Let’s Take A Story Journey

By Blog, Christian Education Archive, , ,

“We’re doing a Story Journey tomorrow to go along with our church’s yard, garden and bake sale. We’re featuring Laura Alary’s book, What Grew in Larry’s Garden. We’re so excited.”

My good friend, Laura Duggin, minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newmarket, Ontario dropped this into a conversation the other day. We weren’t talking about Story Journeys or garden sales at the time, so when Laura burst forth with this comment I needed to know more.

“Tell me all about it”

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A Simple But Significant Tweak For Your Pre-School Sunday School

By Blog, Christian Education Archive, , ,
All Saints Church, Fulham

If there is one thing we’ve learned as Christian educators during this pandemic, it’s that many of our parents were ill-prepared to take on the role of being faith-formers at home when our church buildings closed and our church programmes were shuttered.

And, it wasn’t their fault!

When asked, most parents say that they ought to be the primary influencers of faith with their children, and they are absolutely right. Yet, these same parents also tell us they have no idea how to do this because they haven’t been shown how. Sadly, with our decades-long emphasis on forming faith with children within our church buildings through Sunday school, mid-week groups and summer programming we’ve inadvertently left our parents in the dark on how to talk about and practice faith at home as a family. 

As we look to rebuild our educational programmes this fall we can’t ignore what we’ve learned these last couple of years; we must not cut our parents out of our faith formation plans and in fact we need to make families the centre of our approach going forward.

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Are You Making Plans For Sunday School This Fall?

By Blog, Christian Education Archive,

What will Sunday school look like this fall?

Churches are beginning to talk about restarting in-person Sunday school after a two and a half year hiatus from offering regular children’s programming. Leaning into the hope that our churches will be able to gather safely and with a deep desire to get children back to Sunday school before our youngest generation misses out completely on a Sunday school experience, churches are anxious to do the best they can to restart well this fall. 

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We Are Many Members, But One Body

By Blog, WMS Archive, , , ,

This past Saturday the Synodical of Central, Northeastern Ontario and Bermuda hosted a talk with Ms. Nora Carmi, a woman who has spent the last forty years working with the YWCA, Sabeel, and Kairosto bring about peace and justice in Palestine and Israel. Nora shared stories of the courageous leadership of women from each of the three monotheistic religions during her time with us, and in particular challenged the news we hear through the media with her alternative experiences of hope.

If you were unable to attend this wonderful and informative gathering, or if you’d like to view it once again, click HERE to view this presentation by Nora Carmi

Many Members – One Body: A Zoom Event With Nora Carmi

By Blog, WMS Archive, , , ,

For many Palestinians, efforts to fight off COVID-19 have presented unprecedented challenges, as closed shops have robbed them of their livelihoods, adding to the already long-standing, deep injustices of illegal Israeli occupation. 

 “The situation in Palestine is alarming. On the economic side, people are desperate, many without work and having difficulties feeding their children.”

Nora Carmi is a Christian Palestinian who has worked for peace and justice her whole life.

She was born in 1947 in Jerusalem into a family of Armenian survivors from the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. She experienced becoming a refugee, and since then she has faced the worsened situation for the Palestinians since the illegal occupation of the territories in 1967.  

Everyone is invited to register for this Zoom event where Carmi where talk about the role of Palestinian women and their efforts to shape healthier and more just communities.

To register please email Katherine Allen by April 14 at kathanne5219@gmail.com

An Interactive Google Slide for Holy Week

By Blog, Christian Education Archive, , , , , ,

There are so many stories to read and hear during Holy Week; from the excitement of the crowds on Palm Sunday to the quiet of the garden where Jesus went to pray, from the shock at Jesus’ arrest to his undeserved death a day later and finally to the extreme joy of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Each day builds on the previous day revealing God’s deep and grace-filled love for this world.

For younger ones many of the stories we tell during Holy Week can be difficult to understand and even scary. Well-written children’s bible story books help us to share these stories from scripture with children in ways that are more accessible and appropriate for their age. For this reason this interactive Google Slide has been loaded with videos of wonderfully written and told stories for Holy Week. It is here for you to upload onto your churches website or Facebook page so families can visit each day throughout Holy Week to hear these stories together.

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Won’t You be My Neighbour?

By Blog, Congregational Development Archive, , ,
Thank you to Paul Hanaoka and unsplash.com for this image

Happy Mr. Roger’s Day!

It is not only a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, it is a beautiful day to go out and meet our neighbours.

Mr. Rogers was above all else a good neighbour; more important than being a teacher and entertainer of children (and even their parents), Fred Rogers sought to show us how to be the very best kind of neighbour we can be in the communities in which we live, work and worship. 

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Closing Is Easy – Opening is Hard: An Update

By Blog, Congregational Development Archive, , ,
Thank you to Headway and unsplash.com for this photo

Wouldn’t you know it?

As soon as I uploaded the blog post on Saturday about the challenges churches are facing in deciding when and how they will reopen their church buildings I came across a great resource coming out of the Presbyterian Church USA. It is a document entitled Seeking to be Faithful Together: Guidelines for Presbyterians in Times of Disagreement and comes from their Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.

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Closing Is Easy – Opening Is Hard

By Blog, Congregational Development Archive, , ,
Thank you to Tavi White and unsplash.com for this photo

Two years ago today, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a global pandemic. I remember those first days and weeks; not sure what to touch or not to touch, getting used to wearing a mask, and most of all assuming that we would all be back in church by Easter at the latest.

How unprepared we were.

This week, the Ontario government has announced that most mask mandates will end on March 21, 2022 with the remaining pandemic rules lifted by the end of April. It seems as though we are moving from a pandemic to Covid being endemic in our world.

What a long strange trip it has been.

As I have talked with friends and colleagues over the past few days and weeks, I have heard and noticed a couple of important themes.

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