Weekly worship gatherings are the family reunions of God’s people. We gather as one body to praise God, find rest in God, be reminded of our hope in God, hear our call from God, and leave equipped by God. It is, as Robbie Castleman says, “the only thing we get to do forever.”

Picture your congregation during its weekly worship gathering.

• Which generations are there?
• Which generations aren’t there?
• Which generations are equally important participants?
• What message do your answers convey to your congregation and to your community?

Worshiping in a way that says to all ages, “You belong here,” and that invites all ages to participate in meaningful ways requires intentionality. It’s ongoing. It’s challenging. But, as Theresa Cho points out, it’s also faith nurturing: Worshiping as an intergenerational community pushes and challenges us to be aware of how all in worship experience God’s presence; opens us up to the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit; give[s] us permission to not claim to know it all; and [encourages us to] exercise grace, forgiveness, and unconditional love to those that we deem different than ourselves.

—The What and How of Intergenerational Worship

Historically the CRC has placed a high value on intergenerational worship. As a result, congregations already have many resources at their fingertips from

• Worship Ministries, which exists to network, strengthen, and resource Christian Reformed congregations. Be sure to visit their Inclusive Worship resources and to check out ideas in the journal Reformed Worship.
• the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, which cosponsors and offers conferences such as the annual Symposium on Worship, awards worship grants, and has developed an extensive library of worship-based resources.

This section of the toolkit focuses on ideas for worship planners and suggestions for parents, and we hope you’ll pass these along to the families in your congregation. To start off, download this list of Ten Way to Strengthen Intergenerational Worship. 

Assessment

• See page 14 of the Intergenerational Ministry Planning Guide.
• Use the Intergenerational Worship Survey to identify strengths and weaknesses in the way your congregation involves children and youth in worship services.

Articles

• Start with these three foundational and practical posts by Rev. Theresa Cho: Intergenerational Worship, The What and How of Intergenerational Worship followed by Lessons Learned in the Intergenerational Worship Experiment.
• Consider creating an Intergenerational Covenant.
• Be inspired by the ways this San Mateo church is trying to love and appreciate all generations.
• In the early church, Christians ate together. Find out how Abundant Grace Dinner Church is reclaiming that practice as part of their worship.
• The post “Mom, Why Do I Have to Go to Church Today?” from the blog achurchforstarvingartists answers this common question with one word: community.
• Check out intergenerational worship ideas for Advent in this free download from the Centre for Theology &. Ministry.

Books

• Get ideas for Celebrating the Milestones of Faith in the lives of children, youth, and adults.
• Explore issues facing intergenerational congregations, get guidance for intergenerational worship, and discover intergenerational practices in The Church of All Ages.
• Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship provides practical encouragement for families. We recommend blessing every family in your congregation with a copy. (Yes, it’s really that good.)
• Each of the books listed under the Becoming section of this toolkit also contains information related to intergenerational worship.
• Creating a Spiritual Legacy: How to Share Your Stories, Values, and Wisdom is a guide that helps people, especially seniors, organize and share their life stories.

Ideas

Celebrating Milestones

• Learn how celebrating milestones can transform a congregation and shape a vital partnership between home and church in Passing on Faith—Milestone to Milestone.
• Does your congregation bless people with the gift of a Bible as a way to celebrate a milestone? How might that gift become a way to remind the recipient that their church is also their family? The Cookbook Bible provides a few ideas.

Communion

• Check out Ways to Enhance the Participation of Children/Young Teens During the Lord's Supper.

Engaging Multiple Senses

• These three stories describe how art engaged all ages during worship: A New Look at Old Testament Wisdom, Engaging Kids in Sermons through Art, and A Congregation Deepens Worship with Collaborative Visual Displays.
• As part of a project called “Voices of Our Community” at Sherman Street CRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan, over 120 photos were taken capturing the dreams of people of all ages. How might your church be inspired by their visual project?
• The Experiential Worship Handbook contains ideas for Advent, Lent, Pentecost, and more.

Including Children and Youth

• Consider composing your own worship songs with children and youth using the helpful pointers in this blog post from Reformed Worship.
• More Than Just a Busy Bag: Helping Toddlers and Preschoolers Worship provides practical ideas for fostering faith nurturing worship participation.
• A Kid’s Guide to Worship is a wonderful example of a way to engage children in worship. You’ll find other excellent ideas in Creating Children’s Bulletins That Draw Children into Worship, in this Welcome to Worship letter for families.
• Can children be worship leaders? You bet they can! Find more than ten ways for them to do so here.
• Dear Parents, Thank You for Bringing Your Children to Worship encourages families and reminds others why worshiping together is a blessing for all.
• What do you call an area of the sanctuary that’s specifically set aside for young children during worship? At Grace Lutheran Church it’s called a Pray-Ground. Learn more in this article from Traci Smith, and check out this “prayground box” idea from Flame Creative Kids.
• Here’s a letter to help families prepare their children to listen to the sermon.
• Stories resonate with all ages! Visit our Faith Storytelling toolkit for ideas.
• Support families by making the tool Ten Ways to Engage Kids in Worship available to them.

Including People with a Variety of Abilities

• Read about the theology of inclusion here.
• Use these Inclusive Language Suggestions during worship.
• This list of Role Based Tips provides ideas for including worship leaders, Lord’s Supper servers, praise band members, Scripture readers, and more to help you “widen the welcome.”

Preaching

• The Preaching Tag-Team Challenge describes how two generations might work together to prepare a message for all generations.
• Is providing a children’s sermon a practice in your congregation? Provide presenters with this resource: How to Deliver an Effective Children’s Sermon.
• Daunted by the thought of preaching with all ages in mind? Before you try “family-friendly” gimmicks like balloons or clowns, read this.
• Bless the whole church with the three preaching ideas in this post.
• Visit our Faith Storytelling toolkit for ideas on how to incorporate storytelling into the service.

Videos

• When children were noisy during worship at Rev. Barry Kelk’s church, he would stop and say, “Can you hear the children? The day we can’t hear them we will have died, because they are our heartbeat.” Find out what happened next in this delightful Conversation about Intergenerational Ministry.
• Forest City North Church in London, Ontario, created a Love Is video with people spanning seven decades in age; The Easter Story features children and adults retelling the account from Mark 16:1-8; and in these videos people of varying ages who have intellectual and developmental disabilities recite Psalm 139. How might your church make or use an intergenerational video to begin a worship service or to lead into a message?
• Worship as One: Disability in Community and its accompanying resource will support your congregation in ensuring that your intergenerational worship is inclusive worship.

Websites

• Run, don’t walk, to these two blogs: Still Waters and worshipingwithchildren.
• You’ll find creative ideas at karenwarejackson.com.
• breakingnewbread describes itself as a “blog about forming children to be ministers, cross-generational worship, theology of childhood, and catechesis. Also, crafts.” Not to be missed: Pew Projects.
• Visit our Intergenerational Worship board on Pinterest for many inspiring ideas.
• Visit the Welcoming Children to the Lord’s Supper toolkit for information on the spiritual characteristics of children and young teens, ideas for inclusive communion, and more.
• You’ll find practical tools for being an intentionally inclusive church at AllBelong.org.

Webinars

• “Worship for All Ages: Ideas for Lent and Easter” and “Intergenerational Worship 101” are just two of the recorded webinars offered by Practical Resources for Churches.