We have some exciting changes to our Children’s Formation time during the seasons of Lent and Easter. Pre-K and all elementary-aged* children will have their formation time during the 10:30 am worship service. They will be with us in church until the Collect (the weekly prayer that sums up the focus of our liturgy for the week), and then Rev. Stephanie will invite the children to come to the center aisle for a short talk (our weekly children’s sermon). After that, the children will go with Rev. Stephanie and the teachers to Curry Hall to further engage with the stories of Jesus. (Don’t worry, Rev. Stephanie will come back to the Nave after she gets them started!)
Storymakers, a curriculum created for children and their imaginations, offers a special Lent program that invites our children to enter into God’s story. During the season of Lent, our children will be hearing the same stories of Jesus that we hear in church: Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus’ encounters with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus healing a blind man, and Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. They will enter the story through art and storytelling; they will spend time identifying where they see emotion and prayer within the story; and they will retell the story in their own words using the materials of their choice: crayons, clay, pipe cleaners, finger paint, markers, etc.
The children will rejoin the congregation during the Offertory so that they are with us for the Eucharist. Hopefully this will allow space for our younger members to engage with the stories of Jesus that the older members of the congregation are hearing.
Each week, the Glad Tidings will include the art that the children will use to begin their storymaking and some discussion points that grown-ups may use to engage their young ones in the story — either before or after church.
— Rev. Stephanie
*Pre-K includes ages 3-5, and elementary is Kindergarten through 5th grade.