Grace provides regular opportunities for children to experience care, engage with peers, and develop their faith. Children’s ministries are staffed by volunteer adults and youth from the congregation. All adult volunteers undergo a background check prior to working with the children.
Nursery
Newborn through Age 3
The nursery ministry provides safe and comfortable care for infants and toddlers (through age 3) so that adults can attend the worship service with fewer distractions. Families are also welcome to keep their children with them in the sanctuary, or take a child into the prayer room off the common room for nursing or for more private space with a baby. An adult attendant signs children into nursery, provides name tags, assigns security IDs, and stows the child’s belongings. First-timers will fill in a registration form providing basic information about their child’s needs. It is part of the nursery ministry to cuddle and console little ones who cry, but if your child is inconsolable, ill, or injured, you will be retrieved from the service or contacted by cell phone–please set your phone to vibrate and keep it on your person during the service. Families of infants (pre-walkers) may provide a bottle for their child. No other food or drink is allowed in nursery. Given that children explore with their mouths and hands, toys are disinfected after each service.
Children’s Worship
Age 3 through 2nd Grade
Children are invited to attend Children’s Worship any time after their 3rd birthday, continuing until the end of 2nd grade. They begin the service by sitting with their grownups in “big church.” After being invited to the front of the sanctuary for a mutual blessing, they are ushered out the center aisle and guided to their worship centers. There are different worship centers for different age and grade groupings–newcomers should feel free to head upstairs with their child to help ensure they wind up in the right room.
Children’s worship begins with a circle time that includes singing, prayer, and a story from the Bible told with felt board (preschool-kindergarten) or with wooden figures (1st-3rd grade). A response time follows that provides children with developmentally appropriate opportunities to explore the Bible story of the day. Children can work with the storytelling materials, do crafts, play a community building game, or engage with a group art project. A small snack is provided. Families pick up their children from the worship centers following the conclusion of the service.
The exception to this is communion Sundays, when they are returned directly to their family in time to participate in the communion service. It is left to the family’s discretion whether children partake of the elements or receive a blessing only.
Sermon Worksheets
3rd through 8th Grade
Children in this age group remain in “big church” for the entire service. They can pick up a worksheet based on the sermon Bible passage that asks a few simple questions and includes a prompt for a drawing on the back of the sheet. The children turn in their finished sheet at the end of the service and then get to choose a treat.
Middle School Youth Group
4th through 8th Grade
We meet monthly on the 3rd Wednesday from 6:00 – 7:30pm in the new upstairs youth room for activities, science experiments, games, conversations, and some engaging biblical learning.
Family Faith Formation Support
Our denominational kids ministry, Kids Corner, offers weekly family faith formation material. Sign up on their website if you’d like to be added to this email list. It contains children’s ministry information, but it is also aimed at empowering families to have faith conversations at home. Family Fire offers resouces for parents and couples in building their relationships. The denominational Thrive office also offers resources for parents. In the children’s worship hallway there is a parent information hub that contains flyers, prayer calendars, book recommendations–anything we can find that could be helpful to you as you raise your children into curious and faithful friends of Jesus.
Worship Leading
Our children and young people are very involved with the ministries of the church, not only leading worship as musicians, singers, readers, and doers of slides and sound, but also planning worship for our regular youth-led services, and serving in the nursery and with the food ministry. Our communion liturgy often has a role for children and youth.
Summer at Grace
Parks and Prayer, Age 3 through the summer after 2nd grade: A simple outdoor program of a Bible story or devotional, response time, snack, and a chance to play on the playground outside. Children start in the service and are led to the Youth Room after the children’s message. Adults pick them up there after the service, except for Communion Sundays, when they return to the sanctuary.
Midweek Programs: We often partner with other local churches to put on Vacation Bible School. We also often do looser-formatted Kids’ Nights. During the pandemic, that changed, and we held Backyard Bible Clubs. This summer’s activities remain to be seen, depending on how families and volunteers are feeling about the pandemic.
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