volunteers aren't singing, fewer kids will be singing.

Cast vision with your volunteers about leading by example during worship. Share with them how they have the opportunity to influence kids to be worshipers rather than spectators. And in reference to the first reason, place your male volunteers among the boys during worship. When the boys see the male leaders worshiping beside them, they will be more likely to begin worshiping themselves.

They are insecure. This is especially true during the pre-teen years. Kids are trying to find their identity and are very insecure. They avoid any situation that might embarrass them or make them feel awkward in front of their peers. This includes worship. They are very conscious of their peers around them during worship.

The person leading worship can help kids with this by taking a minute before the first song to address the elephant in the room and remind kids about the purpose of worship and that our focus should be on God and not each other.

Your turn. Do you see fewer boys engaging in worship than girls? What do you do to encourage boys to worship? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.