Everything in here has a job, and every job lines up with a part of the service. Follow the path down the page. Tap any stop to find out what's happening and what to reach for.
Worship bags are available at each entrance to the sanctuary. Take one, use it, and leave it at the door on your way out.
WorshipFollow along with the service.
You don't have to use every item every week. One is plenty. The point isn't to keep a child busy through the service. It's to give them a way into it.
CreateMake something about what you notice.
Use it any time during the service. The only prompt is to make something connected to worship today: a word that stuck, a person being prayed for, what the story looked like in your head, the shape of the music. Nothing needs to be finished, recognizable, or shown to anyone.
re:createGive your hands something to do.
Busy hands very often make for better listening. The one rule is that it has to be quiet. If it clicks, pops, or rattles, it goes back in the bag until after the service.
Tap a stop
- Movement
The Gathering of God's People
In the name of Christ we answer God's call and assemble as the community of faith.
- Movement
The Proclamation of God's Word
We listen for God in the words that have been read and sung and told in this room for a very long time.
- Movement
The Response of God's People
Having heard, we answer, with song, with prayer, with what we have.
- Movement
The Sending of God's People
We are blessed, and then we are sent. Worship doesn't end so much as it changes address.
The icons in your bulletin
These are the same icons printed in your bulletin. When you spot one on the page, it tells you where we are in the service, and what to reach for in the bag.
- Welcome and Announcements
- Call to Worship
- Prayer of Confession
- Assurance of Pardon
- Passing of the Peace
- Opening Hymn
- Scripture Reading
- Sacrament of Baptism
- Special Time with Young Disciples
- Anthem
- Sermon
- Prayers of the People
- Reception of Tithes and Offerings
- Communion
Create
Make something about what you notice today.
For kids
Here's the only instruction: make something about worship today.
A word you heard and liked. Something you're thankful for. The person you're praying for. A shape the music made you think of. What you think the story looked like. There is no wrong thing to make, and it doesn't have to look like anything to anyone but you.
For grown-ups
What they produce doesn't need to be legible, literal, or finished to count. A gray lump that they tell you is "the loud part of the song" is a child who was listening closely to the loud part of the song. Ask what it is before you guess.
The materials rotate week to week, so there's always something a little new without anything new to buy.
re:create
Something for your hands, so the rest of you can listen.
For kids
Sitting still is hard work. Grown-ups don't always remember that. This makes it easier, and using it doesn't mean you've stopped paying attention. Lots of people listen better when their hands are busy.
One rule: quiet hands, quiet toy. If it makes noise, it goes back in the bag until after.
Why a toy belongs in church
The name is a small joke that turns out to be serious. Recreation and re-creation are the same word, and Sunday is when we claim both.
Rest is not what's left over after the work. It's built into the week at the beginning. God rests on the seventh day and calls that rest holy, not idle. Sabbath isn't the absence of activity; it's delight given a place on the calendar.
And play shows up in Scripture in stranger places than we tend to remember. In Proverbs, Wisdom is at God's side during creation itself, rejoicing before God always, playing in God's inhabited world. Play is present at the making of everything. When Zechariah pictures a city finally healed, the image isn't a courtroom or a treasury. It's streets full of children playing in them. That's the picture of a world set right.
Children already know this. They discover by handling: turning a thing over, testing what it does, finding the edges. That is a real way of knowing, not a lesser one, and it doesn't switch off when they walk into a sanctuary.
So a fidget in a worship bag isn't a bribe for good behavior, and it isn't a distraction we tolerate. It's an honest acknowledgment that God made bodies along with souls, that attention lives in the hands as much as the head, and that a child discovering something with their fingers during the sermon is doing something a great deal like worship.
For grown-ups
The fidget rotates, so there's something slightly new most weeks. The only rule worth enforcing is the noise rule.
