For children to be able to be comfortable in a church, they need to see their parents in that space. This won’t happen if the children are always syphoned off to their own children’s entrance. I have experience of a couple, if not more versions of how church welcomes children , some in my opinion are spot on others I think need to learn from the success of others. See our resource in Read Section on Little Ones in Big Church

Bringing children up on stage is fraught with nervousness and possible crying, however when the children are forewarned and well rehearsed it can be a beautiful thing. There is always something that will go wrong, don’t worry it’s all part of it, it makes the whole experience in my opinion. Children will be nothing but themselves on stage aged three to six. Some will want to gush about what they have been learning about when you ask them about it, some will remain mute, even though you have practiced it with them for many weeks.

I have some lovely memories of when it all went wrong, but it never goes horribly wrong. I once asked a little girl (the pastors granddaughter) what we should read every day? (the Bible) was what I was hoping for in the answer; she smiled at me and remained mute, I said “OK what does Grandpa read every day?”, she replied quickly to this question and said “The paper”. It was hilarious at the time. If you can well rehearse your children in both your lesson time and with your practice time, when you ask “What did John the Baptist like to eat?”, the whole crew of them will shout out “Locusts” which is a great result.

In a Christmas performance quite recently, I asked a child “Why did Mary and Joseph need a place to stay in Bethlehem?”, the answer of course was to have their baby. However this child was quite into his Bible Stories and answered, “Because Herrod was going to kill all the boys” to which I answered, “Right Book, wrong Story”, it was funny at the time. The children will always bring humour to the performance and getting them to act out the actions to the song, or answer questions about the topic they have been learning is the way to go.

The formula I use is to get them all up on stage in a line, and then explain to the audience what we have been learning that term and then ask the questions to some in the line of cuteness. After that we would usually do a song with actions to which the crowd would either join in (words up on big screen) or just sit there as proud as punch that this was their future church in front of their eyes.

Here are some of the stage performances that you can follow, don’t forget to contact us if you want more help.

Here is an example of one of the “End of Term Children on Stage” performances to let big church know all about what the children have been learning in Sunday School. The following was after a term of all three classes in a church that we partner with learning about Baptism and John the Baptist.

The Older children had some lovely readings and their own words on what they thought about baptism and what it would mean for them. Afterwards the older class helped us “pretend” baptise the two younger classes in the “River Jordan” (of course). There is a dressed up John the Baptist, and quite a few of the children wanted to play “Jesus” so we had multiple “Jesus’” being baptised. Each time a child was “pretend baptised” (by lying under the River Jordan and popping up again” they had pretend water on their heads and also the dove came floating down. Take a look at the joy on their faces. A morning they will all remember.

This is the song that all the children did before their little baptism performance.

Here we have John the Baptist with his beard, telling people to go and follow Jesus, all the children were very happy to wear their water on their heads that had previously been “pretend baptised”!

There are so many things I just love about this photograph. Firstly the little ones waiting to be pretend baptised on the left of the picture. I love the right of the picture with the children already gone through the River Jordan who have pretend water on their heads, and then our pretend Jesus looking up at the dove. And our lovely boy in the Red check shirt, have you ever seen such an excited face. Children need to be able to feel comfortable and happy on stage, his face says it all.

Sometimes, I ask someone to take a picture of the audience watching the children - I love to see the love in the faces and the parents looking on with huge smiles. Your Big Church loves having the children on stage, I would encourage every church to let this happen at least at the end of every term.