Jesse Saunders offers ideas for children’s worship.
My name is Jesse Saunders, I am the Austin Stone KIDS band coach, and I lead worship with our grade school students (1st-5th grade) at the St. John campus.
In our KIDS large group worship times, we have 4 primary goals.
Teach sound doctrine
While trying to meet this objective, a lot of thought and prayer goes into our song selection each week. As a part of our large group worship time, we lead the kids through two songs each week. In order to help our kids learn and retain the songs we are teaching, and provide continuity across services and campuses, we have one song-of-the-month that is led by all of our bands each week.
As often as possible, the song of the month is a new song to KIDS, and is tied to the overall curriculum theme for that month. Likewise, the second song each week generally addresses themes tied to the scripture being studied in the classroom and being taught in The Word.
Create an exciting and fun environment for kids to learn
In addition to the theological elements involved in week to week song selection, we try to ensure that at least one of the songs being sung each Sunday is high energy, to get the kids excited and engaged in worship. This, along with having a full band, (we’re always looking for new musicians to volunteer) a sound system, and lighting, help to give kids a sense of what ‘big church’ worship is like, while offering those who have chosen to follow Christ the opportunity to worship God on Sunday morning with their friends in KIDS.
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