All-Age Church

One of the great things about Church is that it really is for all ages - and it works for all ages. Sometimes, of course, we go into different bits, and have Junior Church and things like that. That's appropriate, and it is good to tailor things to different needs. However, it is also good, from time to time, to be all together - and one of the ways in which we do that is by engaging in what we often call All-Age Worship. The great secret of successful All-Age Worship, I believe, is to have it operating on a range of levels at the same time. That is not easy, and there is a real danger that it becomes lowest common denominator worship, and is directed at the children, with nothing for the adults except the "Ahhh!" factor. No All-Age Worship will hit all the spots always, but, hopefully, it will hit more than one spot at a time and, within a single act of worship, move across the whole range - more than once. Yesterday (Pentecost 2008) I was leading All-Age Worship at Weoley Hill United Reformed Church, where I am currently one of the ministers. I am sure bits of it could have been a lot better, but it was good to engage in a range of ways. We had a small group of pre-schoolers and everybody else was adult, so that was interesting in itself. The service focussed on three symbols of Pentecost - language, fire and wind. We heard a bit of Acts 2 in several different languages. We sang 'happy birthday' and lit and blew out candles. We had some indoor sparklers. But we also discussed which Bible stories make use of our three Pentecost symbols of language, fire and wind.