by Pastor Victor Chen

Just about a year ago, I started a blog series, “What are my Children Supposed to Do During Sunday Service?” Children had grown accustomed to school, Sunday school and church on the screen. As a result, focus and attention became challenges as children began returning to services in-person.

Early on, we tried having pastors give a “keyword” for children to track in the message and keep them engaged. This served as a “teaser” for the sermon in hopes of building anticipation. (Remember how children tracked how many times the “keyword” was mentioned?)

We started developing our own “Children’s Bulletins” to match with the specific sermon that Sunday, including the passage, title and series theme. Activities like mazes, word searches and coloring sheets were provided to help children engage with the passage.

We also developed a “Church Notebook” with blank sermon notes for our older children 3rd-6th grade to note the key points of the sermon and the key idea or question.

All of that has led to the launch of a “Children’s Worship Service” every 4th Sunday of the month beginning in January for children 0-6th grade.

But I like having the children join us for worship service.

And they will, for the beginning portion of the service. Following the opening two songs and the scripture reading, children will be excused to the back of the sanctuary, where they will be escorted to the MPR for the “Children’s Worship Service”.

Why is the service for older children? They can stay quiet and sit still in service.

The aim of the “Children’s Worship Service” is not to keep our children quiet and sit still in service. The aim of the service and the aim of children in any worship service, is to get them to listen. We see in the Bible that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). We have a great opportunity to train our older children to listen attentively, take notes and engage with the message and God’s Word as it relates to their life.

How do you expect to keep a toddler and a 6th grader engaged from the same message?

My message will have the same title, be from the same passage, have the same keyword and the same key points as the big Lord’s Day service. My expectation for the young children is for them to be able to identify the keyword. The older the children, the more they will be expected to track with the message. Following my message, there will be age-specific breakout groups with age-specific activities ranging from coloring sheets to small group discussion to help the children engage with the message from God’s Word in their particular context.

It’s only once a month? I need it every week!

Because a service like this requires a lot of volunteers, we will begin offering the service once a month. As more volunteers commit to helping, we can expand to twice a month, 3x a month to eventually every week. The hope is that we would have enough volunteers to form a rotation where everybody volunteers once a month.

For more information about our upcoming Children’s Worship Service or how you can help, please contact Pastor Victor at vchen@evergreensgv.org

Paul Lu recently joined our staff as an intern. Hear more from him as he shares about his journey and what his hopes are for the future in serving the Lord.

Please share how you came to Evergreen.

Our family came to Evergreen through Michelle and Eric Abe, whose girls were friends with our daughter Phoebe at ACS (Arcadia Christian School). After visiting a few churches, we sensed the Lord guide us to call Evergreen SGV our home church. We have been here since February 2014, and have been members since July 2015. Since then, we have been deeply ministered by pastors, as well as many brothers and sisters in the church.  

What will your internship entail at Evergreen?

My internship will be primarily in Outreach and Worship ministries. I will be serving in Local and Global Outreach with Pastor Hugo and Jon H. I will also coordinate the praise teams for Lord's Day services, serving with Rich, Garrett and Irene. Also, the Lord has placed evangelism and prayer as two areas to serve the body of Christ. I pray for more opportunities to do so. 

What do you hope to gain from your internship at Evergreen?

I hope to be equipped at Evergreen so that when Prudence and I are sent out as missionaries we know how to plant churches and care for the flock. In the meantime, there's a lot to learn from the pastors, staff and the body of Christ on how to minister to one another in God's Word and in prayer.

What are your plans after the internship?

My plan is that Prudence and I would be sent out as missionaries to East Asia, Lord willing. I plan to equip the overlooked people in East Asia with communication tools for them to thrive in society, and look for opportunities to plant churches.

How can the church be praying for you?

Prudence and I are seeking the Lord's will in terms of missions. Please pray that God will bring our differences into alignment with His will. For me specifically, pray that I would lead sacrificially and lovingly.

By Danny Qian

When I first heard that there would be a church “campout” in the summer at our church, I was optimistically cautious.

I was optimistic because I thought that our older girls would love the fellowship with their friends and staying up late with them.  

I was cautious because I never had to be there with them, sleeping in tents (not my preferred sleeping situation) since in previous years they would just campout with the church staff.  

However, knowing that my younger two girls and my wife could also participate, we would definitely have a great time fellowshipping with church families and friends and they could simply go home to sleep and come back to church to participate in more activities the next morning (since we wanted the younger kids to get a good night’s sleep).

The campout turned out to exceed my expectations and the sleeping situation wasn’t too bad either (as I brought air mattresses).

The fellowship was amazing, especially since we really haven’t been able to catch up with many people due to COVID-19. The worship was also awesome and well planned. I was pleasantly surprised that the staff put together a really great outdoor worship program in the grass area, right in front of all the tents.

What I really appreciated beyond the nice worship, good fellowship, all the games and breakfast the following day, was how everything felt simple but to the main point of our faith. The campout simply felt like something that would please the Lord: good fellowship among brothers and sisters in Christ, where Christ was being worshipped in the center of it all.