Kids' praise party

[MrsJamin]

Has anyone ever been to a good Kids' praise party / worship event, or run one? Looking at doing this at our church with a small group of children (tots to 13ish) and wondered what worked well, or made it special for the children.

I'm going to one at Ely Cathedral on Friday, I'll let you know what it's like!

I've been to a really awful one, so I can tell you what NOT to do if you like!

reports of both would be wonderful

Well, the first one wasn't REALLY awful, it had some good elements to it.

It was a Halloween light party, my son has Asperger's and is petrified of all the costumes, as he sees them as real. And the pastor at a nearby church (not my own church) dressed up in a bright green wig and wore a mask, and frightened my son so much he cried for 20 mins and wet himself.

The puppet show was quite good, there were party games involving dressing up, and making things the children could take home. Singing and learning songs as well.

Great Big God celebrations-run by Vineyard are brilliant for kids aged 5-11ish. Well run, good music,good craft etc

Ely Cathedral was fantastic. The key to its success was to keep it fast-paced and fun. And a way of calming the children down if they got over-excited! The entertainers used a series of silly poses he got the kids to take.

All the children were in a big group on the floor. Parents were mainly sitting at the back of the group, rather than amongst the kids. Age range was 5-11, although there were a few toddlers as well.

There were a number of groups involved:

GenR8

John Hardwick

I reckon that our suffragan bishop has missed his vocation as a children's entertainer

There were puppets (our diocesan resource centre hires these out for free - may be worth checking whether you can borrow some), sketches, games and worship songs, all backed by a big screen showing what was going on (including the words of the worship songs). The worship songs were all action ones.

Obviously, this is on a big scale, but its worth seeing what ideas you can nick. I took some photos - haven't got round to putting them up online, I can do this, if you're interested...

"kids praise party" - I love it! Sounds like this could be a lot of fun, I think it is a wonderful idea! We have created a worship resources document - We?ve included prayers, hymns, readings and suggestions for children?s activities that you can adapt to suit your kids praise party. I hope you like it x

So excited to see Ely Cathedral mentioned I am now in my late thirites but I used to the children's festival every year as a child, I remember the picnic on the field as being the best bit.
We used to make a banner and we had to stay near our banner so we didn't get lost.Very good memories of Ely.