Back-to-School Worship Resources

There are a variety of back-to-school resources for worship and formation online.

Illustrated Ministry offers a Back-to-School Worship Liturgy and Backpack Blessing for free. Download it here: http://illstrtdm.in/BackToSchool

Additional resources from Illustrated Ministry include a variety of backpack tags. Check them out below:

Sticker versions of most of these backpack tags, are available here.

Our friends at buildfaith.org have offered an idea for a “Blessing of the Devices.” Find more at this link.

Building Faith has plenty of guidance for doing your own blessing of the backpacks with Blessing of the Backpacks: 6 Tips for Success, New Beginnings, New Challenges, and Blessing Backpacks: Prayers and Resources.

Other Online Educational Resources that We Recommend

The Center for the Ministry of Teaching at VTS offers lots of resources for teachers, including reviews of Vacation Bible School curricula, a blog, an online magazine and more. Find it online at the link above, or connect with CMT on Facebook.

Forma is an association and dynamic community of Christian educators, formation professionals, and their institutional partners that celebrates and upholds the diverse ministries of Christian formation across the the Episcopal Church.

Vibrant Faith offers services to churches, organizations and leaders. Our coaching and training is designed to partner with faith-formers and pursue innovation for the church’s processes of faith formation. Our projects and initiatives are designed to call churches to what matters most for effective faith formation in the 21st century.  
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Worshiping with Children offers a blog with amazing resources for each Sunday’s lectionary.  You can search by lesson or date.

Storypath provides names of children’s books that tie in with the lectionary.

Home Resources Online

GrowChristians.org is a website about practicing faith at home. The site is based on a central question: How do we grow as Christians ourselves and help younger people – especially in our own families and churches – to grow as Christians too? Writers will cover topics like family prayer, reading the Bible, how to talk about the cross, using music, art, cooking, and more. It’s a partnership of Forward Movement and Plainsong Farm. ​

The site also offers printable Back-to-School Prayer Bookmarks that could be used for any back-to-school event at your church. Find more at this link.