Teach your child how to adore God.

Worship: Age 8

<span style="color:var(--primary-color-bg)">What Is</span>

What Is

The Worship Step?

Age 8 is a great time to teach your child about adoring God personally, at home, at church, and as a lifestyle, which is why we’ve created the Worship step on the Faith Path. Simply put, worship is our response to the greatness of God (not just singing songs in church).

As the primary faith trainer of your child, you have the privilege of helping them understand that worship involves much more than attending a weekend service. Worship is both an action and an attitude. Jesus said that true worship begins in the heart of the believer (John 4:23). Worship involves taking the focus off ourselves and directing our attention toward who God is and what He has done. We may be great multi-taskers who can accomplish multiple things at once, but real worship only occurs when we give God our complete and sole attention.

Put It Into Practice

To help your child learn to direct their attention toward who God is and what He’s done, you can start by explaining to them the importance of both personal and corporate worship.

Personal Worship
Children don’t need to be taught how to worship, but whom to worship. Most kids idolize heroes from the world of sports, music, and television. They memorize every statistic and detail about this or that celebrity. In other words, they “worship” in the purest form by focusing their complete attention on someone they admire rather than on themselves. It’s our job to help them see the wonder of our awesome God.

The best way to teach your child how to worship God on a personal level is by doing it yourself and modeling a life of worship with your words and actions. Allow your child to experience the “wow” of who God is. Intentionally point out the amazing things that God has done and is doing. “Teach them to “ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness” (Psalm 29:2).

Corporate Worship
It’s also important to spend time worshipping together both at home and at church. As it says in Psalm 149:1, we should “Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly!” You can do this by creating family worship experiences using songs, prayer, and scripture. If your family isn’t musical, it’s easy to pull up videos online of worship artists or even songs with the lyrics on the screen. Make public worship a priority by gathering with other believers to focus on God through the same elements.

ways to worship

Next Steps

As you continue to make it a priority to help your child discover real worship, here are some more ways to worship: 

  • Spend a few minutes around the table or in the car as a family taking turns saying something about who God is and what He has done. Try to avoid mentioning yourselves; focus completely on Him.
  • Make worshipping as a family a priority by talking about God and committing to regularly attend a church service where you praise Him and study His Word together.
  • Play songs of worship or make music together to create a fun time of family worship in song. Psalm 100:20 says to “Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”
  • Declare specific days like “Worship Wednesdays” to make a point of worshipping together. This could be as simple as saying one thing about God on the way to or from school or before bed.
  • Ask your child questions about God’s character or His creation. Help them focus on how amazing God is.
  • Write the phrase “God you are…” on a bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. Start or end the day by writing a worshipful word or phrase to finish the sentence.

Additional Resources

God Made Me for Worship by Jared Kennedy and Trish Mahoney
Teaching Kids Authentic Worship by Kathleen Chapman
Worship in the Word (audio & video) by Shane & Shane
Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science by Louie Giglio