Christian Education
Ministries overseen by the Christian Education commission include:
Children's Christian Education – The Lower School
All Saints’ Church offers a Christian Formation program for children each Sunday from
9:30 am until 10:45 (or the exchange of Peace in the service) – The Lower School
serves families and children from age 3 to grade 5. We seek to support all children
in their relationship with God and share with them our Christian traditions, liturgy
and stories. We are committed to fostering a safe, engaging, and spiritual place for
all children to be with God each Sunday. To this end, we are offering the following
programs:
- Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Level I Atrium
- This program is for children aged 3 – Kindergarten year of school, our youngest
students. We call our classroom the Atrium and it is a special place. Catechesis
of the Good Shepherd (CGS) is based on the assumption that children come to us
spiritually intact and it is the work of the catechist to provide them with the
stories and liturgical information of our faith and then to step back and let the
children explore this through working with sensory materials, meditative practices,
and joyful song. This is a program which has been practiced for over 30 years and
has been working well in many parishes in our diocese – some for over 10 years.
This is the 4th year for our Atrium and we are very excited for the coming year.
The Catechists for this year are: Linda Cahill, Laura Marshall, Rohini Pola,
Pam Meinhardt and Becky Malone.
- The Way of the Child
- This program is for children in grades 1st and 2nd. The Way of the Child
Recognizes that children have an innate spirituality with a natural acceptance of
mystery, an amazing capacity for awe, a vital imagination, a longing to be their
unique selves, and an ability to be open to and receive God’s love. The Way of
the Child leads children into a deeper relationship with God, instills in
children spiritual practices to form lifelong habits, encourages children to
respond to God, and provides an experience of vital community. We feel all
children are natural spiritual and that we can help them understand and explore
their spirituality if we provide an open, quiet space for them to reflect and
work while in the presence of God. Our teachers this year are: Linda Coles,
Michelle Thomas and Ellen Twitchell.
- Firelight I & Firelight II
- The Firelight I program is for children in grades 3 and 4
and the Firelight II program is for children in grade 5. The curriculum is
Firelight II from Augsburg Fortress and it is taught using the Workshop Rotation Model
for Sunday School. Explained simply, the Workshop Rotation Model teaches major
Bible stories and concepts through child-friendly (“Deeper Learning”) multimedia
workshops: Art, Drama, Music, Games, A-V, Puppets, Storytelling, Computers, and
any other educational media. Each Bible story is taught for three to four weeks
rotating the children to different workshops each week. Each Bible story is taught
by the same leaders(s) to provide consistency for the children. It also allows
the leaders(s) to delve deeper into the Bible story and lessons because a given
Bible story is looked at for more than just one week. The teacher for the
Firelight I program is: Melissa Flewelling. The teacher for the Firelight II
program is: Elizabeth Danieli.
Organization, staffing and planning for the various activities and events that the
children participate in throughout the school year is done by the
Children’s Christian Formation Co-Operative (CCF) Co-op.
For more information or to become involved please contact the Childrens Christian Education Directors.
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Youth Group
The All Saints' Youth Group is open to all youth, both members of All Saints and
non-members, in Senior High School who want to learn about experience the love of
Christ through activities, service projects, discussions, games, prayer and worship.
The group usually meets every other week on Sunday evening from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.
The Youth Group membership is about 20 youth.
The highlights of this past year included:
- Hosted the annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake supper (Made a small profit, but are not sure how…)
- Games and fellowship
- Discussions about music and song lyrics
- Fall lock-in with a mystery dinner theme
- Fellowship and games
- Christmas Party
- Participation in World Vision’s international 30 Hour Famine project
- YG graduation party for seniors (We miss you guys!)
For more information, please contact our
Youth Group Director.
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The Summer Mystery Club
For many of the past summers All Saints has had remarkable success in keeping the
youth of the parish enthusiastic about coming to church on Sundays to participate
in the Summer Mystery Club. Check out the latest mystery.
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Intergenerational Festivals
Seasonal festivals and class that bring together adults and children in a spiritual,
playful, and meaningful way are the objectives of this ministry. Examples of these
festivals include:
- Palm Saturday
- The Festival of Saint Francis
- The Advent Series
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Adult Spiritual Formation and Education
This ministry, primarily directed by the Associate to the Rector, is defined
as the parish's ministry for the education, formation, spiritual development
and empowerment of parish adults. Adult formation has included small groups
with various focuses, as well as programs and classes. This
ministry has targeted ways that we, as individuals and as a
congregation, are nurtured in our spiritual journeys, particularly
through spiritual life and contemplative practice.
In 2005 this parish plans on engage in the process laid out in Alice Mann’s
Raising the Roof: The Pastoral-to-Program Size Transition. As we engage
in deliberate conversation about who we are and how we are in relationship with
God, one another, and our neighbors, we will be able to identify and preserve
what we treasure about this community, while deepening and growing in our
Christian mission and faithfulness to God’s call to us.
Adult Formation at All Saints’ continues to flourish and grow:
- Sunday morning adult class, the monthly contemplative group, the
Book Discussion Group, yearly Inquirers’ class, Advent and Lenten offerings,
monthly Forums on Faith in the World are all events that have become integral
to the ongoing life of this parish. 14 people took part in the last Inquirers’ class!
- There is now an EFM (Education For Ministry) group at All Saints’ which means
six parishioners have committed themselves to serious theological study and
reflection and Christian community.
- The intergenerational work in the parish continues to bear fruit: we plan to offer
a Palm Saturday program again this year, folks gathered on several occasions this past
Advent to work on a Nacimiento for the narthex, and the Catechesis of the
Good Shepherd program is now part of our children’s education – a result in part
of this parish beginning to imagine and experience ministry with
and for children in new ways.
- We organized the library!
- The parish is looking at formation, how it forms people as Christians and
as parishioners here, more intentionally. In the summer ten people gathered
one evening to talk about formation here and to help the Rector and
Assistant to the Rector look at the calendar for the coming program year.
Easily 20 people are involved with or interested in formation here. That is exciting!
- Connected with the notion of formation in a parish, we can growing intentionality
about our corporate life. A Stewardship Summit led to a revitalized stewardship
campaign this fall and an interest in addressing stewardship as key to our
individual and corporate spiritual lives. Newcomers Ministry and Outreach are
two areas looking to have intentional, structured conversations about how the
parish lives out those aspects of its call.
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The Learning Team
Prepared by the members of All Saints' Learning Team: Rev. Tom Barrington, Derick Gates,
Melanie Hickcox, Amy Hunter, Lynne McSheehy, and Anne Whitaker.
Should All Saints’ Church grow? What would growth look like? What is our mission in the world?
What barriers keep us from being truly effective and faithful? To help answer these questions,
the vestry charged a “Learning Team.” The team began meeting during the summer and is following
the directives Alice Mann describes in her book Raising the Roof: The Pastoral-to-Program Size
Transition. Specifically, the team will:
- Gather historical and spiritual perspective about
All Saints’ identity and community, its sense of God’s call, and its attitudes
about ministry/ mission, size and growth
- Make a statement about All Saints’ calling today
- Propose next steps for learning, decision or action
A number of significant documents that have resulted from the Learing Team's labors:
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