Preparing children for worship .....

We attend a new church in our community called New Life Baptist. It was started by our previous church (started as in sent out to reach more disciples it was not a contentious split but instead a joyous occasion!) and our children sit in church with us. This is not a family integrated church, as we have a nursery for 0-3, but we keep our kids in church with us. Our church uses expositional preaching which means we read through verses and the elder discusses them.




Anyway, here is how we are preparing our kids for church on Saturday(we meet on Saturday because we are using our starting churches facilities) :

1. We will cover 1 Peter 5:5-?. In the future when we start a new book or chapter we will just cover the entire chapter then go back and cover smaller bites as we do not receive a list of verses to be covered each week.
2. We read through and discussed the passage verse by verse that will be covered on Saturday. We will read it to them a couple more times before church on Saturday. The two oldest will be required to read it at least once for themselves.
3. Vocabulary words: submissive, humility, grace, anxiety, faith, steadfast - we look these up in the dictionary and I read the definition to them. I will probably start having them write down the actual or a simplified version of the definition for some of the new vocabulary words we discuss. We also looked at other verses in John & James to find examples & definitions to get them accustomed to understanding scripture with scripture.


4. Usage: metaphor ...in regards to the lion as a picture of the devil. roaring lion coloring sheet

Additional Bible pages to color:

http://childrenschapel.org/biblestories/color/1peter57.html

I probably should have been doing this over the last couple of years. But I recently I've been thinking about how much more impactful the sermons have been on my life since I have read through all of the scriptures. What a blessing it has been to be familiar with the passages the pastor is reading and how it has been transformational in my walk and understanding. Well, my kids are too young to read through the whole Bible on their own (though one has started) my prayer is that this preparation will open their hearts to understanding!

Well, my kiddos take notes during the sermon so I am really looking forward to seeing what they write down, we'll see how this goes.

BTW , there was 0 prep time involved in this activity other then looking for coloring sheets. As we read the passage I picked out the vocabulary they did not know and if a verse popped into my head (God was knocking) we explored it.

I'm thinking about making a "Preparation to Worship page" for the kiddos to complete each week prior to service. If I do I'll post it. I'm still looking for ideas as to how to prepare the kiddos. BTW, is not our official Bible study this year we are going through the old testament using a simple & wonderful curriculum outline that I found online.

Many blessings as you shepard the little hearts in your home to worship this weekend!