THE PRAYGROUND IS OPEN!!
Sometimes referred to as Grace Space, a Pray Ground is a place in the front of the sanctuary where worshipers (most often children) can experience worship through age-appropriate worship materials and tools that will help keep them engaged in worship.
Who may use the Pray Ground?
Young children who are not comfortable sitting in a pew or leaving the worship service. Parents, other adults, and older students may choose to sit in a nearby pew, or on the floor with the children.
What about Sunday School?
Trinity offers Sunday school for children every week. Families worship together the first Sunday of each month.
Why offer a Pray Ground to families?
We can apply the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to help us understand why Pray Grounds are valuable for both worship and faith formation:
- Scripture: Matthew 10:13-15. Unlike his disciples, who considered children a distraction, Jesus welcomed & blessed the children.
- Tradition: The tradition of sending children out of worship prevents them from participating in essential components of Christian faith formation, i.e., community prayer, music, scripture reading, pastor’s message and Holy Communion.
- Reason: In order to be fully formed and developed, worship skills, behaviors, knowledge and beliefs require exposure, practice and experience. Without these, children cannot learn what to do in worship or what worship can do for them.
- Experience – According to the 2017 Trinity UMC Worship Survey, 96% of respondents agree that “families worshiping together” and “all generations worshiping together” are essential for Christian faith formation. Other churches with Pray Grounds also agree.
What do people in other churches with Pray Grounds say?
Other churches around the world have discovered that:
- Children are more attentive and active in the service when they are in the front of the church.
- When children who are separated out of the worshiping community get to an age to decide for themselves if they want to be a part of worship, they often decide not to be part of worship because it hasn’t been part of their life.
- Offering a Pray Ground is a statement to the entire congregation that we are making physical and spiritual space for families.
- Pray Grounds offer an opportunity for spiritual formation to begin at an early age.
Click here to read a testimony about Pray Ground from one of our members.