Our parish family includes an increasing number of  families with children. The inclusion of these children in worship is of great importance. Worship is one of the basic ways people learn what it means to be Christian. 

Children learn worship by worshipping with the congregation Sunday after Sunday. They learn that they belong to Christ and are welcome in His Church. They learn to know the Lord’s Prayer and other parts of the liturgy from memory. They build a fund of memorable, shared experiences of Christian community against which they may draw when they are older. 

Children are enriched by the beauty of music and art as expressions of praise and as human responses to God. They hear stories from the Bible read and interpreted, and begin to see Christian worship as one place where God may speak to them.  They witness the drama of Baptism and Eucharist as signs of God’s kindness and favor.

They discover that they are valued as persons by God and by the people of God at Church.

Children are all important and welcomed part of our worshipping community.

We welcome children to worship by:                                              

• Providing a family worship service each Sunday and  encouraging families to bring their children of all ages to the family worship. 
• Providing child care for infants and toddlers through age four during worship and urging parents to slip out at the time of The Communion of the People to pick up their infants and toddlers so that they can go to the altar rail as a family;
• Encouraging older children to participate in worship as acolytes and choir members;
• Providing our Children’s Sermon for young children based on the Gospel lesson;
• Modeling appropriate church behavior for children by teaching them to stand, sit, or kneel with the congregation.

Bringing children to worship may not always be easy, but it is an essential part of their growth in Christ.  The Body of Christ assembled is incomplete in their  absence. We need children.