Teaching Children The Four Acts Of Worship: The Children’s Worship Center

The following article describes an effective method for teaching children the meaning of each act of worship. Children gather in worship centers, where they lead through stories, prayers, songs, and gestures that introduce them to the mystery of Christian worship. Our experience with young children convinces us that they know, love, and worship God. But corporate worship is structured and full of words and symbols based on stories and memories children do not yet have. For children to participate meaningfully in corporate worship, they must first experience the essential parts and stories of worship through sensorimotor means. Our children's worship centers permit this. In the worship centers, the flow of activity corresponds to the order of congregational worship, instead of the traditional sequencing of nursery schools. In Christian worship, the scattered people of God come together to praise, listen, and respond to God by celebrating the creative and redemptive acts of God, part…