This weekly gathering is geared towards families with children in 4th grade or below. On Wednesday evenings, bring an optional picnic dinner to the gym at 5:30. Grab a table for your family. Please wear a mask and practice physical distancing between families. We officially begin at 6pm.
We sing songs and learn the One Big story from the Jesus Storybook Bible as a large group. Then families together recap through fun and creative activities. Everything you need for these activities will be provided.
The age boundary is flexible, so younger or older siblings are welcome if that best fits your family’s needs. This time may get loud or messy, but that’s ok! We’re learning together.
Youth Group
Youth Group starts at 6:30 with a gathering time and hang out for youth 5th thru 12th grades. We do a large group games, worship by singing, large group lesson, and then split into middle school (5th-8th grades) and high school (9th-12th grades) small groups for discussion and prayer. We end at 8pm. Students can be picked up from the gym.
While age-based learning is incredibly valuable, parents are still the single most influential source for building students’ faith. Therefore, we also want to encourage families with 5th-12th graders to participate in the Evening Prayer Office each Wednesday. from 6-7pm in the sanctuary. This is a great time to pray and learn together as a family unit.
A New Approach
The Coronavirus pandemic has forced us to rethink how we approach Christian Education, but that’s not all bad. We cannot easily maintain physical distancing or masking policies with children under a certain age, therefore, we are unable to have age-based class breakouts for younger children at this time. But by focusing on family units, we can allow parents to help enforce masking and maintain physical distancing by sitting in family groups. This is the safest way for us to continue to meet together at this time.
A beautiful side effect of this model is that it empowers parents engage with their children’s spiritual development in a very hands-on way. And it allows families to practice having spiritual conversations in a fun, safe, and supportive environment that will hopefully spill over into everyday life. Our goal is to help parents live out the model in Deuteronomy 6: “You shall teach [God’s commandments] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Parents are the single most important influence in their children’s lives. The National Study of Youth and Religion conducted by Christian Smith and the University of North Carolina concluded that parents “get what they are,” and teens are much more conventional than typically given credit for. Whatever they grow up doing is typically what they will continue doing as adults. Parental discipleship is not one sit down lesson, but a thousand tiny conversations and a way of life. We have an opportunity to make an intentional shift and add spiritual disciplines as a “normal” part of our daily lives, and consequently, our children’s daily lives, so that “when they are old they will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).” This is something that the author of Deuteronomy 6 divinely understood – that faith and true religion must be practiced together, not just communally as a church, but within the family unit in order to pass it down from generation to generation.
Adult Classes
Men’s Bible Study
Leaders: Breck Castleman
Time: Mondays 6:45-8:00pm
Location: in the downstairs CE Classroom area
The men of FPC and friends are invited to examine Paul’s letter to the Philippians and how its challenge to cultural assumptions.
Women’s Bible Study
Leaders: Robbie Castleman & Laura Klenda
Time: Tuesdays at 6:45-8pm
Location: in the downstairs CE Classroom Area
The women of FPC and friends will be delving into the book of Haggai and the theme of “give careful thought” that runs throughout the Old Testament.
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