Aligned
Congregations and Camps have a significant amount of mission alignment – gospel proclamation, building community, ensuring safety for those who enter our sacred spaces and strengthening families for faithful living. One of our greatest areas of mission overlap is engaging children in worship.
We, Anna and Kendra, are excited to share the work we’ll be doing for the next 4.5 years through the Engaging Children Initiative of the La Crosse Area Synod (ELCA). We are both congregational ministers who believe that children are not just the future of the church, but are the church now – and one of our convictions is that children should be integrated into all aspects of worship. We know that there are places of worship that do this invitation and integration well and attend to the unique needs of children. And no one engages children in worship better than our camps.
So we invited Luther Park Bible Camp and Sugar Creek Bible Camp to partner with us in learning deeply, engaging in important self-reflection and assessment, and creating networks of camp and congregational leaders who learn from one another, support one another and work to ensure that all God’s children feel welcome and are able to bring their whole selves to Christian worship.
If you too are curious about engaging children in worship, keep your eyes on this initiative! There will be learning opportunities for this geographically near Western Wisconsin, and plenty of learnings and best practices being shared along the way. Here’s what the Engaging Children Initiative will look like.
Phase One: Spring 2025 – Summer 2026
- Camps and Congregations that already engage children in worship through art, music, movement, story and curiosity will serve as learning laboratories. Staff and volunteers from these sites will meet regularly to learn from and support one another. We will use an action-reflection model to experiment, expand and hone our practices. Experts in children’s faith formation and creative worship will engage project participants and the wider public.
- Phase One assessments: a synod-wide survey of parents, survey of camper parents, congregational learning laboratory site visits and parent focus groups, parent assessments at learning laboratories, camp site visits. Survey data from the synod wide survey and observational data from learning laboratories will be incorporated into principles and best practices.
Phase Two: Fall 2026 – Summer 2027
- Additional congregations will be recruited into cohorts with peer-to-peer learning facilitated by learning laboratory participants and Initiative staff. These cohorts will meet approximately four times to utilize principles and adapt/customize best practices gained in phase one. Cohorts will further experiment and expand their engagement of children in worship. Experts in children’s faith formation and children’s worship will teach project participants and the wider public.
- Phase Two assessments: site visits and parent focus groups at learning laboratory sites and cohort sites, camp site visits, camper parent assessments.
Phase Three: Fall 2027 – Summer 2028
- Congregational cohorts will expand with a special focus on ecumenical partners. Under the guidance of learning laboratory participants and Initiative staff, these cohorts will meet approximately four times to utilize principles and best practices refined in phase two. Cohorts will experiment with and expand their engagement of children in worship. Experts in children’s faith formation and children’s worship will teach project participants and the wider public.
- Phase Three assessments: Congregational cohort site visits and parent focus groups, camper parent survey, camp site visits, synod-wide parent assessments.
Phase Four: Fall 2028 – Summer 2029
- We anticipate that cohort participants will continue to share ideas, learn together and support one another with principles, best practices and a spirit of holy experimentation gained from project participation. We hope that the professional relationships formed during the Initiative will strengthen connections that continue beyond 2029 with mutual learning and support.
- Initiative staff and learning laboratory participants will further develop resources to share with the wider church. We hope to equip congregations of all sizes, but especially our smallest churches, with easy to implement resources, creative liturgies and a plethora of adaptable ideas.
We are excited to see how the Holy Spirit and the work of dynamic practitioners come together to intentionally experiment with ways to creatively engage children’s whole selves and faithfully inspire all generations present in worshipful experiences.
Whether it’s babies leading our laments, making a space for little liturgical artists in our sanctuaries, or equipping families with practices that flow through church, home and camp, we hope to foster an expanding collaboration that meets the needs of all abilities and learning styles for the young and young at heart.
This warms my heart more than you know! Thank you for beginning this much needed work. I love when my kiddos (3, 7, and 14) get to not just be at church but be engaged in learning and in the service.