Kid's Art as Worship

Last week I connected with Liz Tolkamp, the children's pastor at Willoughby Christian Reformed Church in Langley, British Columbia. Liz is always looking for meaningful ways to help kids engage in the worship service and be part of the broader church community. For Easter she arranged something special — an idea too good to keep to herself!

Liz took the Easter story and split it into small portions for the children of the church to illustrate. Each piece of art tells a snippet of the story — like the angel rolling away the stone, and the guards shaking with fear — together they communicate the amazing events that happened on the first Easter morning. Next, Liz scanned the images into her computer and used the program Photo Story (which can be downloaded from the internet) to create a video that displayed each scene in sequence.

Here's the best part — the video was used at the Easter morning worship service to accompany the Scripture reading. I can just see the eyes of the kids lighting up as their images of the story led the whole congregation in imagining the excitement of Jesus resurrection! What a meaningful way to help kids both prepare for and share in the joy and wonder of Easter. Thanks for sharing this idea Liz!

If you'd like to hear about other ways churches are using kid's gifts and helping kids engage in the worship service, visit this page of the worship network. Join the conversation!