My daughter’s hands were folded tightly in her lap and her little eyes were squinched shut. Her sweet little lisping prayer finished our family worship for the evening. Our daughters knew that every night we would do something a little different with a new idea for family worship.
Coming up with new family worship ideas with kids can be tricky and it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, or even just give up altogether. If you need help with some family worship night ideas for kids to make your evening worship meaningful for your children, start with these 7 simple family worship ideas with kids.
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Simple Family Worship Ideas for Kids
You may be wondering how to start having family worship with your kids or what to do for family worship. Finding new ideas for family worship for kids can seem overwhelming when you are starting out, but keep reading for a few simple ideas.
As a parent, you are the most influential person in your young child’s life for many years. This is an awesome responsibility! Your children watch the way you interact with others and the way you interact with God. Here are seven family worship ideas for kids to help you plan your family worship to make them engaging and interesting for your children.
Family Worship Time Should be Age Appropriate
If you have very young children, family worship should be short and relatable to their little minds and hearts. Sings some action songs, read a story while you snuggle, and teach them to pray. If you have a toddler, your family worship may only last 5-6 minutes, but as you practice this routine and make it a habit, your child’s attention span will grow. Plan new family worship night ideas for each night to keep your time fresh and engaging for your kids.
Create a Family Worship Habit
Whether you choose to have family worship in the morning, at night, or both, make it a habit and be consistent. If you have family worship at the breakfast table, make sure you have worship every morning.
If you have family worship in the evening, build it into your evening routine so that it becomes a part of your day just like brushing your teeth, bathing, and putting on pajamas. If you plan your family worship night ideas for the evening, be sure to keep that tradition and make it a habit every night.
Children (and adults) thrive on consistency and routine. The more you make this a habit, the more your children will crave family worship time.
Make Family Worship a Special Together Time
Family worship time should be the best time of the day. Make it a cozy, loving time when you all sit together on the couch or hold your young child on your lap. Make eye contact with your children and ask them questions while listening to their answers. Your children will have insights and questions that will help you grow.
Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3
Anytime you start doing something that will bring you closer to God, there will be distractions and frustrations. Be prepared for this and plan ahead so that this time is a reprieve from the phone, the TV, and the irritations of the day. Plan your family worship night ideas with intention and care.
During your family worship with the kids, you are representing God to your children. This is true all day long, but especially when you are teaching them specifically how to worship, how to pray, and how to be reverent. The way you instruct or lead them will define their view of God.
Get this awesome printable list of Bible verses for your kids to start memorizing today! 📌
Be Creative in Your Family Worship Each Night
There are so many fun family worship night ideas for kids besides reading the Bible and praying. Choose some age-appropriate interactive worship ideas to bring the Bible stories alive for your children.
- Dress up and act out a Bible story. You can purchase Bible costumes or create your own from a sheet, bathrobe, and fabric.
- Do Bible charades and have one person guess the story.
- Create a thanksgiving jar and add to it every day.
- Memorize Bible verses and have a friendly competition. Create a poster or bulletin board to keep track of how many verses you are each learning.
- Find a set of books about Bible characters that are age-appropriate for your children. This is one of our very favorite sets! My Bible Friends has a story about many different Bible characters written in a way that is easy for young children to engage with.
- For older children, this set of Bible Story books goes through the Bible in story form. Accurate and true to the Bible, these stories will help your child understand God’s plan from the Bible. This is an expensive set, but you will be able to read and learn along with your child.
- Another great to engage your children in the Bible stories is to use a set of felts that your child can use to create or re-tell the story. Children love to play-act so a felt set of Bible characters will help them engage with the stories and be able to picture the people and places.
- Call a lonely friend and have worship with them on the phone, Facetime or Zoom.
- Adopt a grandparent and write them a card every so often to let them know you are praying for them.
- Do a puppet show of a Bible story
- Play a game such as one of these fun Bible Bingo Games
Involve Everyone in Family Worship Ideas
Family worship isn’t only for the little kids and it doesn’t have to be a spectator sport. Include everyone in your family worship time. Young children can choose a Bible storybook to read from or can choose some songs to sing and act out with everyone.
Older children can read a Bible verse or story. They can also plan a family worship program. Make room for interactive worship so your children can be involved and engaged.
When our girls were little, we used to give them each a night to plan the worship. They would often write out little programs, choose songs, Bible verses to read, and pick the story. Giving them the ownership of planning the time helped them enjoy the experience.
Take turns leading out so that you can model family worship to your kids, but then allow your children to take turns as well. Start by giving them a part to plan or do. Create a family worship idea box or basket and you write your ideas on cards. Each night someone could choose a card.
