Worship Team

We love it when children lead worship!  Friday worships are delivered by a different class each week under the guidance of their teacher to the whole school and visiting parents. The school council, equality ambassadors, language leaders, house captains and worship team also take several turns to lead. They are keen to plan and deliver a worship or they spontaneously, help out with lighting a candle, saying ‘the gathering’ or ‘the sending’, drama, prayers and song actions.      

This treasured time is the heartbeat of our school so our worship team’s opinions are valued and their views help us shape and improve the planning and delivery of worship.

At the beginning of a new academic year, any child can apply to serve for half a year on the worship team. Overseen by Mrs Parrett, 2 volunteers from each Y4, Y5 and Y6 class meet 3 times a term to discuss and evaluate worship; this offers fresh eyes into worship and the spirituality of the school. As a result, they have a voice, as do other adults including teachers, governors, clergy and other visitors, in exploring a variety of spiritual styles and liturgies. Ocassionally, Rev Chris also meets with the children as Deborah the Reader at St Martin's did during the vacancy, inorder to help train the children up or to plan their contributions for a special Sunday morning All Age worship. 

The current worship team came up with the following job description:

· We will be good role models and live out the school vision, mission and values as best as we can

· We will prepare the space for CW by setting up the Worship Table with candles, cloth and cross but we will suggest other items that could be helpful

· We will stand at the doors and welcome everyone in

· We may start the worship by reading a ‘gathering’ that we have chosen

· We can bring prayers from around school and read them during CW

· We may read a relevant ‘sending out’ at the end of CW

· We wear a lanyard to let other children know we are on the Worship Team and that anyone can speak to us about CW

· We may help to tell stories and act during worship (but all children have an opportunity to do this if they wish to)

· We help the CW leader to plan worship themes

· We may help choose the songs

· We fill in a CW monitoring sheet twice a term and discuss our findings with Mrs Parrett who can implement suggestions to improve CW

· We may photograph the worship and wellbeing boards in everyone’s classes and be active in helping our teacher post work, pictures, prayers etc up on it

· We can help update the worship board outside the hall

· We encourage other children to engage with the outside blackboard and may be asked to chalk up the question

· We may lead a worship in the local community i.e. at Herne Infant school, a care home, Strode Park or even at St Martin’s on a Sunday

· We may be asked to help organise or judge a competition

· We may be asked to welcome or show visitors round our school

· We may be asked to help plan a special event or prayer/reflection space to promote spirituality

· We are on the worship team for half a year and will then help train up the next team

What have our children said about being on the worship team?

Helping read Bible passages and choosing prayers and reading them from the prayer box has been a really good experience. Although it has been nerve-wracking standing in front of the whole school, it has helped me build confidence.

Being a worship leader has helped me think about God more which is a good thing. It has helped me understand the Bible a bit better too.

When I've been doing my worship leader roles, I have felt grown up and well used. I've enjoyed doing the jobs which have included sorting the worship table and helping choose some of the songs we do in worship.

Being on the worship team has allowed me the chance to go to church to help lead part of the service. I really enjoyed the Advent service with Deborah. It was good because my parents came too.

I've enjoyed giving out the hearts to the parents for Friday worship feedback. It was good to see their lovely responses to class worships.

I felt that I was like an encourager when I was a worship leader as I was able to share messages about God and Jesus. I would definitely recommend this role to other children.

Being a worship leader has helped me develop confidence and widen my friendship circle because I've worked with other children that I would not have usually worked with. I think it helps widen your circle of friends.

This role has taught me how to speak in front of people. I've never spoken before in public so this has given me confidence to put my hand up and answer questions in class which I haven’t really done before.

I have loved leading worship in the community especially at the Infant School and in the church. I've still got my worship lanyard and will feel sad that I can no longer do this job next year as I'm leaving Herne Juniors.

Being a worship later is a great experience especially if you are shy because I'm sure it will help you grow in confidence.

I have really enjoyed welcoming people into worship as my one of my jobs was to stand on the door and smile at people as they came into the hall.

One of my jobs was to wash down the chalkboard outside and help decide on the next question to ponder which Mrs Parrett wrote up. It was good to see what the children and maybe adults, wrote up during the day.

As a worship leader I feel better informed to decide on what I believe. I have a little bit of faith and that's okay.

Being a worship leader has helped me think more deeply about God and Jesus. I also understand how a school worship is put together. I enjoyed offering my ideas on how to improve worship like having a longer time for talk partners and using pictures on the screen to help us understand the Bible story better.

Being part of the worship team helps build community.  As we worked together, we mixed with different people in different year groups which was good.

You don't have to be a Christian to be on the worship team as it's good to have lots of different opinions where we learnt to respect each other.