Sara Seifried and her husband were Sunday regulars at their church in St. Petersburg, Fla., but stopped attending for a reason many couples can likely relate to: After becoming parents, they stressed over trying to keep their two young children quiet and engaged during worship.

“I felt like I was not a good parent,” Seifried said. “I was never made to feel like that, it was definitely self-imposed, but it brought us away from going to church.”

Two years ago, however, the Seifrieds’ congregation—Lutheran Church of the Cross (LCC), which also operates a Pre-K-8 day school—launched a family-friendly service that toppled the busy-children barrier for them and others, including many with no past connection to the church.

“It’s sort of like a church plant,” said Bruce Burbank, who serves as co-pastor with his wife, Lisa. “It’s not really drawing from our other members. It’s drawing from our school families, or it’s people who hadn’t been here in forever, and it’s growing by word of mouth as church plants tend to do.”

At LCC’s family service—offered at 10:30 a.m., following the traditional service at 9—worshipers sit at tables in the fellowship hall, eating and drinking as they wish, and at the front of the room is a children’s play area with giant beanbags and kid-size tables. Children are welcome to color, do puzzles, use building blocks and look at books while the service goes on around them.

“This is a service offering that both of [our kids] truly look forward to.”

“It’s really provided such an outlet for my family,” Seifried said. “We have a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old, and I wish I could say our 9-year-old could sit through a standard service, but this is a service offering that both of them truly look forward to.”

It’s not unusual to see children dressed in pajamas—the service is intentionally come-as-you-are—and accompanied by stuffed animals or other toys.

“There has been a little pushback from some who say it doesn’t seem like worship and the kids are too free-range, but we want them to learn that worship is play in God’s house,” Bruce said.

The service features a simplified liturgy, catchy tunes led by a praise band and a sermon delivered in an input-and-discussion format. Young attendees are invited up front to help with the singing, and if they choose, they can leave in the middle of the service for children’s time. Communion is taken together in a circle.

Following the service, craft projects and snacks are offered, organized by Lori Bell, LCC youth and family coordinator.

“The adults love the time Lori spends with the kids, because they like to talk with each other and with us,” Lisa said.

A “life-oriented” approach

Like many recent worship innovations, LCC’s family service was a response to COVID-19. The Burbanks arrived at LCC from northwestern Illinois in October 2020. They said that when the pandemic subsided, parents with children were slow to return to worship.

Congregation leaders kicked around ideas for how to change that, and a church family provided a $50,000 grant to launch the new service. The largest expense was hiring the three-person praise band, Bruce said. LCC subsequently received $21,000 from the Florida-Bahamas Synod’s Vision to Action program, which earmarks funds for congregations to experiment with different approaches to “making disciples, sharing Christ, growing vital congregations, doing justice, [or] seeking intentional diversity.”

At LCC, the experiment is yielding an average weekly attendance of a few dozen people, plus the 75 or so who worship at the traditional early service.

The later service features topical preaching that’s “much more life-oriented,” Bruce said, and a segment called “God Moments” in which the microphone is passed and people of all ages get a chance to talk about where they have seen God.

There’s also an extended check-in time for worshipers to pass the peace, and they are invited to write down prayer requests.

“One kid always prays for sharks,” Lisa said. “Somebody’s got to.”

“It’s the only way we’d be able to go to church.”

Seifried, who was raised in a Lutheran family, laughs as she contrasts her current worship experience with the one she grew up in. “We were not even allowed to color,” she said. “I thought, do we just not have a handle on our kids?

“This has truly allowed us to go back to church and not have self-imposed stress. I’m way more of a traditional worshiper. I like all aspects of that—and this is a perfect blend, the best of both worlds. It’s the only way we’d be able to go to church.”

Bruce notes that both he and Lisa still love traditional worship and that a few families choose to attend the earlier service—but there are also some older members who have switched over to the second service.

“The interactive and living-room feel of this worship is what distinguishes it from traditional worship,” he said. “It feels more like people getting together to share and practice their faith together. For some that means more to them, and they find it more relatable to their lives. To others it doesn’t feel like worship, and that is fine also.”

Solidly among the former is Yvonne Newport, who attends with her husband and “two active boys,” ages 5 and 7. Newport said that as a child she “didn’t mind going to church, but I definitely wasn’t excited” like her sons are.

“The church has made that something that children look forward to it, which makes us, as parents, enjoy it even more,” she said. “They have done a nice job of recognizing that kids sometimes listen when they’re not just being told to sit there and do nothing. And both pastors, their authenticity for caring for the congregation, they truly care a lot and that shines through too.”

Steve Lundeberg
Lundeberg is a writer for Oregon State University News and Research Communications in Corvallis.

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Children and family, Congregational life   children & youth, ELCA congregations, ELCA synods, Worship