Children's Spirituality Summit 2024

This workshop, led by Children’s Spirituality Hub staff from Union Presbyterian Seminary, will invite participants to drink from our wellspring of innovative practices that have been refined through experimental implementation. We’ll teach three practices (Holy Listening, Embodied Prayer, and Storybook Reflections) designed and tested in multiple settings through the Hub. Holy Listening is a one-on-one practice with young children that uses a finger labyrinth, symbol stones, and a hand blessing to explore centering, emotions, and spiritual connections. We’ve tried it out in church school classes and weekday preschools. Embodied Prayer involves movement-based prayers designed to help children experience spiritual connection with self, others, the natural world, and God. We tested a set of six themed prayers (Connection, Empowerment, Wonder, Awareness, Empathy, Justice) with groups ranging in size from 6-100+ kids. Storybook Reflections uses children’s picture books to invite spiritual connections and build socioemotional skills. We've created six different themed sets of books for stand-alone use or curricular supplementation. You’ll learn how the practices work, as well as the child development and education theories that shaped their design. And we’ll also show you how to integrate these ideas into existing ministries, as well as create new components (your own embodied prayer scripts) and approaches (using holy listening with groups) to fit your needs.