Opinions About Children's Minutes

Of the many things I do, I am often most associated with my primary role in Sunday morning worship, leading the children's minute. In case any of my readers don't know what that is, the children's minute is part of the worship service in which the small children come to the front and sit around the minister to hear a lesson before they transition to children's church. Children's minutes are incredibly popular in mainline churches because they often serve as a church version of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and they are very cute and heartwarming times for the congregation. I've developed some opinions and even convictions that inform the way I lead them. Some come from my training (Tom Long actually discussed children's minutes when I was in his preaching class at Emory) and some I've developed others over time.

The first and most important thing I do with children's minutes is make sure that they have the same point and the same purpose (Tom Long called it "focus and function") as the main sermon. Worship services should say one thing or they will say nothing. I use the text, sermon title, hymns, and liturgical pieces from the bulletin to get a sense of what the service will say, and I craft a children's sermon that will offer the same message in an age-appropriate way.

My children's minutes are different than most because I do not believe that object lessons or analogies are developmentally appropriate for 3-6-year-olds. This is not my idea, but it is something I have internalized and I'm one of the few who rarely bring a prop. Few kids can understand how our hearts are like play-doh or the Bible is like a compass. Here's what kids can understand, almost from the womb: Kids can understand stories, and kids can understand holidays. The Gospel is full of stories and the church is full of holidays, so these are always rich resources for children's minutes. Children also see things in the sanctuary and wonder about them, so they can learn from windows and the baptismal font, the altar, and the colors. They understand relationships, and they need to hear what the Gospel says about sharing, forgiving, and loving others. These are age-appropriate for everyone in the congregation. One more thing--children understand music and they are never to young to sing a song during a children's minute.

I often wonder what children really learn during children's minutes. It's clear to me that the spoken message is sometimes misunderstood. That's OK. It's understood far more than we might imagine. But the unspoken message of the children's minute is perhaps the most important thing we teach. When the children come down the aisle, they look to see how they will be received. If the person leading the children's minute communicates hospitality, openness, joy, and genuine care, those children will grow up never remembering a time that the church did not embrace them and value them.