God Made Me for Worship: Helping Children Understand Church

Jared Kennedy has written a picture book that efficiently explains the “why” of a worship service to children. As adults, we may not even really think about why we do what we do at church, but this does such a wonderful job of unpacking the different parts of the service, why we do them, and how they point to Jesus. Besides in your home, this would be an excellent tool to use in a Children’s Ministry setting. For all my reviews, check out GoodBookMom.com.

God Made Me for Worship is a terrific book that helps explains the corporate worship experience to children. It is scripture based and is written in an easy to understand manner. Colorful, engaging illustrations enhance the text. This book would be a terrific tool to assist a child who is transitioning into attending “Big Church”. While this complimentary book was provided for review by New Growth Press, no other compensation was given. All remarks are my personal and honest opinion.

This new volume in the “God Made Me” series helps young children to understand the purpose of church and what happens when we are there. Young readers are introduced to parts of a worship service: the call to worship, praise and adoration, confession and lament, assurance, welcome (or passing the peace), ministry of the word (reading and preaching the bible), communion, giving, and the benediction. Variations between this expression and your church’s own would be easy to explain (eg. in our church no-one shouts out “That’s right! Amen!” during the preaching). And, of course, whether you have all these elements in your own church service will reflect your own churchmanship. Frankly, if some key parts are missing in your church, even parents should start to ask why. All of these are explained through the lens of the gospel, showing how what Christ has done for us is reflected in a worship service. My guess is, that this is a step many of us miss when we explain church to our children, for we may not have fully grasped it ourselves. It’s very helpful. A slightly fuller review can be found at: https://musingsinadelaide.blogspot.com/2020/12/god-made-me-for-worship.html

God Made Me for Worship is a terrific book that helps explains the corporate worship experience to children. It is scripture based and is written in an easy to understand manner. Colorful, engaging illustrations enhance the text. This book would be a terrific tool to assist a child in transition While this complimentary book was provided for review by New Growth Press, no other compensation was given. All remarks are my personal and honest opinion.

