Learning from Soft Space Gone Wrong: Shifting from Many Ages in Worship to Worship for All Ages
Many congregations want to include children in worship and there are countless ways to do that. Sometimes efforts to make worship “child-friendly” or tailored for families ends up segregating children further and increasing tension between families and other groups in the parish. Explore a different model for rich liturgy that's neither child-centered nor adult-centered, but somewhere in the messy middle. The focus of this workshop is how one might structure worship to intentionally incorporate all ages into a typical Rite II Eucharist.
Audience: Formation Ministries for All Ages
Presenters:
Sarah Bentley Allred
Sarah Bentley Allred graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in May 2019. She now serves part-time as Director of Children and Family Ministries at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina and is part time Associate for Christian Formation and Discipleship for the Department of Lifelong Learning at VTS. Sarah is passionate about children's spirituality, small church Christian formation, and intergenerational worship.
Elizabeth Henry-McKeever
Elizabeth Henry-McKeever is a recent graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary and currently serves as curate at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. She worked in the nonprofit world before being ordained a priest and is especially interested in helping congregations live into their values. As a parent of a preschooler, she has experimented with several different ways to support all ages in worship and only some of them have been disasters.
