by Carter Brown
Every week, our church provides activity bags for children to use during the service. These bags are prepared each week by Claude Archer and a team of volunteers. Pastor Carter sat down with Claude for a conversation about this beautiful ministry.
How long have you been leading this ministry?
I’ve been helping with this since we first introduced activity bags at the end of 2019.
What does this ministry look like week to week?
I have a team of volunteers from the Cedar Saints group who serve on rotation. The team is made up of the Olsons, Sullivans, Kienols, Conrads. Each couple serves 1 week a month with Jean Burgett and Justene Bunting filling in as needed.
We meet at the church on Thursday mornings at 10:00am and spend about an hour getting the bags ready for Sunday. First, we go through bags and replace all the used coloring and note sheets with new sheets. We collect any loose crayons and put them back in ziplock bags. We sharpen pencils and check pens to make sure they write. And I can’t forget the crowd favorite – we restock the pipe cleaners in each bag. (Claude and his team go through about 7,200 pipe cleaners a year!)
How many bags do you stock a week?
When we started, we were stocking about 25-30 a week and about 20 of them were being used. Now we stock 40 a week and about 30 get used.
What is the goal of the activity bags?
The goal is to help keep children engaged and listening during the service. I think it helps them focus on what’s going on in the service. Whether they are taking notes or drawing a picture of something the preacher is talking about, it is helping them pay attention and learn.
I think having a tool like this that helps the kids engage in the service is also a help to parents and enables them to worship. So I suppose the goal is: to help families worship – both kids and parents.
I’m sure there are some families that don’t use the activity bags. I have wondered if perhaps we are missing a specific element that would appeal to a larger audience. I would certainly welcome that feedback from our families!
What’s been the most surprising thing to you since beginning this ministry?
Probably seeing some of the artwork or notes from a sermon that the kids made. Sometimes they’ll write parts of an outline of the sermon. Sometimes they’ll draw pictures of what the preacher is talking about. Kids are invited to take home any of the coloring sheets and pipe cleaners, but sometimes they put them back in the bag and we find them on Thursday mornings.
There’s some good artists in the bunch. I’m often impressed by the artistic ability or excellent note-taking (or pipe cleaner sculpting) of these kids while we’re emptying out their bags and preparing it for another week.
What’s your favorite part of this ministry?
I love seeing the bags being put to good use. Once in a while I’ll be sitting near a family that is using the bags. I’ll watch their kids take notes and color. That’s always a joy to me.
We love this ministry and are so grateful to Claude and his team for coming alongside families every week in this way! The next time you see any of them at church, please take a moment to thank them. And if your child is looking for someone to share their artwork with, look for Claude. He would love to see it!