Handbells as Wind Chimes: A Different Way to Play

Last week, I had an interesting experience during opening worship for Music Week at Lutheridge.  I wanted to make a record of it, because it could be useful for many churches.

When we arrived at the chapel, some handbells were sitting up, and others were on their side.  We were encourage to take a handbell that was sitting up and spread out across the worship space.  There weren't enough handbells for everyone, but that was O.K, because not everyone would want to play.  We were told to play randomly as we sang the first hymn, "In a Deep, Unbounded Darkness" (All Creation Sings hymnal supplement/worship resource manual, #1093).  The idea was to create a wind chime effect, which seemed to work.

I thought about how we didn't need to have musical ability to play handbells this way.  We didn't need to read music or keep time.  We didn't need to have a director.

I mention this because I've been a member of a church that had handchimes, with very few people who knew how to use them.  A few of us had some musical ability, which meant that we played the notes that got used more often--or we played versions that our director simplified so that we needed fewer people.  It was hard to find people to commit, even for the streamlined rehearsal schedule that we had.

It's not a stretch to think that there are churches with handbells or handchimes that can't use them.  Maybe no one can commit to rehearsing.  Maybe not enough people can read music.  Maybe people aren't brave--they know they'll hit a wrong note and everyone can hear it, so no thanks.

The beauty of the opening worship experience is that there was no wrong way to play.  No note would sound wrong, and if we happened to ring a handbell at the same time, no matter how many of us did that, it sounded fine.  I am guessing that the director chose the handbells that corresponded to the notes of the song--and maybe some complementary notes.

It seems like a great way to involve children too.  Again, the benefit would be that children don't need to know how to read music.  It's a great entry activity to the world of music, to involve children without the risks of so much that can go wrong that can convince children that they are not musical.

It's a great entry activity for us all.  And it can fit with a variety of approaches.  Handbells as wind chimes seems particularly wonderful for Pentecost.

The Trinity and the Children's Sermon

I have given one or two children's sermons, but very few, all things considered.  I remember doing one that involved sprouting mustard seeds and maybe one about the Good Samaritan.  I've worked with children in Vacation Bible School, but that's different than the children's sermon.

What better place to start than Holy Trinity Sunday?

I was a child that had no problem understanding the concept of the Trinity, but I know it can be a difficult concept for children and adults alike.  I thought the task of the children's sermon should be to illustrate how it's not as difficult as we might think.

I thought about those pictures like the duck-bunny or the old woman-young woman;  a change in perspective and we're seeing something else in the same drawing.  My spouse suggested a puzzle.  But it was during a morning walk that I came up with my plan.

I knew that I could put ice in my Yeti mug and it would stay frozen.  I have an electric kettle that heats quickly.  I thought about handing each child an ice cube to let it melt, but I decided that would be too messy.

I held the ice over the electric kettle as it started melting, and we talked about how the transformation of ice into water.  I dropped the ice into the kettle and voila!  Steam!  Hurrah for fast heating kettles and for extension cords that stretch to where we need them.

The group for the children's sermon were older--no toddlers, no pre-schoolers.  They seemed engaged.  I was happy with how the sermon went.  I do worry that I talked too much, in part because parishioners told me that these children will never talk, or at least not very loudly.  I think I would rather have that kind of group than the kind that is rambunctious and upstaging of the pastor/sermon.

This week's Gospel is the bleeding woman and the dead daughter of the Temple official.  Hmm.  Not easy material for a children's sermon--the Holy Trinity is much easier.  Happily, I still have a few days for inspiration.

What the Gymnasts Teach/Remind Us

As I've listened to the news coverage of the gymnasts testifying against the doctors who abused them, I thought, I hope our churches are listening--and our schools, and our sports teams, and any other institutions that we tend to trust when we turn our children over to their care.

One of the hardest writing projects I ever undertook was writing the safe space policy that our insurance requires of my church.  We had never had such a thing, but I thought, how hard can it be?

The actual writing of it wasn't hard, but the researching was horrible.  I read story after story of things that can go terribly wrong in a church that is too trusting--all those shattered lives!