You could also do this with songs that your family knows. Write down the titles so that you don’t end up singing the same song every single night.
Keep your Family Worship Time Fresh
Don’t be afraid to try something new. If you find that you are doing the same thing every night and the kids (or you) are getting bored with it, mix it up to keep the interest and special-ness of this family worship time. When you are planning worship for kids, be sure to look for worship activities that will fit their age.
We are creatures of habit and it’s easy to become stuck in a rut doing the same thing over every time. Encourage your kids (and you) to think about what you are praying about so that the time is meaningful and thoughtful rather than rote and mindless.
You might want to ask each person to talk about something they are thankful for before you pray so that you will have things to be grateful for. Prayers at bedtime can be powerful for helping your child to feel safe and loved.
Take turns praying and who and how many people pray each time. If your kids are older, you can do a sentence prayer where one person starts with a sentence, and then the next one adds onto that all the way around the circle. Then the last person finishes and closes the prayer.
You could also do a popcorn prayer where one person starts with something they are thankful for. Then each person adds another thing they are thankful for. You can also do this with prayer requests. Once everyone has finished, the last person closes the prayer.
Keep Your Family Worship Nights Focused on Jesus
It can be easy to allow your family worship with kids to become a family fun time and forget to keep the focus on Jesus. It is really important to have fun family time that includes playing, reading, talking, playing games, and doing crafts. But be intentional about keeping your worship with kids focused on Jesus during your family worship time.
To recap, there are 7 simple ways to make family worship with kids meaningful and special.
- Make it age-appropriate – find fun worship activities that will engage your children.
- Create a family worship habit – be consistent.
- Make it a special time.
- Be creative and find new children’s worship ideas.
- Involve everyone – choose interactive worship ideas for the ages of your children
- Keep it fresh – change it up often so it doesn’t get boring.
- Stay focused on Jesus.
As you add new family worship ideas to your daily time together, you and your children will grow in their insights and love for God. There are also some additional family worship ideas on Disciple Mama’s Blog here.
More ideas will spark ideas for you as you gather fun worship activities and plan for your family worship with kids. She also shares 3 Reasons Why You Should Be Having Family Worship.
Now that you have some new family worship ideas for kids, how are you going to implement them today?
You may also like these posts…
- Praying Moms – Using Scripture to Pray for Others
- Remain in Me – Lessons from John 15
- Joshua 1:9 Prayers for Courage
- Creating a Self-Care Life
- Praying Circles Around the Lives of Your Children
- 31 Bible Promises to Pray for Your Children
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I love these family worship ideas! I think it is so important that parents and their kids come together to celebrate our creator! x
You are exactly right, Michelle. The more we create an environment where our kids see us loving God, the more likely that will carry on for them in their life as they grow up.
These tips are really wonderful. Thank you.
You are welcome Kristie. I hope you enjoy the family worship ideas!
These are some great ideas on how we can create a family worship experience in our day to day lives. I have taken away some that I will incorporate into my family.
Brandi, I’m so glad that these family worship ideas were helpful for you. Blessings to you as implement them with your family.
Thanks for sharing these great family worship ideas with kids. Train up a child in the way he should go, when he grows he won’t depart from it. This post is very helpful and encouraging.
Thank you Hannah. I’m so thankful that God is faithful as we raise our children. I’m glad the family worship ideas were helpful for you.
Your tips work for a multi-generational household as well. When we have our elders living in the same house, we have to think about how to include them in family worship time. I have taught my child (who is now grown) to always respect and honor his elders and part of the way I did that was to include them in family time in a way that worked for them. So, I guess I’m saying your tips work for all ages!
You’re right Teresa. Family worship needs to be a multi-generational experience and tailored to the needs of the people involved. Thanks for your comments!
I wish I would of had these ideas when my kids were young! These family worship ideas are so cute and creative!
Feel free to pass these family worship ideas on to some of your friends who do have kids at home.
Great ideas for worshipping as a family
Thank you Jen.
Good ideas especially around creativity. I remember family devotions and worship from really young and l think it’s so important to incorporate the different levels of understanding and spiritual maturity too. Lovely post!
I love this post filled with family worship ideas! The family that worships together has completely invited Christ into the midst of the family. I love this so much Karen! ❤
Thank you Donna! Yes, this is the goal as we raise our children to follow Jesus!
I really enjoy family worship especially when my kids take the lead. Now that they are older it is harder to get them to participate, but my husband and I surely sing loudly!
I know how it is as the kids get older. But keeping the tradition alive and vibrant is what makes it last. Even when we sing the loudest! 🙂
I love these ideas to enrich our family worship time! Our children are 6, 5 and almost 4, so I am always looking for ways to include them in our prayer, worship time and devotions. Thank you!
