This year our church has instituted a once monthly practice of Family Worship services. While in the truest sense, we realize that EVERY service of worship is intended for ALL of God's children, the reality is that the traditional service, with the traditional, often fairly lengthy, sermon may not reach younger children all that well. Therefore we have made a deliberate attempt to offer a unique kind of service on a once monthly basis. Since we only have one service each week, this Sunday service is different from that of the other three or four Sundays in the following ways:
1. It is significantly shorter- often between 35-40 minutes.
2. We do everything we can to have children serve as greeters, readers, as those taking up the offering and as singers in the choir for that day.
3. We intentionally pick music that is easy for young people to join in.
4. We strive to have our older youth serve as leaders in crafting skits and creative ways to tell the Scripture story. We will even on occasion use contemporary available translations of Scripture e.g THE MESSAGE.
5. My sermon is not the ordinary behind the pulpit 10-15 minute message yet is integrated into the service in different ways, sometimes actually staggered through the different parts of the service.
Now while I strongly believe that these efforts are important, I wish to state that while this is the Sunday service not ONLY for those with young children but also for the entire congregation, the following is important:
1. Though the method of delivery may be different, the Biblical message must remain clear and meaningful to ALL.
2. It is important that our youth be exposed to certain worship traditions and practices. It is also important that they learn some of the great hymns of our faith heritage so while we may shorten them a bit, we will be sure to give our youth the opportunity to learn and sing AMAZING GRACE, HOW GREAT THOU ART and many other 'traditional' hymns.
I believe that our attempt at a more inclusive approach to church participation has been a valuable one. As the year moves along, we will continue to evaluate this for what is at stake is one of the most important hours in all the week. All of which leads to a final point:
Churches must never cease to work hard to offer worship opportunities that help open the door for the spirit's stirring. Perhaps more so, we need to work so that we do not slam the door on what people really need.......We need to plan well to create worship that gets out of God's way and just lets God be God!!
PB