The fixes are fairly simple--all doors must have windows, and they should remain open unless there's a very good reason to close them.  No adult should ever--EVER--be alone with a child.

In fact, if we could all enact that rule, we'd eliminate a lot of opportunities for abuse.

Our insurance policy also requires a background check for all church members who work with children--and in our church, that's almost everybody, since we're a small church.  But we don't do as much with traditional Sunday school as other churches, so it's mainly our nursery workers who need the background check.

As we were instituting these changes, we got some push back from older members.  I understand that we wish we could trust everyone.  We want to believe that our fellow church members wouldn't do such a thing as invade little children with their body parts.

Sadly, we can't.

If we're members of churches that seem a bit careless when it comes to the safety of children, this crisis in USA Gymnastics gives us a chance to discuss the safety of children and how we can do our jobs better.

The good news:  it often doesn't take much.  Even if we can't put windows in every door, we can make sure that adults are never alone with children.  If new members volunteer to work with children, we can pair them with seasoned members.  We can make sure that groups aren't at church all alone.  We can talk to parents and get them to assist with this process.

Let us not neglect this important work.  It may make us uncomfortable, but let us do it anyway.

Cross-Gen Choir

Our church, led by our pastor's passion, has become a leader in Cross-Gen ministry--I'm coming to think of it as a movement, as I'm seeing more and more interest.

Cross-Gen ministry means intergenerational ministry, but it's more radical than just including children in as many aspects of worship as we can.  It means changing our mindsets to rework worship completely, if need be, not only for youth, but for everyone.  It means rethinking--and perhaps eliminating completely--the ways we've traditionally done Sunday School and Confirmation.  And it's not just about supporting our families; we've got to do all of this in a context that includes those of us who have never had children, those of us who are not in committed relationships, and those of us (who are all of us) with some troubled history of family in our past.

I've been thinking about cross-generational ministry in the ways we do worship and education, but the other night, my spouse related to me an experience that made me also wonder if we should rethink choir and other forms of music. 

Our choir has rehearsal on Wednesday nights, and on this past Wed., a child was there with his grandmother who was taking care of some other church tasks.  The choir asked him if he wanted to play the bongos with them on a song.  He said yes, and they worked on the song together.  At the end of the session, the child said, "Can I come play with you on Sunday?"  My spouse said that there was such yearning in his voice--and of course, the choir was going to say yes.

I know that most churches have a growth model--how do we reach families and young people and anyone else who can fill our pews.  But there are advantages to being a small church.  We don't have enough children to have a traditional children's choir.  If I had children, it might make me sad that they weren't getting the children's choir experience of my youth.

Or I might be happy that adults would include my child in their choir.

It Only Takes a Spark

One of my favorite memories of last week-end when my sister and nephew were here revolves around our outdoor firepit.

Their plane landed at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, but my nephew was much too excited to go right to bed.  He's 8 years old, after all.  Finally, they had gotten to the warmth of Florida, the promise of time in the swimming pool in February.

We went to the backyard, and my spouse built a fire in the small, metal firepit that we bought a few weeks ago.  My nephew stood on the first step of the very chilly pool and decided to wait until morning to submerge himself.

We sat around the firepit and watched it flame into life.  We couldn't help ourselves; we started to sing:  "It only takes a spark, to get a fire going."  I noticed that we were all singing, even my nephew.  How did we learn this song?

My sister and I learned it at camp over many years and many firepits.  My spouse learned it at church youth groups.  It was a very popular song in the 70's. 

My nephew learned it because my sister used to sing it to him as a lullaby--and thus, the next generation learns this song!  For those of you in youth ministry and church camp work, when you wonder if your work makes a difference, I'm here to tell you that much of it will stick, even if you're not sure that any of it is sinking in.

We could remember most of the verses, but we weren't always sure of which lines went with which verse.  Luckily, we have a copy of that old standby, the fish book, the songbook that doesn't have a name, but has that Christian symbol on the cover.  In the 70's and 80's, that book always seemed to be in youth group rooms and music rooms and many a guitar player had a copy.