I’m so glad these family worship ideas were helpful. Blessings to you as you raise your children!
I think that family worshipntime is very important. You are so right. We should expect distractions. It’s a very good idea to expect them and to remember that we are representing God. Thank you for this post. Blessings, Joni
Excellent family worship tips! We are going to work on consistency this summer! Thank you for the helpful post.
Habits and traditions happen one day at a time! Family worship is not different. One day at a time.
Thanks for these great ideas and resources. Something to definitely keep in mind when we are home more with the kids.
It’s never too early or too late to begin a family worship plan with your kids!
We have two pre-teens and I really love the idea of giving each child an opportunity to plan the family worship time. We’ll be trying this out next week!
Wonderful! I love that you found something practical that you can use right away in your family worship! I’m sure your kids will love it.
Lots of great creative ideas here for a family worship time with the kids. Ours our grown up as well but some good ideas to use with the grandkids.
You never know when you might have the opportunity to share a family worship tradition with someone else’s kids as well.
I love that you mention how family worship time is a time where we represent God to our children. So true and tender a reminder!
Family worship time is truly is an opportunity for us to give our children a picture of God!
Great and practical tips for family worship ideas! Thank you for sharing. Sometimes it’s easy to get overwhelmed, but this helps simplify things so well!
Thank you, Kayla. I’m so glad it was helpful! Family worship with kids doesn’t have to be complicated at all to be meaningful.
I love the idea of having family togetherness time through family worship. What an amazing tradition! I cannot wait to try all of these family worship ideas with my kids!
Family worship can set the stage for so many amazing conversations about God with our kids. I hope your kids enjoy the ideas and it blesses your family time together!
Love these ideas! My kiddos are ten years apart which makes it a little hard to make sure the worship choices are age appropriate, as they would be for one but not the other. But no matter what I just remind myself that He knows our hearts. He sees us trying!
Thanks for these great ideas!
What an awesome age for your older child to help make the worship experience meaningful for the younger child. Yes, I’m thankful that God sees our hearts and knows that we are trying to serve Him.
What great tips for family worship time. I especially appreciated your points about keeping it age appropriate and keeping it fresh. Thank you for including some creative ideas as well.
Thank you, Lisa! Most of us, young and older, enjoys changes to keep things interesting. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and then family worship becomes a chore rather than a delight.
Thank you for these family worship ideas! It is so important to worship together and keep Christ the center of the home.
You are welcome, Tabatha! I’m glad you enjoyed these family worship ideas.
These are great tips for worshipping with your kids, I love the idea of being creative with worship, my kids get bored really easy.
Your kids are not alone in getting bored easily. 🙂 That’s why it’s so important to mix up your worship ideas and make them kid-friendly to keep them engaged.
Thank you for these creative ideas. It makes it all the more fun and engaging!
I’m so glad you found these family worship ideas for kids helpful! I hope your family enjoys them.
Wonderful ideas for family worship! We have enjoyed many worship experiences with our children, And it is a blessing!
I completely agree with all of these ideas! We need to be incorporating many of these things into our daily lives so worship time becomes something that our kids expect and even look forward to! My children are still a little too young, but I will be keeping these ideas in mind as they grow older and I share more about Jesus with them!
You are absolutely right, Stephanie. It’s never too early to start teaching our children habits like family worship time with Jesus. Even if it’s just one or two songs and prayer.
Beautiful. This has given me some ideas to incorporate into our daily devotions with the children. 🙂
Thank you, Evangeline. I’m so glad it was helpful!
Thank you, Evangeline. I’m so glad these family worship ideas were helpful for your devotions with your kids.
Great tips on how to have a meaningful quiet time with our children! Love how you point out that it needs to be a consistent habit, yet that we must strive to keep it fresh and not mere habit. Great post!
Love these family worship ideas! You gave us plenty of ideas to stay creative and keep our kids engaged.
I never thought of having family worship time consistently. We attend church and I spend time with the Lord every day, we pray as a family but that’s about it. I love these ideas so much!
I would like to have more family worship time. Thanks for sharing. This is great
The great thing about more family worship time is that you can start with small steps. Ease into it while making it a priority and it will soon become a habit that will be easy to maintain.
These are great ideas for family worship. Thank you.
You are very welcome, Alice. I hope they will inspire you and your family as you spend time together getting to know God better together.
I absolutely LOVE this post! Family worship is so important and it is never too late to begin the tradition. Thank you for this beautiful post!
Thank you Donna! You’re right, it’s never too late or too early to begin a tradition of family worship!