While the purpose of our ministry is to develop life-long worshippers, we also realize that a certain aspect of what we do is to prepare the kids to be worship leaders. There will always be a certain “performance” component to our ministry, but care must be taken to not let that become the driving element. With that in mind, here are some ideas we have found successful.

Opening Assembly

• Use different kids to spontaneously help lead their friends in the singing
• Use boomwhackers and/or tone chimes to chord simple song
• Use the guitar/ukulele class to help lead a song

Worship Celebration Services

• At the conclusion of each semester (Fall and Spring) a worship celebration event is scheduled.
• All of the kids lead the congregation in worship songs they have learned.
• Each "track" shows what they have learned that semester.
• The younger choir sings at this evening as well.
• We intentionally keep this evening very informal. It is simply to be a celebration of all that God has done in the ministry over the past few months.

End of Year Mini-Musical

• For the final few weeks of our KWA school year, we work up a musical.
• We typically use the music from that year's Vacation Bible School as our base, but we add our own KWA creativity to it. (i.e. drama, guitars, puppets, etc.)
• The "performance" is typically the final Sunday evening of the school year - usually the Sunday just before we begin our summer schedule.
• The musical is often very evangelistic in nature. This fits very well with our core mission since a child's first act of genuine worship is accepting Jesus as his/her personal Savior and Lord.
• The music for this musical is often very different from the type of songs we sing the rest of the year.  The musical palette is often very contemporary sounding - often with challenging rhythms that the kids totally embrace. 

Sunday Morning & Evenings Throughout the Year

• We occasionally incorporate our kids into the Sunday morning worship leadership. Sometimes they combine with the Adult Choir. At other times they lead a segment on their own. We do not draw specific attention to the kids, but merely use them as part of the leadership that morning. (i.e. drums playing with regular worship drummer on last song, bells playing  with adult handbells, drama team reading AM scripture, etc.)
• We utilize kids to sing solos to congregational songs, from time to time, in AM worship.
• Sunday PM, kids occasionally lead worship as our "choir" for the evening.

Other Opportunities

• At the beginning of Prayer Meeting is a great time for any of our groups to "perform." (Our Prayer Meeting schedule overlaps with our Kids Worship Arts time, so we can easily sing or play a song or two to kick things off for the adults.)
• We occasionally host a KWA Parents Night. We invite the parents come to our Kids Worship Arts classes ten minutes before class ends and the kids show parents what they are learning.
• Our handbell track has found it successful to occasionally play in our Welcome Center on Sunday mornings. This is a large gathering space located just outside of our Sanctuary. The kids play several songs in between Sunday School and Worship as people walk through the hall.