Children and Worship: Liturgy and Imagination

Taken from : http://www.christchurchws.org/pastors-blog/154-children-and-worship-liturgy-and-imagination

Written by Ben Sharpe, the rector of my in-laws AMIA church in Winston-Salem NC.

 

I sometimes hear the concern that the Sunday-to-Sunday sameness of the liturgy will become boring for children and thus their minds and hearts will wander.  I have several responses to this.  To begin with, the Sunday service does indeed have elements that are the same from week to week.  The structure of the service always begins with the ministry of the Word (the Bible is read and then preached), which leads to the service of the Table where we celebrate the mystery of Holy Communion.  However, within that consistent structure the liturgy is changing season to season and in some cases week to week.

Also, we need to remember that boredom is an occupational hazard of childhood.  Just think about it:  An hour is a much greater fraction of a five-year-old’s life than it is for a fifty-year-old.  Try to remember just how long an hour seemed to last – or a day for that matter – when you were a small child.  Moreover, an average Sunday service at Christ Church lasts ninety minutes.  For a five-year-old, an hour and a half is like an eternity!  Now here is the conundrum: for some reason, many of our little ones don’t seem to be excessively bored during the liturgy.  In fact, something is happening that literally has some of them on the edge of their seats.

 

You see, what is actually transpiring with our small children during the liturgy is not excruciating boredom, but the forming and sanctifying of their imaginations.  Yes, little ones are led out of the service during preaching so they can participate in an age appropriate application of the Scriptures they heard read during the service.  Then they return to the service for the celebration of Holy Communion.  But when they are in the service they are deeply engaged with a form of worship that is inherently kinetic and multi-sensory.  When I say it is kinetic, I mean that liturgical worship is filled with movement: we process (we have a parade every Sunday!), stand, sit, kneel, cross ourselves, lift up hands in praise and prayer, open our mouths to sing and praise God, offer gestures of reconciliation and love at the Passing of the Peace, etc.

Likewise our worship is also a rich multi-sensory experience: We see the multitude of symbols present in the worship space.  We hear music, singing, the Word of God read and proclaimed, and the ancient prayers of the church mingled with the extemporaneous prayers of the people.  We smell and taste the bread and wine through which we encounter Christ’s real presence mysteriously.  From time to time, we even have our sense of smell inundated with the aroma of incense used during special occasions, like Easter Vigil and Christmas.  We feel the warmth of the bodies next to us in the pews, the embrace of Christian brothers and sisters, the wetness of the holy water in the fonts located at the entrances to the worship space.

All of the movement and sensory stimulation of worship are directed toward the end of glorifying the living God we have come to know in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.  And our children love it! They love to worship God like this because this is how imaginations are formed and informed.  Worship on Sunday morning is actually a form of play!  It is a joyful, holy, solemn frolic that has all the elements needed to capture a child’s heart and mind and body – with one provision: the structure of our liturgy, and we as worshipers, must be open to God’s Spirit.

As long as the service is structured to invite the Holy Spirit to breathe life into the liturgy, and as long as the adults that surround our children are open to worshiping God in spirit and in truth, then our children will have their imaginations captivated by the beauty and vitality of “ancient/future” worship.

Moreover, this kind of spiritual formation will not remain confined to church on Sunday mornings, but will begin to permeate a child’s life so that the holy play of worship becomes the foundation for play at home.  I’ll say more about that in my next post.

Finally, imaginations formed by this kind of prayer and praise are open to the deep truths of God’s Word expressed in the teaching of the Church through the ages.  And those who embrace that truth, young or old, will find that they have been equipped by the Holy Spirit to show forth God’s praise, not only with their lips, but in their lives, by giving up their selves to his service and walking before him in holiness and righteousness all their days.

Ben+