Our large group assembly has several components, but its ultimate goal is to help our kids learn to worship. The session is comprised of door prizes, fun activity songs, religious/spiritual songs, and more serious worship songs. There is a deliberate attempt to keep the kids engaged for the entire session and a purposeful flow of songs aids with this goal. Brief snippets of worship “teaching moments” are also regularly incorporated. 

Door Prizes

Door prizes are the first event of the evening. Check this link for more information and the for the purpose for this important component.

Fun Activity Songs

The fun songs are combination of guitar led and track led songs. These songs include kids songs from the Wee Sing Silly Songs, Wee Sing Bible Songs, and the Crazy Praize Series from Brentwood. The purpose is to focus the kid's attention and start the evening off with a fun and positive atmosphere. The goal is to totally engage the children. It is always fun, and at times, a bit rowdy.

Spiritual Focus

The next phase of the evening is when we turn to more purposeful and spiritual music. Songs such as the "Books of the Bible," "Lean on Me," or "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" are sung here. There is a lot of stopping and starting as the leader encourages the kids to participate. Various kids from the group are often asked to come forward (i.e. any 4th grader that knows the song) and help lead.

Worship Focus

The final part of this large group session is the worship segment. This is where we focus on quality and timely songs of praise and devotion. The songs range from those in our current congregational repertoire, songs that will be soon be introduced to the congregation, or simply compelling songs that will hopefully minister to the kids along their worship journey. One important thing to keep in mind is the constant need to teach our kids the worship repertoire of the congregation. If they have already genuinely worshipped with a song in our KWA assembly setting, they will be much more inclined to become active worship participants during our congregation's corporate worship times on Sundays. This worship segment is, perhaps, the most important component of our Kids Worship Arts Ministry.

Worship Discipleship

Teaching nuggets are often interspersed as appropriate. Spontaneous questions such as, "How do you sing a song to God?" or "What should you be thinking when you are singing, 'How Great Is Our God'?" are typical "in the moment" examples. At times this worship discipleship is pre-planed and creatively developed. At other times, it is spontaneous. It is very important that the worship leader approach this aspect with a prayerful heart. God wants to grow our kids into worshippers. Our role is to be sensitive to what He desires for them to be taught. Care must be taken that this time not descend into a lecture time where the kid's attention is lost. Keeping things relevant and taking advantage of "teaching moments" should be the goal.

Engaging the Total Worshipper

We are privileged to have an awesome and Godly woman in our church who knows sign language, and she has graciously agreed to help teach the kids motions to their worship songs. We find it very helpful to get the kid’s whole body involved in worship. As an aside, one of our greatest joys as adult worship leaders is to be leading a song on Sunday morning, and look out across our congregation and see little mouths worshipping and little hands doing motions in very reverent ways. This is Kids Worship Arts at its best: helping our kids discover the joy of public and private worship.

Logistics

• The worship leader for this segment is the church’s Minister of Music.
• He accompanies the group with his guitar and sings into a microphone so he can be easily heard. 
• Words to the songs are displayed on a large TV in the front of the room, but this is totally a luxury, and the kids often do not need the words. Our opening assembly would probably function almost as well without these projected words, but since we have this technology at our church, we utilize it.
• The tracks we use are controlled by an iPad and are played over a small sound system. However, this could just as easily be accomplished with CD's and a large jam box.
• This opening session lasts about 20 minutes. After that, the kids are dismissed to their various tracks.