This book intrigues me-- it's been a theme that I've invested in, researched, taught, created handouts for families, shared with elementary-age children, and created a "little church" for our children out of the nursery but not yet ready to sit for a 75-90 minute Big Church service. While I do not attend a 'liturgical' church, I appreciate rhythms, routines, and practices. Many spiritual practices are rooted in clarity and are simple, easily understood techniques to help all people, but they are repeated so they really benefit those still learning- our children. Jared Kennedy is a favorite author of mine has created the Beginner's Gospel Storybook Bible with 52 biblical events developed for our youngest learners. He gets kids. He really gets little kids, his books have questions built-in, and he expects the child/ren to answer out loud, making it so easy to build these versions of the Bible events into preschool/pre-K Sunday school. I do not yet own this physical book, but New Growth Press has a Youtube video of the author reading the book aloud, and I was hooked. So I asked to review it, and was shared a pdf version. Before I review this book, I think it's helpful to read the note from the author on the first page of the book for parents or caregivers, it explains the intent. Dear Parent or Caregiver, I wrote this book to give you a way to introduce your children to public worship. When you think of explaining a worship service, you might say something like this: “First, we sing. Then, we listen to the sermon.” But most worship gatherings involve more than music and preaching. When the church gathers, we follow a rhythm—or liturgy—of call and response. It’s like a big game of follow the leader. We hear God speak and then we move in response to him. Maybe you’ve noticed this rhythmic back and forth in your own church’s gatherings. First, you hear God’s Word call to you—perhaps in what we describe literally as the “call to worship”—but then also in words of blessing or assurance and finally in the sermon’s words of instruction. Then, after you hear from God’s Word, you respond by lifting your voice in song, greeting others, giving, or by shouting, “Amen!” We repeat this back and forth every week when we come to church, just as Christians have for hundreds of years. During the Reformation, John Calvin saw a need to help the church rehearse gospel rhythms when it gathered for worship.1 His liturgy followed three movements: • Adoration—Drawn from Isaiah 6, this rhythm reveals God as holy and calls upon sinners to respond with a cry for mercy. • Renewal—Rooted in the burning bush story of Exodus 3, this rhythm begins with reading and teaching God’s Word then calls for a response of reverence and humility. • Commitment—This rhythm, based in Luke 24, involves seeing Christ’s glory and participating in it as we gather around the table for communion. God Made Me for Worship walks kids through each of these rhythms. My goal is that they’ll see and learn how all the parts of worship work together to tell the gospel story. The words we use to describe the parts of worship and the particular orders of worship we follow differ from church to church. But a wide variety of traditions view gathered worship as a weekly rehearsal of the good news. And that’s my prayer, that the children who read this book will learn to love and enjoy their church’s regular gatherings, because in worship they hear Christ speak and then by faith respond. With joy in Christ, Jared Kennedy I watched the video on new growth publishers page and then contacted the publisher and was offered a pdf copy to review. After sharing the link with friends and church leadership as I think this book could benefit the children in my home church. What I liked about this book: *Gospel emphasis. Worship works together to tell (or review) the gospel story. *The author's purpose is achieved- I love this book because it's clearly reminding the audience that we are to love and enjoy this precious time together! *Biblical Connections: Ephesians 5, Isaiah 6, and Luke 22 tying together Biblical foundations of worship. These passages are either in the book or the references given and the concepts explained- with a statement to look it up in your own Bible- this is a biblical literacy skill! *Too often we speak and teach of worship, as the New Testament shares and teaches, but it all started with the Prophet Isaiah, and this connection is so well done, I think many adults will make connections they haven't understood. *This book is reality-based, the premise is Alice asks the Pastor a question about the meeting of the church. It's confusing to her. Her words, his answers, and the other dialogue bring the book completely to life, and it's a realistic scenario. ' I shared the author's intro letter above and didn't know until I read the pdf that he also has a two-page who to teacher your children about worship at the end of the book with more scripture to integrate and other conversations to share with your family. Questions integrated into the book- and answers expected! Engaging! Illustrations and print, clear, readable, uncluttered, yet warm, colorful, and engaging. The main child's name is Alice- and my twin sister is named Alice which is not a common name, so when it's in a book, I love it. People in the book are represented as different skin tones, ethnicities. Not only are their faces realistic but while I own other books this illustrator has drawn- I've never noted the expressions, the paster winks, the kids have many appropriate facial expressions and emotions. What I wonder about this book: If the book is listed as ages 5-8, why does the book include 4th-grade kids who typically are 9 and 10 years old? I think this book could easily be used with children ages 5-11, and one of my friends watched it for me, and said her almost 3 years old sat through the author's reading and answered most questions out loud! How many adults will learn something from this book? Will littles be confused by this book, if the worship service they attend is different than the liturgical elements the book lists? Call to Worship Praise & Adoration Confession & Lament Words of Assurance Welcome Ministry of the Word Communion Obedience Tithes Benediction Our church does not have this order, these titles, or the formality that this liturgical process implies (to me). But we do have a Call to Worship and during our Worship, we praise and adore, and during our Lord's supper, our Ministry of the Word, Prayers, and sharing we often have mention of confession, lament, obedience, and a benediction prayer but these are not named elements of the service, and we don't have a welcome and greet one another regularly, and certainly not in a pandemic (but we do welcome and greet one another a lot before and after our meeting.) Our leadership has streamlined our service so much that we do not have an offering passed during the meeting, but rather a place to give an offering as you come and go from our meeting. We also have the option to give through our website and set up a reoccurring offering electronically. But I also wonder, if a parent or leader can't just explain to the child who is listening, this is a traditional formal church service plan, and every local gathering of believers plans their meeting to meet the needs of those in attendance and to worship God corporately. So our meeting looks a little different, our meeting locations have been very different, but all of the elements in the examples are part of a rhythm that are aspects of biblical worship and corporate meetings. Having seen the pdf version, many of the 'headings' that traditional churches may use are separate titles on the page, and could easily be ignored, explained, or included. Let your children ask, wonder and intrigue is the foundation of learning! Because I wondered about how this book would be appreciated in my circle of local church friends, I shared the video with a few teacher friends, a few parents, others in children's ministry, etc. Not one of them has said anything but positive things about this book, and they all see value in it. Several commented that this would be good for adults as well, one watched it with her almost 3 year old who actively answered the questions and stuck with most of the reading of it, and I read it to my almost 11-year-old daughter, who maturely said- "It's good, and it would be useful." Connections: In the book, in the letter shared above from the start of the book, and in the two pages at the end, there are verses and passages to look up, suggestions like talk about lifting hands in worship, and several other elements that would be great and are really needed for children to grasp what is happening in your local church, perhaps a relatives local church that has a different order, structure, is more or less formal. I wished before visiting different denominations of family and as a college student, I'd had a book like this that had exposed me to more information, and made it more normal, so perhaps I would have discussed it more with family or others at churches I attended in college. Discussions of the church being the people- the body of Christ from I Corinthians could also occur, as well as an opportunity to help children understand that there are different denominations, different types of churches, but that many are like our church, centered on the good news- the gospel of Jesus Christ. Social-Emotional learning- the facial expressions of characters would be great to ask children- what does it mean when her face looks like that? Could he look like that and could it mean more than one thing? Do we express our thoughts, feelings, and emotions in our eyes? mouth? whole face? ... Thankful to partner with New Growth Press and have a chance to review the pdf of this book, I hope this becomes a new regular review partner, as I own A LOT of the books published by this group.

I love Kennedy's intentions with this book but I feel as though they did not get implemented as excellent as it could have been. The initial scripture reference for the book is Ephesians 5:18-20. Kennedy provides a brief introduction letter to parents to help understand how to use the book for teaching their kids about Church. He describes the fact that there are many "rhythms" we go through each week at Church and how they can be confusing to children. The book is a story about a students asking a pastor questions regarding the church service. The pastor proceeds to answer these questions in a way that explains the purpose of each part of the church service by referencing the story of Isaiah. The parts described are: - Call To Worship - Praise & Adoration - Confession & Lament - Words of Assurance - Welcome - Ministry of the Word - Communion - Obedience - Tithes - Benediction Although he mentions in his introduction letter that the parts of worship and the particular orders of worship are different from church to church, I would have a hard time reading through this with my younger children. I feel as though they would be confused because our church service doesn't look like what was described throughout the book. Yes, every "rhythm" addressed is biblical and worth while to know and most Bible-Believing churches will go through these rhythms in some way or other. The story itself is wonderful and speaks truth. But I think it would be less confusing to children if the story eliminated an "order" of the "rhythms". The illustrations were beautiful and would capture any kid's eyes. The illustrator used a stained glass window theme throughout the book to capture a picture of each "rhythm". I wasn't a huge fan this theme. I typically think of Catholicism when it comes to stained glass windows as many modern day churches no longer utilize stained glass windows. This of course is not an issue with biblical truth, but rather my own preference. I received an e-copy of this book from New Growth Press in exchange for an honest review.