I thought of the lyrics of the song, which hold up well in terms of theology.  I thought of all the ways we learn theology, and once again, I'm in awe of the way the song can shape us.  Years after any one of us sang it, we could still remember all the words.  I'm not sure I could say that about a Gospel text that I hadn't read in 40 years.

I read the work of many church thinkers who tie themselves into knots and pretzel shapes about the best way to teach children and to transmit our faith.  While I enjoy these pedagogical debates as much as the next  person, maybe it's time to go back to something more basic. 

Let's start singing again.  That spark will flame up through the years and keep our fires lit.

The Wisdom of Children

I was moved by this post on Bookgirl's site.  Her daughter created a beautiful piece of writing that explains why it's important to share resources.

I love these moments when the wisdom of children reminds me of why social justice should be simple.  I had a similar moment yesterday when I was taking my sister and 8 year old nephew to the airport.

My husband was trying to do an impression (of who?  I can't remember) and said, "Or am I channeling Henry Kissinger?" and I said, "Don't channel that evil man."

My nephew said, "Why is Henry Kissinger evil?"

I said, "Well, I probably shouldn't call him evil.  He just had a habit of supporting leaders who slaughtered their own people."  I was thinking primarily of Pinochet, but I didn't want to go into too much detail--I'm not sure I want to be the one who first lets children know of the scope of possible atrocity.

"Why would they slaughter their own people?" my nephew asked.  "They could just run away."

My spouse said, "But then they wouldn't have the money and the power."

My nephew said, "You don't need money and power.  You just need yourself!"

Well said.  I'm not sure how we translate that to global policy issues, but I'm glad that he seems clear about these issues on a personal level:  avoid ramped up conflict by running away if you have to do so, and always remember that you need yourself more than you need money and power.

I could argue that much spiritual wisdom boils down to what my nephew already knows.

A Report on Our New Family Service: The Benefits

You may remember that I wrote a blog post in early June about our new approach to worship which we're hoping speaks to the needs of families with children.  We know that many families can't devote an entire Sunday morning the way that families once did.  Many families have an hour, and that's it.  With that in mind, what can we pack into that hour?

Our new worship service sometimes feels like church camp, and I mean that in the best possible way.  There's a messiness, since we're not sunk into a rhythm yet.  There's an inventiveness.  It doesn't feel like regular church.

We've been using resources from Faith Inkubators.  We're using material from their Bible Songs Sunday School curriculum; we chose to start with the Psalms, which have an interesting connection to the Gospel lessons in the New Testament too.  Many of us could create the resources, like the Powerpoints, the songs, the dramas.  And yet, we all have full-time jobs, so it's good to have some ready-made resources.

I am getting this Holy Spirit nudge as I look at VBS curriculum and Sunday School curriculum.  How does one get to be on a team who does this for a living?  Could that be my new career direction?  Because let me tell you, I'd love to write curriculum and devotions and prayers for a living.  I'd love to teach others, should a seminary out there need me to join their faculty.  I'm ready for any MFA program that wants to put a spiritual writing component into their course offerings and needs someone to design it and teach it.  Here I am, Lord, send me.

But I digress.  Back to our current project.

We've done 3 weeks, so far, of our new service, and we've gotten enthusiastic response.  Our 2nd week was a VBS service worked into our new approach.  It, too, worked out well.  We've inserted some learning-by-modeling-behavior time into our new service.  We break into small groups and talk about our highs and lows of the week and how we see the Bible passage in our weekly lives.  We pray for each other.  We bless each other.  Some of that feels more comfortable, and some less so.

Let me be the first to admit that I'm not a small group discussion person.  But others have commented about how much they like that part.  Our hope is that maybe families will return to the practice on a daily basis, like at dinner time, or at least once or twice in the coming week.

We have a song as part of the package that ties into the theme, and we do the sign language that comes with the song too.  Each song, so far, has been in a different style.  We've had a meditative one, a Gospel tinged one, one that sounds like Elvis riffing on Psalm 23, and one that's pure pop.  Fun!

At some point, when we need something different, we may do a creative project here or there.  We'll see.

