04 Aug August Note From Dri

Hello First Presbyterian Church! This month I’d like to give you a little sneak peek into what the Christian Education Committee has been working on for the past year. 

While some of our fall plans are a little unsure with changing Covid recommendations, I look forward to sharing those plans soon. But more than that, this past year the CE committee has been working diligently on a cohesive scope and sequence plan for our children, birth through graduating high school. We’ve been tackling tough questions about what to teach, when, and how so that the students who graduate in our church have the Biblical foundation they need to go out into the world and live for Christ, as well as the community connection and sense of belonging in God’s kingdom and our church body. 

We will continue to teach the invaluable New City Catechism, to help children and students put words to their theology, so that they can articulate what they believe through many of our Sunday School classes. 

We will also be introducing a new class for students during the Sunday School hour, called Foundations. This will focus on the foundation beliefs that are typically taught in a Confirmation class. Because we know that some children may make a profession of faith earlier or later than their peers, we’d like to separate out the act of being confirmed as a full member of the church and partaking in communion from the class itself. We’ll walk through all the same important concepts, but without the pressure to make any decisions at the end. Each student has their own faith journey, and we want to partner with them wherever that profession comes in the course of the journey. This year we’ll start it with our high school and junior high students, and gradually walk it back to our 5th and 6th graders as they enter the youth group.

At the Family Gathering and Youth Group, we will be following a chronological walk through the Bible each year, rotating stories as we do so that they have a comprehensive understanding of God’s Big Story and see how each story fits into the bigger picture. 

As part of that, we will be unrolling a roadmap for parents that helps you see how we can support your family as your children grow. We want to help you celebrate big moments, like baptism or first communion, and small moments, like memorizing the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostle’s Creed. You can look forward to having that in your hand shortly at our Kick Off Breakfast which is currently scheduled for Sunday, September 5th, though that is subject to change in light of the developing changes with the Covid Delta Veriant. That is also the day that all of our children and students will move up to the next Sunday School class.

I’d like to extend a special thank you to those on the CE committee who have worked so hard to make this happen: Brian Hyde, Jarrod Heathcote, Park Dinger, Jessica Wilson, and Sandy Van Thiel.