Inviting Children’s Participation in Worship
Listening Circles: March 26 & 28, 2024
QREC is hosting two Listening Circles to support a Friend’s research for their seminary degree. Melinda Wenner Bradley (PhYM) is completing her program this spring and for a capstone project is exploring children’s participation meeting for in worship. She’s interested in gathering from Friends of all ages their responses to queries like the ones below, and finding what emerges as a guide for how to be an intergenerational spiritual community and encourage mutual reciprocity across generations.
From Melinda: In many Quaker meetings, our religious education model has siloed children from adults and separated them from worship. I believe a direct outcome is the decline in thriving, multigenerational meetings. How could changes to our practice of waiting worship support greater welcome and inclusion? What capacity for change is possible, that would innovate while maintaining the core of “waiting worship?” What historical and scriptural evidence is there to support change today?
QUERIES:
- If you grew up in a Quaker meeting, what was your experience of participating in worship?
- If you grew up in another denomination, what was your experience of participating in worship?
- What do meetings today offer families with children in the way of support, care, and nurture?
- We profess to want to see more families with children in our benches, but are we prepared to minister to them? How is worship part of that ministry?
- How might experiences with semi-programmed, intergenerational worship address issues of inclusion, especially for children? What challenges or barriers to this idea would you anticipate?
- How might experiments with music, story, scripture, and movement create openings for awareness of the Holy Spirit as she moves among us in waiting worship? How could these elements in particular welcome children in our worship – and with them, their parents/caregivers?
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
Conversation Starter:
- Melinda Wenner Bradley, Faith & Play Director of Communications and Training
Facilitators:
- Elizabeth Freyman, Albuquerque Friends Meeting, IMYM
- Sita Diehl, Madison Friends Meeting, NYM
RESOURCES:
- Children’s Spirituality: What it is and Why it Matters by Rebecca Nye
- Sunday Schooling Our Kids Out of Church: The true story of how one congregation dropped Sunday School to Save its Soul, by Tim Wright
Learn more: Visit the QREC Resource Library and subscribe to our announcements
What’s New?
- Grandparenting Creatively in a Quakerly Manner
- Conscientious Objection: How can Quaker Meetings support our youth? A Conversation Circle
- Talking with Children & Youth about the Presidential Election 2024
- Walking in the World as a Friend Community Practice Group
- Spiritual Companion Group Gatherings
- Valiant Together: Sharing Quaker Religious Education Support and Resources
- Introductory Slide Show
