Available Through Yale Divinity School
Zoom | March 4 | 12 – 1:30 pm Eastern

We all love having children present in the church, but what does it look like when our children are full and active participants in the leadership of our worship services? In this webinar, Brand McDonald will share the successes and challenges her church has faced in their intentional approach to ensuring children feel empowered to be active participants in the leadership of worship services. The group will talk about how congregations prioritize making sure children feel safe, loved, and valued by their entire church family and what it can look like to ensure kids are being empowered to be involved in ways that utilize their gifts and respect their limits. Brandy will also share how her church offers options for children in worship and our strategy for helping children learn to be in worship as they grow by providing developmentally appropriate spaces, and the successes they’ve seen from that approach.

Registration closes March 2, 2026.

About The Facilitator

Brandy McDonald is the Director of Children’s Ministries at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Manhattan, Kansas. Children’s ministry has been a lifelong passion for Brandy- she likes to joke that she’s been in children’s ministry since birth because as soon as she aged out in 7th grade she started volunteering and has been involved ever since. Brandy has a passion for making church a place where children feel loved, welcomed, and valued for exactly the person God created them to be. Brandy holds a BS in Family Studies and Human Services from Kansas State University. She and her husband, Shaun, have three teenagers who try their best to keep them busy.