The Children's Mission of St. Paul and St. James

Light and Peace is an evening worship program for up to 32 children, aged 3-11. It is a warm and loving place to hear together the Good News of God's abundant love, to pray, sing, draw, and make friends, and to share a nourishing hot supper.

Light and Peace begins with a half-hour worship service. This order of worship is modeled on the traditional close-of-day service of Compline, using the beautiful, resonant traditional language. The children come to know the simple responses to the leader's words, and the chanted blessing at the end. Also included are an evening hymn, a seasonal hymn, a story, and time for prayer.

The younger children (aged 3 to 8) worship in the church’s lovely chapel, seated on a quilt and surrounded by candlelight and loving adults. They experience the scripture story via the original Beulah Land feltboard. The 9- and 10-year-olds have a separate worship service, in the parish hall, in which they read the Bible stories from one of several versions of the Scriptures. At the concluding blessing, children and adults mark each other’s foreheads with the sign of the cross before proceeding to an art project.

The project is related to the story of the day, and may be free art work with paint, clay or collage, or structured crafts such as making paper doves, bread baking, or decorating candles. The focus is on giving the children a chance to respond to Scripture.

At left, the children are responding to the story of the Good Shepherd, by making their own sheepfolds out of felt, and placing sheep in them.

After art, we wash our hands, using basins and pitchers of water. The children pour the water for each other. We sing a grace and gather at table for a healthy dinner, provided by a volunteer supper team. Often, the supper team is a youth group or service group from a local parish. We would welcome new supper teams at any time.

(Center and right) Youth from St. Peter's Church, Cheshire, serve supper, including homemade cookies.

A full-scale replication of Light and Peace operated for six years at Trinity Church in Hartford beginning in the fall of 2000. Our Summer Program children made a quilt for the Trinity Light and Peace kids to sit on for worship.

In the last several years, Light and Peace as a model for urban ministry has been presented at various workshops and conferences and aroused interest from several churches. In June of 2003 it was presented at an academic conference on children's spirituality at Concordia Seminary in River Forest, IL. A detailed article describing the effect of the feltboard images on children’s art appeared in the Michaelmas 2005 issue of Sewanee Theological Review. In partnership with Beulah Enterprises, the Children’s Mission has now developed the Beulah Land Curriculum, a comprehensive, highly flexible resource that is adaptable for use in parish religious education as well as evangelism with disadvantaged children.

"As someone from a non-liturgical tradition, I've been amazed by how the children get into the liturgy, and how it carries them. They really thrive on the structure and the repetition." - Staff member

"I'm a convert! - This was real liturgy, not dumbed down or watered down. You have thought out every single aspect of it, from the worship itself to the craft time and the interactions among the children, to the dinner. Tell me how I can get more involved." - Visiting local Episcopal priest (to get more involved, go here)

"My ambition is to start a program just like Light and Peace after I am ordained." - Yale/Berkeley Divinity School volunteer

"Grandma, it was fabulous!" - Child, on arriving home from Light and Peace