Teaching Children to Worship

Teaching children to worship is not just sitting and listening, but is actively thinking about God, appreciating God for who He is, thanking God for what He has done, giving back to God, and praising God through song and other expressions. Children need guidance to learn how to worship God.

Consider some of the following ideas:

• Help children recognize, understand and accept God’s gift of salvation, as an act of faith, not based on works.

Salvation teaching: The Wordless Book, first developed by Charles Spurgeon in the late 1800s, has over a century of verified success in teaching about salvation worldwide. The use of colors crosses all cultures and languages. Visual images are much longer lasting than verbal teaching. Using visuals to teach about salvation has long lasting impact on the learner.

Whether using a construction paper booklet of blank color pages, different colors of cloth, color flags, or other approaches, using colors also enables children to easily restate God’s plan of salvation.

Dark: (black) Use the dark color to present the fall of man and sin entering the human race. We are all born into sin and sin’s darkness. (Romans 3:23)

Red: Use red to present God’s requirement of a blood sacrifice for sin. In the very beginning God had to kill animals to clothe Adam and Eve after they disobeyed and sinned. In the Old Testament God required the blood of animal sacrifices to forgive sin. Finally, God sent His only Son Jesus, who bled and died for all sin of all people for all time.

Clean (white): The Bible, in 1 John 1:9, says if we confess our sin to God, He will forgive us and clean us. We will be as clean as a clean, white page (flag, cloth, etc.).

Green: God’s Word tell us that once we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we have asked God to forgive our sin, we need to grow in our faith. We grow by hearing and reading the Bible, by praying, and by being with others who have asked God to forgive them of their sin.

Yellow-Gold: In the Bible Jesus has said that if we know Him as our Lord and Savior and have been forgiven, after we die and leave this earth, we will be with Him in heaven forever. The Bible says heaven is where God and Jesus live and where the Bible says the streets are paved like gold. (Revelation 21:21)

• Encourage children to discover the importance of corporate worship. Structure experiences where children both contribute to and receive from others through corporate worship.

Participate in the worship experience: Whether children are included in family worship or in separate children’s worship, they can all have a part, from time to time, in the worship experience; collecting offering, participating in the praise team, memorizing and saying Scripture, doing a small drama, or holding a banner, etc. o Use selected Psalms to help children discover expressions of worship.

Create a psalm: Study or present selected psalms and then help children write their own song of praise to God. Consider fill-in-the-blanks to help children, such as:

“Praise God for _________. When I see _________ I know my God is real. In the morning I say to God _________.”

Then have these psalms read by the child as part of the worship experience.

• Help children discover the greatness of God through His creation.

God of creation: Each worship time, have an item from nature, or a large nature picture, displayed. Discuss how you can observe God’s greatness through this item. Talk about the qualities or features of each object or picture, and how wonderful God is in making this for us to enjoy.

• Teach and encourage children to worship through prayer.

Prayer cards: Structure several varieties of prayers and then have children fill in a few words, then read the prayer.

Examples:

Heavenly Father, today we are praying for ____________ who is sick. We pray that You will heal him/her and remove their pain.

Heavenly father, in Your Word You tell us to pray for others. Today I pray for ___________ whose family is having problems and he/she is very sad.

I pray You will come close to ____________ so he/she will know You love and care for him/her.

• Make full use of musical experiences to enable children to worship God through voice and instruments.

Worship music for the nonmusical: The childhood years are a great time to educate children in music. Use simple songs and hand motions to teach children to worship through music, and then have them present those songs as part of worship time individually or in small groups. Children who have good musical talent can lead in the worship time.

• Teach children that part of worship is giving to God both materially (offerings) and through Christian service.

Offering options: Develop offering cards with short commitments like these, that children can place in an offering container.

o This week I will help another child
o This week I will give my time to draw a picture for someone who is ill
o This week I will call someone and tell them that God loves them

Not all children have money they can give. BUT… children can give much of what they have, to benefit others. Children can give a personal item to another child in need, or children can give of their time.