So far, we've had about 35-45 people at our Family service.  For a new service in the middle of summer, we're calling that a success.  We usually worship 15-25 at our traditional 8 a.m. service and 100 at our 10:45 blended service.  So, 35-45 at this new kind of service seems like a positive sign.

We first offered this kind of service as an alternative to the high mass Easter service or sunrise Easter service.  Imagine our pastor's surprise when more people attended the alternative family service than the high church Easter service.  I think it was the final sign he needed that it was time to pursue this idea more assertively than he had in the past.

Of course, our church has a history of embracing new programs and services enthusiastically, with attendance dropping off after a month or two.  It will be interesting to see what's happening through the fall.  I shall report back!

Charitable Giving and Youth Gatherings

Today my church is collecting money for our youth who will be traveling to the ELCA youth gathering this week.  I shall donate money.

I'm donating money for a variety of reasons, but the main one is because my going to national gatherings was one of the most formative experiences of my life.

In 1980, I went to one of the earliest Lutheran youth gatherings (we weren't the ELCA then) post Luther League years.  It was held at Purdue University.  We went with a larger group from Tennessee, and it was amazing.  That gathering also prepared me for college in ways.  We stayed in a dorm, and our days were structured like college days, with what I remember as classes, and a variety of subjects to choose from.

Equally important was meeting such a huge variety of young people, all of us at various-yet-similar stages of our faith journeys.  It was one of the first times that I remember thinking, "Ah, there are people like me.  I'm not some freak of nature."  I can't even remember what prompted that feeling, just the relief of the feeling.  And I'm not surprised.  It's a typical adolescent feeling, that we're all alone, that we're strange and unlovable, that we'll never find our tribe.

In later years, I went to Global Mission Events, which also raised my consciousness and also prepared me for college.  It was great to meet adults who were unlike most of the adults I met at church.

Now, as a grown up, I suspect there were many adults at my local church who were like the ones I met at these events.  But back then, age groups didn't mingle much.  How would I know?

So, yes, I will give some money so that our young people will have a good experience.  When I was young, unknown grown ups did that for me.  It's time to repay the favor.

Seeds, Sprouts, and Seedlings: A Children's Sermon Photoessay

Yesterday's children's sermon went very well.  The children came up just after the Gospel reading, Mark 4:  26-34.  Much of the text revolved around mustard seeds.  A few weeks ago, I found a cheap jar of mustard seeds and snatched it up.  I made baggies of mustard seeds, which I gave the children.  We talked about seeds and mustard and spicing up our hot dogs.  We talked about what Jesus means when he uses the phrase "Kingdom of God," that it's more than just Heaven.

We also talked about faith, and I mentioned a different passage that talks about faith as small as a mustard seed.  We peered at the bags and talked about how small the seeds are.
Below is a photo of seeds with a pencil, so you get a sense of perspective:

We talked about how large a seed can grow, that a mustard seed can grow into a five foot shrub.  I had one of the nursery helpers, a teenager, stand up to demonstrate how tall 5 feet is.  Small seed --  5 foot teen.  It was a great visual.

On Thursday, I started sprouting some mustard seeds.  I laid out two paper towels, spread out the seeds, folded the paper towels and wet them.  I kept them wet and moved them in and out of light.  I thought I might have started too late, but no, we had sprouts!

When I unwrapped them, the children's eyes got wide and they oohed and aahed. I reminded them that they had a bag of seeds, and they could do the same thing. I cautioned them not to plant them in the yard. I reminded them that mustard has a reputation of taking over everything. A small seed can take over a space as big as the church!


And then I tied it back to the Kingdom of God and the wonderful things that happen when God is set loose in the world.

I wanted them to have seedlings too, so my spouse planted some Salvia sprouts for anyone who wanted them.  I said that my spouse was like the man in the first part of the Gospel, the one surprised by the seed growing into a plant.

I thought the children's sermon went really well.  Of course, I was blessed with an easy text.  Fun with seeds--maybe we'll do some more with that for Vacation Bible School!

Sprouting Mustard Seeds

On Sunday, my pastor is away.  My spouse will preach a sermon my spouse has written.  I'll have the children's sermon.  A few weeks ago, I found a fairly cheap jar of mustard seeds.  So each child will get a baggy of mustard seeds.  We'll talk about the miraculous nature of plants:  from such a tiny pod, a big plant can grow.

