Welcoming Children to the Lord's Supper Toolkit

When my daughter was 5 she asked for office supplies for her birthday. I bought a fishing toolkit at the hardware store and filled each little compartment with something she could ​use—stickers, a mini-stapler, markers, tape, paper clips, a ruler, notebooks and more. I’ll never forget the look on her face as she opened the toolkit and checked out each compartment to see what it held. And, although she didn’t use each supply equally or even in the way I had envisioned—the paper clips became hair clasps for her doll, the stickers decorated her bedroom door and she never did use the ruler—she was able to find in that toolkit some of the supplies she needed to do her “work.”

This week the Faith Formation Ministries team introduced delegates at Synod to Welcoming Children to the Lord’s Supper, an online toolkit filled with a wide variety of ministry tools to support pastors, elders, worship planners, children’s program leaders and families as they work to nurture the faith of children.

Created with the help of congregational leaders, this online toolkit includes courses on communion for families and children, an intergenerational event for all ages to experience, children’s messages, worship ideas, information on the spiritual development of children, video stories of the pathways several congregations took as they considered how to welcome children to the table, and more. I’m especially excited about the resources it contains to support families as they nurture the faith of their children at home.

Whether you’re a congregation that is just considering welcoming children to the table, a church that is mid-way through that journey or a congregation that has been including children at the Lord’s Supper for a very long time, the Welcoming Children to the Lord’s Supper toolkit contains something you can use. And, while opening the toolkit may not provide the same level of excitement as a 5 year old opening her birthday gift, we hope it comes close. Check it out and share it with others today. Visit crcna.org/FaithFormation.