Talking Back to God: Worship Response Activities

This article is a part of a series about using Play Kits in Worship. Read part one of the series here. 

In addition to helping kids understand the parts of worship and engage with the sermon, play can help kids respond to God in worship. Children’s minister Kelli Dunn developed these worship response baskets to draw older kids into worship. Below, Kelli shares her process for creating these response baskets and gives some ideas for how to set them up and maintain them.

Creating Worship Response Baskets

These baskets were meant to engage kids in making meaning of our worship and responding in playful ways.  One mistake I made in our first summer was making this area too big and broad. Instead, it was helpful to narrow in on a few specific responses and provide a guide to walk the kids through their responses.  We set out baskets or trays with these response options:

• Legos (a small basket with a variety of pieces)
• Embroidery materials (embroidery hoop with fabric, several colors of thread, dull needles, and a pair of scissors)
• Playdough (a few small containers and a few playdough tools)
• Blank Comic Strips (2-3 sheets stapled together)
• Mini Books (a small blank book made with a cardstock cover and plain paper, stapled in the fold)

Guiding Kids in Their Response

A paper booklet that guided the children in their response helps model purposeful engagement with the baskets and provides them the opportunity to practice responding to God as he is revealed in his word. These don’t need to be complicated, but we have found that they help kids and parents to understand how the baskets can be used in response.

Worship Response Booklets

Our worship response booklets include prompts like these to guide kids in responding to the service. These questions are not just to keep kids busy, they can help develop a habit of reflecting on and living out faith in daily life.

Choose one option for responding:

• Big Idea – While you listen to the scripture or sermon, what is one word or phrase that you hear? What’s the main idea?
• Picture It – Close your eyes as you listen. What picture or image comes to mind?
• Prayers – As you worship, what is something you want to pray about?
• My Life – How do the ideas in today’s worship connect to your life?
• My Plan: Using the option you chose, draw or write a plan for using your response item with your prompt
• Now What? When you finish with your response item, answer the questions below with words or pictures:
  • One question I have about God or our worship today
  • One thing I want to pray about this week
  • One thing I know to be true about God

Maintaining and Engaging with the Tools

These require weekly maintenance – replacing the fabric on the hoops, swapping out dried-out playdough, or putting out fresh comic strips. The biggest challenge with these is helping move kids (and families) towards purposeful engagement and away from distractions or just something to keep kids busy. The more we model this with our kids and challenge the parents to do the same, the more these become tools for meaningful response.

Your Turn

Whether kids are in children’s classrooms or in the main worship service, are there opportunities for them to respond to God? What would making space for response look like in your kids’ ministry? You can use the questions below to help you reflect on this idea and imagine it in your context!