Jennie Turrell started drawing sheep on bulletins to entertain her young son in church a few years ago. And together they created a full-fledged book that is a prayer book for children, one that mirrors the Book of Common Prayer, with accurate liturgical language and rhyming poems for young ears.
“I wanted Will to worship with me,” Turrell said recently. “When he was little, I didn’t want to send him away to the nursery. I wanted him to experience the service.” So she created “Let Us Pray,” a children’s guide to the Eucharist, which Church Publishing issued in July.
On Sundays, Turrell is, as she describes it, “not a single parent, but I am often alone with a child in church.” Her husband, Jim, is a professor of liturgy at the School of Theology and a priest associate at All Saints’ Chapel, where the family worships.
“The project started with me whispering in Will’s ear—there’s the choir... here’s the cross... what color are the vestments?—to keep him engaged. But there’s only so much ‘I Spy’ you can play during the service, so I started drawing pictures for him on the bulletins. Sheep became the people in my drawings,” she said. Keeping Will engaged in the service was important to her and to Jim because the other ways of keeping a child quiet in church were unsatisfying.
“I came home on Sundays knowing a lot more about the T-Rex than I did about Jesus because we’d spent the hour looking at dinosaur books,” Turrell said. “I realized that he wasn’t worshiping in the fullest sense, nor was I.”
It began with sheep sketched on bulletins, then sheep on pieces of plain paper, then the service loosely sketched out on a stack of paper illustrated with the sheep. Over time, Turrell said she realized that she wanted to continue creating this book. She began by painting the sheep, and it evolved from there into the mixed-media digital collage that adorns “Let Us Pray.”
Turrell’s initial plan was to self-publish the book for family and friends. But after people saw it, they encouraged her to seek a traditional publisher.
There were Episcopal books about children’s worship, she said, but there were no Episcopal books for kids and worship. “I wanted to create something that reflected how we worship and what we believe,” she said.
“Let Us Pray” is having great success in its early months. Churches are using it in a variety of ways: in the pews for worship, as a gift for new families, for Sunday School classes to learn the prayers and in “quiet bags” churches often have for children. “People are using it in ways I could never have imagined,” she said. And Turrell is now making the sheep artwork available on T-shirts and “onesies” for babies.
During its creation, Turrell said that Will’s continued influence was a great help. “He would notice things that I never thought about, ‘Mama, you don’t have the napkin just right in the section about communion,’ he said.
“But I couldn’t have the sheep holding the chalice and the purificator [the napkin] because sheep don’t have opposable thumbs!” she said.
Her liturgically learned husband also gave her advice. “I asked him things such as ‘When does the sheep have his arms up? Which way does the deacon’s stole go?’” she said. “I wanted to make sure it was technically correct. It was important to us that it honor the Book of Common Prayer and the tradition of our worship.”
Will is now a first-grader at Sewanee Elementary and is happy to talk about what he calls the “sheepie” book. “I like it, and I’m proud of my mom,” he said.
A graphic designer by training, Turrell teaches visual art at Franklin County High School, where she also works to create opportunities for her students to pursue further education after graduation. She has a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Sewanee and a master’s degree in elementary education from University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
Next on the horizon for Turrell is a similar book about baptism. But not for a bit. “I’m still surprised, and a bit exhausted by the impact of this first book ,” she said.
“Let Us Pray” is available in area stores and the University Book and Supply Store, as well as at online booksellers. Turrell’s website for the project is <www.welcometotheflock.com>.
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