Faith Formation: Moving Toward a Life-Shaping Approach to

Children’s Choirs

Andrea Baxter CGI 2012

Music Education Christian Education Service through worship

leadership

Mission

Participation in a children’s choir is not earthshaking. Rather, it is life-shaping.

-Helen Kemp

Words of wisdom

What is Faith Formation?

Micrometaphors – for the learning environment

Macrometaphors – for the children’s ministry and all it encounters

Metaphorical Lens

Learner Teacher Curriculum – like a blueprint or

roadmap?

Micrometaphors

What is the most widely used

metaphor for children’s ministry in the church?

SchoolProblem is that the focus is on content without contextIs there another, varied metaphor that works for children’s (music) ministry?

Macrometaphors

What is the curriculum you will use for your children’s choir this year?

Explicit Curriculum = That which you consciously decide to teach

Curriculum - Explicit

Root of word = currere = a course to be run

Curriculum = a course or journey to be traversed together. Every aspect of our lives together in the church educates in some way.

What happens to people through people in a learning environment.

Definition by Ted Ward (Michigan State University professor)

Curriculum - Implicit

Effective faith formation with

children respects the ways children learn today by offering learning activities that are experiential, image-rich, multi-sensory, interactive, engaging, and varied in learning style.

Best Practice #1

Tableau in worship

What are your weaknesses? How can God transform those weaknesses into strengths?

What do you find yourself looking forward to? What might limit your desires? How might God’s desire for you be so much more?

Effective faith formation with

children provides opportunities for children to experience and imagine how their personal story is intertwined with the Bible and Christian tradition.

Best Practice #2

Use home connectors to encourage story

exploration with families “The Mustard Seed” by Anna Laura Page Develop questions using the MRI format (Missional,

Relational, Incarnational) Missional – How does love grow? What can you do to

help it grow? Relational – Have you ever planted a flower or vegetable

plant? What was it like to watch it grow? How would it be the same/different from watching a tree grow?

Incarnational – Jesus used parables, or stories that make a point , to make us think. What do you think Jesus wants to make us think about in the story of the mustard seed?

Ideas

Help children find deeper meaning in worship

practices

Ideas

Belief/Faith Statement

“How” Invitation

“Experience” Statements

I believe in God How have you experienced God? What was that like?

I feel God with me when…

I believe in Jesus Christ

How is your role as brother/sister/friend different because of Jesus?

I’m aware of Jesus as a living presence when…

Faith formation with children

provides an environment that allows children to encounter the living God directly.

Best Practice #3

Use language that points toward God’s actions

Use S-M question phrases like “Where have you seen God today?”

Children working together to construct prayers and pray/sing (lead) them in worship

Times of silence to listen for God Guided meditation Sharing with neighbor

Take 30 seconds and tell a neighbor about a gift that God has given to you, about a way that God used that gift today, a way that you are a blessing to others, etc.

Ideas for Worship/Rehearsal

Effective faith formation with

children embraces the lifecycle milestones as opportunities for nurturing the faith of children and their families in the congregation and at home.

Best Practice # 4

Ritual/liturgy

Recognize, celebrate, and pray

Ideas for Worship/Rehearsal

Participants: We are here to celebrate the call of Christ through our

baptism, to be his servants in the world. Congregation: Come, Holy Spirit, empower your youth for

service. Participants: We are here to celebrate and affirm our unique God-

given gifts and to declare that we have been saved by grace through faith for a purpose.

Congregation: We thank you, Lord, for the gifts your Holy Spirit has given to your youth.

Participants: We are here to ask for your prayers and blessing as we travel to Broad Street in Philadelphia.

Congregation: May God go with you as you serve; may God give you his peace and strength; may God give you the energy and enthusiasm to accomplish your tasks. We send you out to serve in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Prayer partners, closing prayer, and song

Milestone Liturgy

Effective faith formation

engages children and their parents in programs that involve the whole family in learning together.

Best Practice #5

Work to connect families to the learning the

child does during choir rehearsals/worship Intergenerational opportunities

Invite families to social gatherings and start with a devotion that works to connect the generations

Intergenerational Choir or Family Choir Encourage singing, praying and

conversation at home through letters, faith/home connection pieces, website page for deeper learning

Ideas

Effective faith formation

provides opportunities for children to practice their faith through hands-on participation in the life, ministries, and activities of the congregation.

Best Practice #6

Younger Elementary – Put words of prayer into

their mouths by using the “repeat after me” method.

Upper Elementary – Give them tools to write and lead their own prayers. Dear God, We thank you for

__________________. In the coming week, please be with __________________. We ask for your help with _____________________. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Prayer Partners

Rather than learning how to pray…

Service

Singing telegram deliveries

Rather than learning how to serve…

In what ways does your rehearsal and what you do

in worship incorporate elements of faith formation?

Which elements do not fit that model?

How can you move more toward opportunities for faith formation?

What are some steps that you will take to move toward more intentional faith formation?

Questions for Discussion

“Only recently have we begun to sense the enormous influence for character building in the children’s choir. But like soil, it must be tended before it will produce. A fine director can do a great deal, but when director, parents, church, and minister work together, with a common purpose and a common vision, it is possible that their efforts will produce the rare fruit buried in the seed.”

Ruth Krehbiel Jacobs

Faith Formation is like…