Planned by a team of staff from the Office of Theology, Worship and Education, the Child Advocacy Office, the Presbyterian United Nations Office, and the Peacemaking Program, the service included a prayer for hands, prayers of the people, and a Eucharistic prayer – a Great Thanksgiving for children. Participants had the opportunity to create red hands as part of the Red Hand Campaign to end the use of child soldiers. The proclamation wove together scripture, voices of child soldiers, and ideas for putting an end to the use of children as soldiers. A resource list for further action was shared.
The date was chosen to correspond with the tenth anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
The materials can be used on any day to proclaim that "Children are children, not soldiers!"
Download Child Soldiers Worship Service and Resource List
Download Child Soldiers Proclamation
The materials may be used in worship whenever is appropriate in your congregation or community. They may not be reproduced in for sale publications. Please tell us when you use them.