worship as a family
// August 21st, 2008 // church, creative, faith
In August every year (well the last 2 years), just after school starts back we have a big weekend we call FamilyLife Weekend. Basically, the idea is to give our families a chance to worship together. So all of our kids services shut down for the weekend, except the wee little guys, and everyone enjoys (key word) church together – as a family.
It was a blended experience, appealing to both kids and parents, with elements like fun songs with hand motions, a full body puppet running around on stage at times, a big huge crazy game that adults got to participate in and all kinds of other wackyness. We started it off with a simple video setting up the experience by letting all the old “fogeys” know what to expect:
After the kids portion of service the worship band did a short set consisting of ‘Happy Day‘ which turned out great in that environment. Pastor did an illustrated message called ‘Which Seat Are You In’ involving some of our kiddos dressed as adults which was fun. To perfectly end the day the band rocked Lincoln Brewsters ‘Today is the Day‘ and it was amazing.
This service is an awesome way to bring families together and show them its possible for families to worship together, walk out their faith together and for kids to get to see how their parents react to worship and the word (whether good or bad). Hopefully causing moms and dads to buck up, get real, and assume the positions God has called them to in their homes.
Here is the cue sheet from the weekend if case your interested.
This is my Creative Chaos.
Love this idea. Your video, however, is private on Vimeo. Do you think you could make it public and embed it?
Marcus Hacklers last blog post..Usain Bolt, the Dennis Rodman of Track and Field?
Sorry about that Marcus, its now embedded. enjoy!
What a great idea. I must file this away for a later date. I love it! I’ve got ideas racing through my head on how to do this at our church. How has it worked for you guys?
Gary Durbins last blog post..Yearbook Yourself
Very nice – I’m glad I’m not an ol’ fogey. Thanks for embedding and sharing!
Marcus Hacklers last blog post..Usain Bolt, the Dennis Rodman of Track and Field?
Love this idea…what a humorous way to engage.
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Love it. I’m convinced that more and more churches NEED to embrace the whole family, rather than segment it into individual and age specific ministries (not that age specific ministries are bad – I lead one! – just that they should not operate in isolation to the whole family).
Way to keep everyone together!
And thanks for posting the cue sheet. I’m one of those ex-programming dorks who loves them. What program did you use to make it?
jimkastkeats last blog post..in case you missed it [check this out]
Gary – Its worked extremely well. We’ve gotten very good feedback, and its fun seeing families enjoy church together.
Jim – We use planningcenteronline.com for our service scheduling, it works beautifully, we really love it. It helps a lot with team collaboration too.