Real-Life, Kid-Tested Ideas from Other Parents!
with special notes about the Lord's Supper

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Arrive in time to find a place to sit so that your children will have a better view. Helpful hint: please be sure your children have used the bathroom before entering the service.

Bring a book or quiet activity to occupy your children if they are too young to sit quietly and listen. Something like a roll of mints or a box of raisins handed out slowly can also be helpful. Please help your children grow to learn that they are not to distract those who are worshiping nearby.

Clue in the children about what is happening next in worship. Point out items in the order of the service in the bulletin as the service goes along. Help them find the reading in the Bible or the words of the worship songs and hymns in the bulletin or on the overhead screen. Give them the family's offering to put in the collection basket.

(Side note: visitors are asked only to put a visitor's card, if anything, in the collection basket.)

Discuss at home the importance of worship. Prepare your children for any special features of the service that day such as the Lord's Supper or a Baby Dedication or other special activities. (CBC's bulletin is online at www.communitybiblechurch.org by Saturday before each Sunday.) During the drive home or sometime later on Sunday, invite questions about that day's worship service.

Encourage children to pick up the "busy bags" when entering the service. These have: a Bible picture & puzzle, a verse, a place to color and small set of crayons. Children listen & learn even when coloring. Help them learn to be attentive listeners during the service and to participate according to their reading levels and attention spans.

From parent to child. This idea came out of Edith Schaeffer's book "The Hidden Art". Some parents have learned to keep their children attentive during the message by "cartooning" the message for them. Most messages can be illustrated using stick figures and other simple drawings. Bonus: parents take in the message more deeply themselves as they build bridges of learning for their children!

Gospel for all generations. The Lord's Supper is a wonderful opportunity for children to worship with their parents. If you look at its roots in Exodus (The Passover) you see that God expected the children's curiosity to be provoked. They would naturally ask their parents why people were gathering and sharing food in a special way.

In the Lord's Supper, the Gospel is declared to all our senses; we see the bread broken, we hear the words telling its story, we handle, smell and taste the elements.

Hope for the Future. For a young child, a plate of bread bits and a tray of juice cups that pass them by might look like they are being skipped for snack! If your children want to participate but you are not certain that they have given their life to Christ and understand the meaning of the Lord's Supper, please gently direct them not to take the "elements": the bread and the grape juice.

We encourage you to find time after the service to talk further with them about this. You may find it helpful to look over our children's handout about the Lord's Supper with your children. (This will be in the "busy bags" the first Sunday of the month or on the foyer table.)

Our prayer for all of the children who come to our services is that they will begin a relationship with Jesus Christ early in their lives.

All children and adults are invited to take the elements and join in the Lord's Supper at our church if they have made a clear and spoken commitment to ask Jesus Christ to be their Forgiver and desire to follow him as the Leader in their lives.