Saturday Lagniappe: 'Missouri initiative seeks to involve children more meaningfully in churches’ worship service' And More

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Maryville, Missouri, Dissolved December 31, 2019

Missouri initiative seeks to involve children more meaningfully in churches’ worship services
Trinity Episcopal Church’s experimentations with intergenerational worship started in 2024 after a simple decision. The Sunday nursery at the church in Kirksville, Missouri, was getting too crowded and chaotic, so the congregation decided that children ages 7 and older would join their parents in the pews during worship services.

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9. More than three decades ago, in the 1980s, we worked to make our weekly celebrations of the Holy Eucharist at St. Michael's, a new church I helped to plant and pioneer in the diocese of Louisiana, not only child-friendly but also child-inclusive. In 2000 I wrote an occasional paper (unpublished) on intergenerational worship for the diocese's liturgy and music commission, the fundamental reasoning behind what we did, what worked well and what didn't, based on that experience and my own research.

Let the Children Come
What do you dream for the children in your congregation in their life with God?

How might you design worship and prayer practices to help them—and people of all ages—become the disciples you imagine?

5 Benefits of Hosting an All-Age Worship Service
Hosting an all-age worship service won’t solve everything, but it will move your church closer to being a unified body. Here are five reasons it’s worth doing—and how to start.

The difference between an all-age worship and intergenerational worship is that an all-age service is something done "every now and then." The goal of intergenerational worship, on the other hand, is to involve children in meaningful ways in every worship gathering.

All Age Worship
This resource pack was developed by Jane Tibbs, Children’s Adviser for the Diocese of Bath and Wells and from what I have read should be helpful to church leaders seeking to involve children more in worship gatherings in ways meaningful to them.

Won't Somebody Please Think of (Having the) Children!
What’s intriguing about the impending population decline across the world is that it is hitting every part of the globe, irrespective of culture, ethnicity and religion.

In an intriguing article in The Free Press, entitled, Peak Human Is Coming Sooner Than You Think, two of the world’s leading demographers, Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick, unpack a phenomenon that is exactly the opposite of the 1970s fears, population collapse.

With some notable exceptions, e.g., Free-Will Baptists, the declining birth rate is affecting both conservative and progressive churches in the United States. Progressive churches are particularly hard hit.

Proposed Pell grant change misses the meaning of education
The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would tie the availability of Pell grants and student loans to the earning potential of degree programs. This proposal is beyond terrible for a multitude of reasons.

First, it ignores the actual reason for education in the first place. This ignorance is not simply a Trump administration problem but a misunderstanding reflected throughout our society. We have a collective amnesia about the purpose of education.

Second, a rule of this nature will decimate a variety of careers that are crucial to the functioning of a healthy society. We are fortunate in our country that we still have people willing to fulfill a calling that isn’t tied to the accumulation of riches.

Jackie Hill Perry Called the Enneagram Demonic. Here’s What She Found.
Jackie Hill Perry didn’t whisper it. The Christian author, Bible teacher, and hip-hop artist, one of the most prominent evangelical voices in the country, posted on Instagram calling the Enneagram “legitimately doctrines of demons, divination, witchcraft,” then apologized for ever promoting it. The story expired before most people finished arguing about it.

Those are the two questions worth actually answering.

Choir Dress: The Vestment That Is Never Wrong
A loose fitting cassock is preferrable to a tight fitting one. The cassock was originally outdoor wear, an overcoat. The 1604 canons only require a surplice for divine ministrations. Since churches were unheated until modern times, clergy put their surplice on over their overcoat to keep warm.

Image Credit: Episcopal Asset Map