Christian Formation

Welcome Back to Church School…Where Did Summer Go?

Greetings, all. While no one likes to say farewell to summer, the nice thing about autumn is that it
brings us all back together. Church School starts on Sept. 13 this year. We've made some
changes/improvements over the summer that we hope will help your children get even more
out of their Church School experience.

This year, there is a class for every grade. That means that in the years leading up to
Confirmation, we have a chance to cover more material in smaller classes. The curriculum we've
chosen is based on the Episcopal Church's published curriculum. We've tried to comb out some
of the tangles - for instance, lessons that are too obscure for young kids. We've added lessons on
subjects with which we think the students should be familiar. These include certain Bible stories
that weren't covered before (such as Jesus clearing the Temple), as well as 'informative' lessons
(the architecture of the Church, for instance).

Each year, the classes will focus on Old Testament-based lessons in the first ten weeks before
Advent, and New Testament-based ones after Christmas. We'll break up the second half of the
year with a few informational lessons (seasons of the Church year.)

One new addition: Every year, the kids will be responsible for learning one prayer or writing.
Most of these will be taken from the Church service and will hopefully a) make them feel more a
part of the service each week; and b) give them a real sense of accomplishment. You can
definitely help in this effort by going over their passage with them, two or three times a week…It
could be a fun part of your routine.

This is a 'tweakable' curriculum. The aim is to have a curriculum that we're happy with and that
we think, given the structure of our Church School, serves our kids best. You're going to notice a
fair bit of repetition if you are looking over the whole curriculum, but there's a reason for that.
Remember, these classes are just 40 minutes long, and most repeated topics (Pentecost, for
instance) are covered just once a year. As the years progress, that topic will be covered in
increasing depth. Our aim is to have the students leaving 6th grade feeling comfortable with all
of this material and hopefully retaining it.

Here are summaries of what the children will study in each grade: