From the time my oldest was old enough to pretend play, he loved to play “church”. As he got older and our family grew he would enlist all the kids to participate in his church service. His favorite candy used to be Necco Wafers and then he would use them to play church! When he did his First Holy Communion we bought him a mass kit, he also convinced his Grandma to sew an Alb that he could wear while doing “mass”. He even used to give a short homily after reading the gospel 😉
Oh, how I wish I would have captured that on video!
Our boys have always enjoyed altar serving for our parish. When we lived in Michigan, we went to a fairly small parish and the boys served every Sunday morning at the 8:00am mass. When we moved to Florida, we moved to a much larger parish. The boys were a bit disappointed at the thought that they were only going to serve a handful of times for a whole year! As it turns out they have been able to serve on a pretty regular basis.
At our current parish, the servers can earn points for serving each week. The leader of the altar servers keeps track of who serves and ultimately keeps track of the earned points. At the end of the year the server with the most points gets recognition at a banquet. While we have never had to entice the boys to serve, a little friendly competition has been good for the boys!
A second way they can earn points is to turn in a summary of Father’s homily each week. I love this part! It encourages the boys to pay attention a bit more during mass, then they have to remember what they heard and organize their thoughts into coherent summary to turn into the leader.
I decided to create this simple printable that they can either print out and take into mass or keep in the car on a clipboard.  That way they can get started right after mass when the words are still fresh in their minds.
–>Download Here <–
Every Sunday on Instagram I see many Sermon Notes. I am a note taker. I love to fill a notebook with beautiful thoughts. To me it is a form of art. I wish Catholics were more open to this. I can’t imagine the looks I would get taking notes while mass was being said. Recently I joined Bible Study and I love it. We discuss the upcoming readings and get a glimpse of the homily. I can take all the notes I want (I’m still the only one) but I don’t feel weird about it.
I love this idea and how awesome that your boys enjoy doing it!
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Yes! I grew up Lutheran and it was part of what we had to do each week while going through certain classes. I believe it’s definitely a more Protestant thing to do, although I’m not sure why it’s not something more Catholics do. I would imagine your note taking books are beautiful! I wouldn’t necessarily say my boys enjoy it, but they do like collecting the points so I’m happy with that 😉
What a clever idea! I don’t have children yet, but I have still already been thinking about how I would keep my kids engaged in church. I like the idea of Sunday school, but I always think it’s a pity that the children are taken out of the service and miss the sermon. What’s your approach to keeping younger ones focused?
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I have a couple of blog posts about taking children to mass!
http://foreverforalwaysnomatterwhat.com/2014/02/taking-young-children-catholic-mass.html
http://foreverforalwaysnomatterwhat.com/2014/02/tips-for-taking-young-children-catholic-mass.html
I like the idea of earning points “for that friendly competition”!! Seriously. My guy had to be put on a schedule because he was there EVERY single Sunday. They now have him come twice a month instead 😉 I wish more parents would force their boys to do this. I grew up with five brothers and it was expected…because it was also faith formation to the priesthood, possibly, someday. I think when they added girls in the mix, it diminished the potential vocation calling to these young boys, especially in our society. They have enough distractions from God to begin with. Way to go, Dunlap boys! Keep up the good work 🙂
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