Greetings!

"Get Ready! Get Set! Worship!" is a great book & resource for planning to teach children and parents about worship and the worship space. In Get Ready! Get Set! Worship!, four outstanding Christian educators have given pastors and teachers in the church what congregations have needed for years: a complete teaching program to prepare children and their families for worship. Within a structured program for actively involving children and parents, the authors suggest time-tested ideas and activities and provide worksheets, games, songs, crafts, and recipes. 

ISBN 978-06645-0006-1Check AMAZON or your favorite Christian online bookstore.

For acolytes, Cokesbury has a booklet on it, and Ecufilm has a video.

Hope this helps!

Julie Burton

Hi
You might also look at Children in the Sanctuary, from the PCUSA (appears to be out of print). This is a great resource that is aimed at adults, but maybe it will be helpful.
Blessings
Jan S

Episcopal 101

Tara -- We did a rotation once called "Episcopal 101", and one of our workshops emphasized the actual physical aspects of an Episcopal Church. We took the kids on a scavenger hunt, where they went from room to room to learn the name & purpose of each room, its significance, etc. It was educational and fun and gave the kids an insight into the inner workings of the church.

Parenting in the Pew

While we have done a variety of things including a family Sunday afternoon workshop that focused on worship (Acts 2:42 specifically), baked bread for communion, done a scavenger hunt with comparisons between the temple objects and their significance and modern objects in the sanctuary ... to me the key is educating parents so they can train their kids.

A great book is "Parenting in the Pew" by Robbie Castleman. 

Some of my favorite concepts of this book: 

• Worship is "caught" not "taught".
• The idea that parents need to know that "for this season" it's their parental responsibility to model worship and train their kids to worship. Parents may need to get over the fact that they might not "get anything out of the sermon" this week because they're training their child to worship. In the long run, consider the benefits.

And for the kids who don't come to worship with their parents ... why not pair them up with some seasoned Christians who love to worship?

Member "Randolph" asked this question in our Teachers Lounge...

I'm responsible for creating a 6-week unit for K-6 related to Worship. I have thought of some activities that relate to my church's worship life: make a diorama of our sanctuary, make little altars, make candles, bell choir, perform an anthem, make an altar cloth, learn the Doxology, build a simple model of an organ, do something with the Passing of the Peace. But I need other activities (and some better ones!).  Help appreciated.

Member Cathy W's responded with these great ideas...

• Cooking: make unleavened bread and talk about the Lord’s Supper and how "worship" nourishes us like bread does and can be shared.
  
  
• Storytelling: have the pastor come in and talk about how he or she's gets READY for worship. Have them bring in their "props" (such as a robe or stole) and let the kids try them on.
  
  
• Computers: “Attack of the Sunday School Zombies” from Sunday Software teaches about the right attitude to bring to worship. It's now free to the supporting members of Rotation.org! Learn more about the program here.
  
  
• Music: in addition to your ideas about learning the Doxology or playing bells, you could also have the children take familiar tunes and put their own words to them
  
  
• Drama: Act out the various parts of worship (perhaps as a charades-type game) or have the class create an infomercial explaining worship
  
  
• Games: learn about the parts of worship/the various participants in worship/different parts of the church year through games such as “Wheel of Fortune” or “Jeopardy” or “Tic-Tac-Toe”, etc.  "What season of the church or special worship service is this?"

Hi
You may also want to see if you can get the book "Teaching Children Worship in the Sanctuary" by Joyce MacKichan Walker and Carol Wehrheim.
I would also recommend Worship for Life, which will have great resources. ( expensive though- try to get it from your resource center if that is an option)

Blessings
Jan S

The Logos resource "Worship for Life" has 219 learning activities about worship. It is amazing stuff!

Julie Burton

UPDATE:
Sadly, Logos Productions/Publishing went out of business. Anybody know where Worship for Life can still be found? It's great stuff.  ~ Neil

Volunteer Moderator moved this material here from the Help Forum...

Member Bev Bolsen had asked if anyone had a lesson plan for teaching children to worship (ages 6-10). 

Bev received several replies (which basically was a rehash of the above posts). Here was a new one from Ann Wright: 

We pulled one together based on several books. Since much is copyrighted from those books, I can't share the entire curriculum. One book we used a lot from is "Children Worship!" Maryjane Pierce Norton ISBN 978-0881772234.

This was taught to second-graders during worship, following the children's sermon (about 40 minutes long). At the end of the year, they received a Bible from the church and helped with that day's worship service as ushers, liturgists, etc.

The list of lessons that we taught are:
Lesson 1. What is Worship?
Lesson 2. Where Do We Worship?
Lesson 3. Preparation for a Worship Service
Lesson 4. Order of Worship
Lesson 5. Purpose of Music in Worship
Lesson 6. Using the Hymnal
Lesson 7. Gloria Patri, Doxology, and Hymnal
Lesson 8. Purpose of Prayer
Lesson 9. Lord’s Prayer
Lesson 10. Creed: Statement of Belief
Lesson 11. Apostle’s Creed
Lesson 12. Seasons of the Church Calendar
Lesson 13. Colors of the Seasons
Lesson 14. Advent Season and Christmas
Lesson 15. Role of Scripture
Lesson 16. Sermon
Lesson 17. Scripture, Sermon and Lectionary
Lesson 18. Sacraments
Lesson 19. Communion
Lesson 20. Baptism
Lesson 21. Sacraments
Lesson 22. Symbols
Lesson 23. The Trinity
Lesson 24. A Thankful Offering
Lesson 25. Stewardship
Lesson 26. Serving Others within Worship: Ushering
Lesson 27. Serving Others within the Church
Lesson 28. Serving Others Beyond the Church
Lesson 29. Being a Member of a Church
Lesson 30. Being a Presbyterian

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See the related topic:  Attitudes about Going to Worship, What is Church.

Here are two good videos for children and youth about Worship

The Kids' Club God's Story: Worship video is really good at discussing what worship is. It goes through a 8 ways we can worship God it includes the story of David dancing, the Widow's Mite, and Woman who poured oil on Jesus' head -- all as expressions of worship. 4 Minutes

Kids' Club video for older kids/youth, "We Can Worship God" is very similar to the "God's Story: Worship" video above, but it is much longer (14 minutes) and has more Bible stories in it. It uses the same 8 images for all 8 ways a person can worship God.

Teaching Idea:
Print the screenshotted image above "8 ways to tell God he's the most important thing" and hand copies to two groups. Watch the video, then see which group can remember what all 8 images in the screenshot represent.

Discuss some of the "ways" by having kids give more examples of "what they could give, create, share, use their brainpower toward, etc." Write them down.