Faith Formation Ministries Offers Lord’s Supper Toolkit

Faith Formation Ministries (FFM) is offering a new resource for churches interested in learning more about welcoming children to the Lord’s Supper.

The Children at the Table Toolkit is a collection of resources to help churches explore the idea of children joining in the Lord’s Supper, with FAQs, profiles of different churches and their journey to welcoming children, teaching resources for children’s ministry, workshops for families, worship ideas, and more.

The kit contains tools for churches, no matter where they are on the journey to welcoming children to the table, said Karen De Boer of Faith Formation Ministries.

She said it was assembled with the help of congregational leaders “who freely shared their ideas, resources, needs, and feedback. That’s one of the reasons the content is so good and so flexible – it’s been shaped by and used in the local church.”

Syd Hielema, the FFM team leader, agrees. “A core value of FFM is respect for the uniqueness of every congregation. The toolkit is flexible and adaptable so each congregation can navigate it and find the parts that will reflect them and their Lord’s Supper practices.”

Hielema suggests that each church appoint one or two people to spend an hour reviewing the toolkit, seeing what it’s about and what resources are available, then have them report to a larger group: parents, children and youth ministry workers, the worship committee, for example.

For questions that can’t be answered in the toolkit, the FFM team is available for consultation.

Hielema said the team hopes to connect congregations in mentor-like relationships with one another as they move along the journey. “I hope the toolkit elicits those types of conversations,” he said.

Some of Faith Formation Ministries’ roots lie in the Faith Formation Committee, which was formed in 2007 in response to a decision by Synod 2006 to look at “the admission of all baptized members to the Lord’s Supper” (Acts of Synod 2006, Art. 71).

After a study of the issue, Synods 2010 and 2011 decided to accept the “Children at the Table” principle proposed by the Faith Formation Committee, and with it, the presence of children at the Lord’s Supper.

Hielema said the toolkit is a continuation of the work of the Faith Formation Committee. “Its mandate is finished; we changed the Church Order – but now we’ve developed the support needed to back that change up. It’s more comprehensive – a full toolkit for congregations.”

The scope of the FFM team’s mandate embraces a holistic picture of Faith Formation, and it has already started work on other toolkits, focusing on Profession of Faith and the Intergenerational Church, he added.

“We hope you’ll use the tools in the toolkits in the same way you would use your tools at home – selecting the tool you need for the job you want to do, whether that job involves building something new or making adjustments to something old.”