In case you missed our first Faith@Home meeting, here is the Powerpoint presentation that Pastor Cary used that outlines the goals and rationale for this new initiative. Of course, it does not include Pastor Bartley’s example of Family Night, but just about everything else is there. Click here to download the Powerpoint file.

9:30am - 3:30pm - Painting, Furniture Assembly
6:00pm - 8:30pm - Painting, Furniture Assembly, Cleaning

You might have noticed that the Children’s Ministry table (sometimes called the Hub table) was covered with materials from the Uplink table. This wasn’t a mistake. Uplink now has two tables to meet the needs of Grace members and attendees. The Children’s program wasn’t using that table for very much, so we gave up the space to Uplink.

You will still find the sign-up sheet for Parents Night Out on the same table, and brochures for the children’s program are now being handled by the information booth for newcomers.

On Monday, January 21, the 9:30 childrens staff will meet. One of the most interesting things we will be discussing is a curriculum change for children in the Toddlers, Tykes, Sparks, Flames, and Wildfires classes (ages 2-10). The new curriculum we’re looking at is from Discipleland. (Check it out at www.discipleland.com)

Perhaps the main reason why we are even considering a change in the curriculum is because the pastoral staff has noticed a lack in key areas of basic Biblical knowledge in the students who have been brought up under the curriculum we have been using (particularly our senior and junior high students.) This is not to criticize these students, we take responsibility for not having a well-rounded program that maximizes the short amount of time that we have with the children each week. Another reason to adopt this new curriculum is because it adds puppets to the lessons of those in the younger classes (Toddlers, Tykes and possibly, Sparks.) Adding puppets to our curriculum will dramatically increase the interest level for our children and encourage them to come back for more each week.  

Personally, I’ve been very impressed with the Discipleland materials. I’ve never used them myself, but I was involved in the selection process at another Grace Brethren church a while back and ended up moving just before the new curriculum was introduced there. They claimed that the Discipleland materials were excellent.Of course, the children’s ministry staff might have better ideas and we might go with something else, but I’m convinced that we are heading in a good direction with the curriculum at the very least.