The church I'm going to has recently just started having a service on Saturdays as well as the three on Sundays. It's designed to be a cross-generational service. Not that the others aren't, it's just that the trend tends to be mostly elderly in the 8am service, families and children in the 10:30am service, and young adults, mostly childless, going to the 6pm service. It's just that the way the different services are run and the times that they are on suit those particular groups the best. This is partly intentional, I think, so that there's a service to suit most groups of people who come to church, but someone must've thought it'd be nice to have a Saturday service and make it cross-generational so the different generations can worship together. It's a good idea that encourages community. So I thought I'd come along and check it out. It was really nice, and fun, and different, and a lot less formal than the usual Sunday services. There were lots of kids but, unlike in the 10:30am service where the send the kids off to Sunday school while their parents listen to the adult service, the adults and the kids stayed in the same service, worshipped, and listened to the same message together. It was really nice.
So they did a lot during the service that was just for the kids, but I think the adults enjoyed watching the kids and playing along, too, I think. It might be easy for an adult to feel like the service was too kiddy, but for the sake of the community and supporting what they were trying to do, most of the adults just allowed themselves to enjoy it, including the ones who didn't have kids like myself. At least, that's what I did, and that's what I imagine most of the adults did. That's what the spirit of the service seemed to be like.
Also, after they had the stuff that was for the kids they got these paper plates and got the kids to draw on them (it was related to what the message was) while the pastor spoke the message to the adults, although still simple enough that the kids could follow while they drew their pictures, but more relatable for the adults than the stuff they were doing just for the kids before, while the kids were kept quiet while they drew. Afterwards they got the kids to come up and show and talk about their pictures, along with their really cute and funny answers that kids always have.
I thought it was really nice how they went about doing this, how they made it so the adults and kids could worship together with their families without sending the kids off to their seperate lessons, and also for the childless people who were there who can also worship with the kids and the parents and grandparents, too, all different people in different times in their lives, together in one community, and I think I'll go back next week, too.
I'm still going to the 6pm service every week on Sundays as I usually do and will also occasionally go to the 10:30am service every now and then as I sometimes do (I've yet to visit the 8am service - a little too early for a Sunday morning!) but I really like what they're doing at the Saturday service and would like to support it!
