Category: Intergenerational

Educational designs with intergenerational groups in mind

Reminder Rocks

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Middle school and high school youth are an integral part of the leadership of Vacation Bible School at Christ Memorial Presbyterian Church–under the watchful care of loving adults of a large span of ages. Two of the afternoons they stay later–one is a mission day and the other is just for fun. This year, our mission afternoon was called Random Acts of Kindness Day. We began with a Bible study and discussion about the experience of feeling “not good enough” (sports, academics, looks, parental expectations…). We found we are either disappointed or discouraged when we fail or fall short of the standards set by others (or perhaps even ourselves). That failure either makes us try harder the next time or often means we never try again. Or worse. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we have hope in God and understand that God’s love is unconditional. Good news!
(Romans15:13, 1 Peter 1:3-4)
We believe that God believes we are good enough. Continue reading →

Generations in Faith Together

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Sunday school was working, but not well.  It was bringing in the same folks
we would see for almost any other church gathering and very few of the folks
we only see at worship or for our Wednesday night LOGOS program.  So we
decided to try something different.

Our Christian Education committee (through some weeping and gnashing of teeth on the part of some) decided to stop Sunday school and replace it with a program we call GIFT (which stands for Generations in Faith Together).  The vision of GIFT is to get people of all generations (preschool, elementary, youth, college, young adult, middle aged, senior citizen, etc.) to gather for some sort of educational event once a month between September and April/May. Continue reading →

Visual Parables: Connecting Faith and Film

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Fr. John Culkin inspired me to develop bridges between faith and film when he wrote that were Jesus to begin his ministry today, he would become a filmmaker. The best storytellers are working in Hollywood, so that is where he would be in order to reach the masses with his message. VisualParables.org is the culmination of my media ministry (Presbyterian) that began in the Seventies with writing reviews for several Catholic magazines, followed later by reviews in Protestant and secular newspapers. VisualParables.org moves beyond merely reviewing films by providing tools for church leaders to use them with their people to explore faith and personal and social issues.

The site offers about 1200 free reviews with one or more Scripture references attached. (Sometimes I spend almost as much time searching for the relevant Bible passage as in writing the review.) Each month the VP journal, available by either annual subscription or individual issue, includes the reviews plus a set of questions, ranging from 4 or 5 to as many as 20. Preachers tell me that they usually read the column “Lectionary Links” first because it suggests one or more films related to the Sunday texts of the Common Lectionary. Methodist chaplain Doug Sweet contributes a column that reviews film books and new DVDs. There are special articles, such as “Celebration of the Dance in Film,” and “Social Issue Films Reviewed in Visual Parables,” arranged according to category/themes—the latter lists almost 550 films. Cindy Corey, director of a Presbyterian resource center, reviews various short films.

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St. Andrew’s FISH – Families Integrating Sunday and Home

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Like many churches these days, St. Andrew’s had limited volunteer resources and sporadic attendance at Church School. The “regular” families were frustrated and burned out. And my experience had taught me that parental involvement is the single most important success factor in Christian formation. We were ready to do church differently.

We’re an Episcopal church, with a rich liturgical tradition. I have long believed that worship is the most formative thing we do, and worship was working well. We have strong and consistent attendance for our Family Service, which meets during the readings, sermon and prayers of the primary service. We do all the same things, in a more family-friendly setting. Then we rejoin the primary service for Communion, every Sunday. We don’t have any rules about what ages belong where, or parental accompaniment; we let each family make the decision that suits them best. Many parents choose to worship with their children. Continue reading →

Peace Garden

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After Easter—Spring and Summer in the Garden! Wondering what to do with kids and adults in Ordinary time? Go outside!!! Our Christian Education team invited adults’ and children’s classes to come out to the Sweetwater Garden behind our church to make a Peace Garden. This garden is part of the Wylde Center neighborhood gardens. We enlisted folks who could help us but were not the usual teachers: a person who volunteered in the garden, another to build benches out of recycled wood, an artist to help paint the benches and the peace pole we erected as well as a bird bath that we decorated with mosaic tiles. Continue reading →

PRC Webinars for Church Leaders

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The internet has ushered in a new way of doing almost everything, from shopping to research. Here at Practical Resources for Churches (PRC), we’ve seen an increase in the use of the internet in how we interact with people, provide resources, and offer learning and growth opportunities. Although we still offer face-to-face experiences through our workshops and roundtables, our webinar program is continually expanding. Continue reading →

Biblical Storytelling

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Here is something new that isn’t really all that new to “try” – biblical storytelling.

I am part of a liturgical biblical storytelling troupe, whose members “tell” the gospel story (or another of the lectionary text) each week during worship.

Biblical Storytelling is reclaiming the ancient practice- when most of the world was illiterate- of telling the stories of the bible. Biblical Storytelling is the rediscovered ancient art of oral performance of the scriptural text. It’s the way the stories of the bible were always intended to be heard — the way they always were heard before they were written down, and even for centuries after that. Continue reading →

Lifelong Faith Journal

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The Lifelong Faith journal is one of several initiatives of the LifelongFaith Associates organization directed by John Roberto, a prominent scholar of faith formation whose work was profiled by Hope4CE in a recent post. The journal, published quarterly, focuses on the faith formation of all ages, with the hope that ministry leaders might be better equipped to nurture the faith of those in their care in each moment of their lives. Continue reading →

Interactive Worship Ideas

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At Faith Presbyterian (https://www.facebook.com/faithpresgso), we embrace our traditional worship style and space while making our service accessible and engaging for all. Children and their families are welcome at the front of the sanctuary with activities geared toward their age level. Our family worship guide follows the pattern of the service and offers extra enrichment ideas and activities for children and active learners of all ages.The outline of a traditional worship service centered around The Word is beautiful and quite freeing when we remember that The Word is The Living Word of God – incarnate in Christ, written in scripture, and enacted in the world.

For Lent, we are using a themed sermon series inspired by Rev. Whitney Wilkinson following the “Landscape of Lent.” Each week, we add a new visual element to represent some aspect of the scripture – ashes, wilderness, wind, water, mud, cave, palms, bread – and we will close with Easter in the garden. Continue reading →