Host a Children’s Sabbaths Celebration
The National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths® offers a sacred invitation to worship, reflect, and act with and on behalf of children. This manual is your companion, complete with resources to root your congregation or faith community in scripture and shared wisdom, to center the voices of children and youth, to shape worship, and to take bold action toward building Beloved Community.
The tools here are flexible: some are ready to print, others are designed for online use. Take what fits your community, adapt it as needed, and let it serve as a guide, not a script.
Each year, congregations and faith communities across the nation gather to amplify children’s voices, center their well-being, and move faithfully from worship to justice-centered action.
This year’s theme, Building Beloved Community, reminds us that love and justice are inseparable. Building Beloved Community calls us to nurture children’s futures with steadfast commitment, to create spaces of healing and hope, and to recognize that our flourishing is bound together.
Timeless Theme: A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
2025 Inspiration: Beloved Community
Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s masterpiece, created anew in Jesus Christ, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
What Is Children’s Sabbaths?
This annual observance is more than a single service or event; it is a movement of the multitudes intentionally working together to center the voices, needs, and concerns of children. It is a collective insistence that every child deserves health, wholeness, safety, and abundant resources to thrive.
Learn MoreHow to Use the Manual
This manual provides a toolbox. Let it serve as a guide, not a script. Every tool is offered to help you and your community take one more step toward Beloved Community.
Learn MoreExplore the 2025 Children’s Sabbaths Manual