"Growing in Christ and Serving His People"
Christian Education
Growing in Christ; Serving His People
To assist us in preparing for these ministries, please complete a registration form for all children and youth in your family, from birth to age 18. This information will be used to keep you up-to-date on outings, mission opportunities, and diocesan camps/retreats. Get your forms from Jane Kilpatrick. Be in touch... stpaulseducator@gmail.com or 803-547-5968
Nursery: Beginning at 10:15 am each Sunday morning, infants, through age 4, receive a warm welcome by our professional sitter and a volunteer. While parents and other adult worshipers participate in Holy Eucharist, playtime, stories, music, and snacks are provided to fill the preschoolers' time. The children may be picked up during The Passing of the Peace or at the conclusion of the worship service.
Children's Formation: Kids' Corner at God's Place begins at 10:15am each Sunday. It is designed for children, kindergarten through grade 4. Child-centered adults engage children in learning biblical concepts in age-appropriate ways. The curriculum, Whole People of God, is lectionary-based so children and adults learn about the same scriptures each week. In addition to hearing the Bible story for the week, the children enjoy arts/crafts, prayer/worship, discussion to help grasp meaning and application of lesson. The children join their family during The Peace so they may partake of communion together. Kids' Corner meets the Sunday immediately following Labor Day through the Sunday prior to Memorial Day weekend.
Youth Group is for grades 5th-high school and meets twice a month from September to the first of May on the second and third Sundays.
Volunteers are ordinary people with extraordinary hearts. They offer the gift of their time to teach, to listen, to help, to inspire, to build, to grow, to learn. They expect no pay, yet the value of their work knows no limit. They’ve known the unexpected joy of a simple hug. They’ve planted tiny seeds of love in countless lives. Volunteers are ordinary people who reach out and take a hand and together make a difference that lasts a lifetime.
The Benefits of a Lectionary-Based Curriculum
from the publishers of Whole People of God
Why Use the Lectionary as the Basis for Creating Curriculum?
1. Integrates Worship and Education. Christian education programs need to prepare children and youth for full participation in the worshiping community. Lectionary-based curricula facilitate this as children, youth, and adults are all learning and worshiping focused on the same passages.
2. Encourages Family Interaction. Because all ages are focusing on the same scripture passages, follow-up conversations at home are natural and easy in a way not possible when children, adults, and youth are focused on different Bible stories.
3. Lectionary/Church Year Encourages the Senses. Worship and education, in most instances, have been very word oriented and intellectual. The Lectionary was developed to accompany the cycle of the Christian Year which is alive with colors and symbols, which assist children and youth in their learning and understanding of worship and liturgy.
The Revised Common Lectionary
Since ancient times there were fixed scripture readings appointed for Jewish festivals and readings for ordinary Sabbaths. When Jesus returned to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, He was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (Luke 4:16-17). This was probably the prescribed reading for the day. The Revised Common Lectionary, on which The Whole People of God is based, was published in 1992 and is used by 19 different denominations in Canada, the USA, Australia, and Great Britain.
We use the lectionary as our base so that what happens in worship and in church school is directly related to the same scripture passages. When parents, children, and youth are all reflecting on the same scriptures it encourages continued conversations and questions at home.
The Season After Pentecost (Sunday after Pentecost Day through to the beginning of Advent) also has a distinctive emphasis each year from Hebrew Scripture. Year “A” has semi-continuous readings from Genesis and Exodus, telling of God’s covenant with the People of Israel recorded in the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible). Year “B” focuses on God’s covenant with David, the period of the monarchy and the Wisdom literature. Year “C” focuses on the prophets and the exile.
