Experimenting with Intergenerational Worship

Experimenting with Intergenerational Worship

by Caroline Lane
Flushing Meeting

Having been involved in initiating Intergenerational worship at my previous meeting in Britain, I spoke with the First Day School Committee at Flushing about it. The others were curious to try it. We next went to the Meeting on Ministry and Worship asking to experiment with it three times a year on the fifth Sunday of the month. Ministry and Worship supported our request and it went before the Meeting for Business, who were willing to give it a try.

In Britain where there was a general movement towards bringing children into the worship service, advisors suggested that we have supplies for quiet creative activities in response to the theme and plan each session in a “Sandwich Format:”

Begin with a brief period of settling silence

A reading or other brief message to introduce the theme for the worship (e.g. peace; care for the earth; etc.)

Extended period of silence during which people may wish to use the papers and colored pens to explore the theme 

A period of time for those who wish to show their work and talk about what it means to them 

Closing silence

At Flushing Meeting we chose a peace tree for our first intergenerational worship.  

Materials:

A branch anchored in a well filled non-breakable pot 

Colored cut-outs in the shape of leaves with holes and a piece of colored yarn 

Colored pens 

After the opening silence, the leader read a few quotations about peace and then asked people to consider how s/he will contribute to a peaceful world.

There followed about half an hour of quiet while people thought and wrote.

Then the leader invited people to hang their leaves on the tree and share their thoughts (if they wished to do so).

After the sharing, another period of silence allowed reflection on what we had heard and the meeting was closed with the usual handshakes. 

Our second intergenerational worship centered on helpful guides. Preparations required cut outs of stars. A dark blue background cloth would have been nice, but we got along without one. The leader spoke about how sailors had long steered their ships by the stars, which helped them to know directions and their own location. The question for reflection was: “What guides you in your life?” Again people who were willing wrote something on one of the paper stars and hung them on a clothesline with clothespins. The sharing was followed by a quiet period of reflection.

After these two experiments, the meeting approved continuing the practice of holding all-age worship three times during the year. We have found that often a fifth Sunday coincides with a holiday when families with children are away visiting grandparents so we now agree among the families with children on three Sundays during the year when all are likely to be present and the dates are approved by the meeting for business for the coming year in November.

We have been helped in finding themes from the Britain Yearly Meeting Journeys in the Spirit publication by the children and young people’s section of Britain Yearly Meeting, which can be accessed at www.quaker.org.uk/cyp