My spouse has been tending some seedlings for several weeks.  They're not mustard plants, but they'll help with the message.

This week I decided it would be cool if we had something in between seed and seedling.  So I'm trying to sprout some of the mustard seeds.  I've spread some seeds between layers of damp paper towels.  We'll see what happens.  I may have waited until too late in the week.  It may not be possible to sprout seeds that one finds in the spice rack.

I plan to talk about Christians as seeds that can grow into sturdy plants.  I plan to talk about the things that support that growth.  We'll have seeds in a baggy--will they grow like that?  No.  They need soil, water, and sun.  I expect that thinking about how plants grow will be news to some of them, while some of them will have watched this process in family gardens.  I'm fairly sure that few of them will have been to a farm or any other large-size operation--there aren't many left in our area.

In the meantime, I'm feeling a bit of that feeling of wonder that comes from planting seeds.  I move my plate of damp paper towel layers from the table that gets a slant of the morning light to the shady counter because a website said that the mustard seeds won't sprout with very much direct light.  I wonder what's going on down there in those damp paper towels.  I feel a strange urge to sing to these seeds.

Yesterday as I moved the plate, I took a look out of my kitchen window.  I saw a backyard full of butterflies framed by my small window over the sink.  My spouse has planted all sort of butterfly attracting plants, so it's not quite the miracle it may sound.  Still, I saw several colors of butterflies, a yellow hibiscus plant, the blazing glory of the dwarf Poinciana tree, and some pale pink Bougainvillea flowers.  Breathtaking.

Or, as my friend's children used to exclaim, "Great show, God!"

Creation Stations in Our Sanctuaries

Over at Erik Ullestad's blog, he talks about approaches to children in church. Life has changed since those days when children were expected to sit still and be quiet. In this post, he writes, "The Creation Station is a set of tables in the back of the sanctuary where kids can color, cut, paste, and mold items based on the theme of the day. There are some coloring & activity pages (similar to a children's bulletin) that are available as well. During the offering portion of the service, kids bring their creation up front to the altar as their offering to God."

I can think of many adults who would like a Creation Station for the time when the service gets a little long. For some of us, it might be the sermon, while for others, it might be the time the choir sings. Some of us might be lucky enough to be in a big enough church where Communion takes awhile and our fingers itch for something to do.

Lutherans have always embraced some art forms, like music, while seemingly scorning others. But in more recent times, we've expanded our view of what arts are appropriate for church, both in terms of worship, in terms of building adornment, in terms of enriching our spirituality. I knew I was at a different place when I first started attending my new church, several years ago when it was new to me. Here and there, women knitted. Right there, in the middle of the service! They were working on prayer shawls while also participating in the service. I got my first glimpse that I might have found a good church fit.

Lots of churches have been experimenting with a variety of ways to integrate children into the service. There's the children's sermon. And of course, some churches choose not to integrate at all; they have Sunday School when worship is going on, which is both problematic and a problem solver. Some churches have activity bags for children.

I like the option described in Erik's blog posting because the children are working on art projects that tie into what's going on during the worship service. Even if it's something as simple as a picture to color, a picture that depicts what's going on in the readings, it ties into the service.

I also love the idea that children bring their creations forward during offering. What a great way to reinforce that our offering to God can be more than money. I love this more comprehensive view of offering. Our gifts are so vast, so much more than our earning potential.

I can think of adults who need to be reminded of that message. In fact, I would argue that in our culture here in the U.S., adults more than children need this reminder. We are more than our earning power!

My four year old nephew comes for a visit this week-end. I love spending time with him, because his joy in creation is still unpolluted. Like God in the first chapters of Genesis, he creates and claims it all as very good. He doesn't ball up his works when they don't match his vision for what he was trying to do. I don't even know if he has a vision. He's just so happy to have paint to swirl on his paper.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have this kind of child in their lives--another reason to bring Creation Stations into our churches--we'd give the word sanctuary a whole new dimension!