We are creating a Wee Worship space in the front, right of the sanctuary for children of all ages and their families. It will include carefully curated activities for quiet engagement with a small table, pillows, and a large rug to define the space. We plan for it to be available beginning on Sunday, August 17th.

Part Two

You understand why we are doing Wee Worship. [see Part One] But what will it look like and how is it going to be accomplished?

After several conversations with staff, the building and grounds committee, and the executive committee of the board (which included all the members of the Operations Council,) we have come up with a physical plan that meets the criteria of creating a space that:

• Allows for the physical and visual engagement of children
• Flexible seating for their caregivers nearby
• Accessible seating for those who need room for mobility aids or more open space in seating
• Easy access to the restrooms and to the elevator for strollers and mobility aids

The Details of Creating the Space

Specifically, this will be on the right side of the sanctuary. The space will be behind the joys and concerns table in what is currently the first two rows for accessible seating.

The Building and Grounds team will be facilitating the physical movement of things on Wednesday, August 13th. The low wooden wall will be removed and stored. The short pews that are currently in the first two rows will be moved to rows five and six. The long pews in rows three through six will be removed and repurposed as hallway seating similar to the pew that is currently in the lower hall between rooms 106 and 108. In place of the pews in rows three and four will be flexible seating of upholstered chairs that interlock. The chairs are coming over from the Lancashire building.

What Will It Be Like?

The Wee Worship space will be defined by a very large rug. There will be a low wooden table that can be used while sitting on the floor. Some small shelving from the Spirit Play room will hold some of the activities that are available. There may be some pillows and also a basket to hold things.

It is an intentional space created with the experiential needs of children in mind. The goal of this space and all that it contains is for kids to be able to use it to experience and participate fully in worship alongside their congregational family, while expressing sacred experiences in a uniquely childlike way.

The activities will include a soft chalice and electric candle, soft stacking and nesting items, lacing cards, wooden tangram shapes with felt trays for creating mandalas and other creations, coloring pages on clipboards, stained glass mandala coloring pages, pipe cleaners, wiki stix, felt story boards, finger labyrinths, weighted stuffed animals, ribbon weaving, burlap and yarn sewing rings, soft marble labyrinths, and other hand held manipulative mindfulness items.

Of course just as always there is an expectation for everyone involved that we will be respectful of the space. It is not an expectation that children will be silent or still for the entire hour. There will be some sound, there will be movement, and there may be some things you don’t expect. I encourage all to be open to the wonder and sacred experience of worship in a different way.

The space will be evolving as we see how things are used and learn what items and ways of doing things work better than others. Everyone will be learning. The children will have to learn what the space is intended for and how to use it. The parents and caregivers will need to learn those same things as well as some may need to adapt their expectations of their children to our new space. We can help children and caregivers by leaning into the delight that children are among us and that our delight comes most often from the ways that they are not like adults. Many of us may need to adapt our understanding that sacred space must only be a certain way. 

Church does not require perfection. In fact, it assumes imperfection and change and transformation and messiness and mistakes and healing and repair. This is what it is to be part of a covenantal church. It’s a laboratory in which we each bring the fullness of who we are and our experiences, and put all of it together to make meaning and to seek and bring about transformation. Church is where we support and engage in practices that help us to live in this world as it is, while also building the world as we wish it to be.

Share this post: