From the Pastors Desk - September 10, 2019
During April and May we had several cottage meetings to follow up on the CRT report. At one meeting we had five individuals, all of whom are parents of young children, present. That was no accident. I wanted them to be all together to see how Good Shepherd could assist them in raising their children in faith. They were very honest. Beautifully and brutally honest and I thank them for that. Very much.
At this point the parents are not interested in traditional, weekly, after worship Sunday School. That may have worked for my parents and me and my siblings, but it won’t fly right now for our young families. They want to raise their children in faith, just not in the way I was (and probably anyone reading this). For me, this is not new news. Those who have been studying trends in Christian Education for children have been saying this for well over a decade. Yes, there are some congregations (mostly large ones) who can still pull this off, but many others have moved to a “one-room school house” mode or an inter-generational program or something not on a Sunday morning.
As we continued the discussion about how Good Shepherd could assist our young parents, I shared with them a program that St. Jacob’s has had for about three decades now. They call it Junior Church. It is on the first Sunday of the month (October - May). After the children’s sermon, the children go to Junior Church. At St. Jacob’s, on the first Sunday of the month every child, pre-school - 3rd grade is present. They have a mini worship service and the Bible verse then becomes a lesson, complete with craft and snack and a take-home bulletin that lets the parents reinforce what they learned at home.
Our parents thought that was a great idea! So that is what we will be doing. Valerie Hempel and Julie Franks will be our leaders. We met with the person from St. Jacob’s who leads this program there. Valerie, Julie and I are excited and I hope you will be too. We found a way to partner with our parents and are at work getting the program in place.
So on October 6, Junior Church will become of the fabric of Good Shepherd.
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