worship bags | Rows of Sharon

A workshop I was to present in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia in early March 2020 was moved to an online webinar using Zoom, of which we are all now so familiar with. Here is a diocese that has been very nimble in taking what would have been their day-long, in-person annual event for Christian formation practitioners called Better Together. They are now calling this “shelter-at-home continuing education,” in which I gave my keynote as a Zoom webinar-styled presentation in the first installment, called Faith Formation in a Changing Church.

I recently offered my two workshops, Children’s Presence in Worship: Full Participation or Brief Appearance and Texting God: The Spirituality of Youth via Zoom meeting for more interaction. Valerie Reinke, Canon Missioner for Faith Formation: 35 & Under and her team recorded them and are making them available for others to view.

Continue reading →

This past Saturday I gave a workshop at the annual Spring Training event for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. My presentation involved sharing ideas of how we can make worship more formational for children as well as how we can help parents make faith conversations and practices part of every day life at home. It occurred to me as I was putting some materials together for a “show & tell” that my process (and examples) make a great example of how to do both.

Basically, I gathered up all the supplies that I would put together in a “quiet bag” that I might bring to church with me if I had a preschooler or 8-year-old sitting alongside me in the pew for an entire worship service. What if we made such bags available to children to pick up before they entered our worship spaces? What if some of these objects were put into a “home box” and given to families for their use in at home or in the car? Continue reading A Child’s “Worship Bag” →