Material Making in the Summer Months

It's been quiet on the blog this summer, but I've been as busy as ever with the Catechesis! In June, Lynn and I completed our Level 3 training with a wonderful seven day session in Saginaw, Michigan, led by the amazing Donna Turner. It was a fabulous experience, and it feels great to be familiar with all three levels of the Catechesis.

Seeing all the Level 3 works inspired me to return to Level 2 with a new eye. I've been revisiting album pages and thinking about materials. The new online material manual (available to catechists at the National Association website) makes it really easy to work through materials to see which pieces may have changed or may be missing from the atrium. Many of our tracing packets needed to be updated, and as a result I have been spending my evenings tracing and coloring. I'm enjoying it!

A few weekends ago several Christ Church Catechists and I attended a Regional Gathering for people with an interest in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd held at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church in Concord, Ohio. It was great to connect with other catechists and spend time together. A special blessing for me was the chance to hear Betty Hissong speak about some of the influential leaders of the Catechesis. Betty is one of the pioneers of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and an amazing and faith-filled leader herself. It was a fun morning, and I was so glad to participate.

I've also been working on our calendar for fall and connecting with teachers and catechists. September 15th will be here before we know it! I can't wait to begin again!

Year's End!

On Sunday another program year came to a close at Christ Church. It was a busy day, with our final week of atrium and promotion for children who will be moving up next year. We thanked out teachers and catechists in Church and each received a gift. And we acknowledged two wonderful young men who are graduating this month and who will be moving on to college in the fall. It was so busy, I couldn't take many pictures but here are just a few snapshots of the day.

During our last atrium session, many children decorated an envelope to take home the art work they have completed this year. It is always exciting to look over and enjoy the art work together. I hope you had fun exploring these little gems when they came home! Of course art work is meant to be an extension of our work with the materials in atrium and no art work is proscribed or required.  Some children have made many things while others have not. This isn't a concern for us!

Children moving out of the Golden Thread Atrium received prayer crosses this year. Children moving up from the Good Shepherd Atrium received a mustard seed of their very own, and children moving up from the True Vine Atrium received a small lantern. More about promotion and pictures of these gifts can be seen in a post from last year called Moving Day.

As a gift to thank our teachers this year, I took photos of our Church gardens and made them into 100 blank cards. 

Each teacher received a little bundle of Christ Church note cards with our thanks for their ministry this year.

And as always we enjoyed a special cake at Coffee Hour after Church on Sunday! Thank you to everyone participated in Christian Formation at Christ Church this year! Thanks to our parents and grandparents for bringing their children early on Sunday mornings. And a special thank you to all of our catechists, teachers, and substitutes for a great year of learning and growing together at Christ Church!

Prayer Gardens for Teachers

At the end of every year I pull together a small gift to thank our volunteer teachers for their ministries. It is always a challenge to keep within the budget and still find a nice way to say thank you. This year I got creative with prayer gardens and I was happy with how they turned out, so I thought I would share them here!

I started with a very inexpensive Zen Garden set from Dollar General, which included a small tray, a rake, a few stones, and some sand. I added more stones and doubled the sand that came with the set. I also added a few shells as a reminder of baptism, and tea light candles to represent the light of Christ. Then I made a set of guided prayer suggestions for using the garden, and put everything together in a gift bag.

I hope our teachers enjoy their little prayer gardens as much I enjoy mine. You can read more about what I have included in my prayer garden at home and ways that I have used it in previous posts.

I've just returned from an amazing week of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Level 3 Training in Saginaw, Michigan. I'll post more soon about this wonderful experience.

Thank You Teachers!

On Sunday we had our last day of Christian formation classes for the year. In the atrium we celebrated Pentecost and recognized children moving up to a new atrium next year. We also gave gifts to our teachers and celebrated our great year together after Church with this delicious cake! (We ate it so quickly I doubt any of the teachers actually saw the cake, so enjoy the photo above!)

Thank you to all of the people who serve in our formation ministries at Christ Church! We are blessed with many dedicated volunteers who really care about spiritual formation. I am so grateful for their deep faith and their hard work each week.


We thank God for:

• the children, youth, and adults who are growing in their faith at Christ Church,
• our nursery caregivers Camille and Julie, and our nursery teacher Eppie, 
• the catechists in our atria ~ Deb, Lynette, Sarah, Kristin, Juanita, Lynn and Dennis,
• our youth teachers ~ Mischelle, Justin, Jenn, Brad and Katie,
• our substitute teachers for children and youth ~ Betsy, Anne, Lisa, Mike, Kathleen, Kimberly, Lem, Julie, Frances, and Kate, 
• our regular adult formation teachers ~ Rev. Peter, Greg, Hilary, and Mary Jo and Mike (who coordinated our Adult Forums), and
• our many Adult Forum leaders who taught throughout the year.

It has been a year filled with blessings and I am so grateful to the entire parish for its support of our formation ministries!

Thank you

Teachers!

Behind These Doors...

We keep all of our practical life supplies in this closet in the Good Shepherd Atrium. It's incredible what a mess it can become! To be honest, I am usually the person to blame for the disaster. I always seem to be changing practical life works in a hurry!

A few weeks ago I stopped in the Good Shepherd Atrium after Church and found Lynette bringing order out of chaos! She had ALL of the materials out of the closet and rearranged everything!

Now we have materials sorted by season...

...and by type!

Trays are stacked...

...and glassware is together!

What a blessing!

Thank you Lynette for your ministry with our children 

AND

for having a label maker and being willing to use it!!!

Thank You Teachers!

Our Christian Formation Program is on hiatus for the summer. What a great year it has been! I wanted to take a moment on the blog to thank our catechists, youth, and adult teachers. At a time when many Churches are struggling to find volunteers to teach quarterly or once a month, we at Christ Church are blessed with ELEVEN adults who work with our children and youth every Sunday of the program year! We also have a regular Nursery teacher and three teachers working with adults each week. Christian formation is a vibrant, relational ministry at Christ Church!

Thank you catechists for the big commitment you make - meeting with children on Sunday mornings for two hours, planning out our year and each presentation, making and caring for materials and our atria, gathering for learning as adults, and all of the thinking, praying, and collaborative work you do to meet the specific needs of our children is greatly appreciated. Our catechists this year have been Deb, Kate, Lynette, Leslie, Dennis, Lynn, and Melissa.

Thank you Youth Leaders for your commitment as well - meeting weekly with our young people, planning lessons and our year, leading special events like our 30 Hour Famine and Confirmation preparation, and joining in on our monthly outreach trips to Shaker Gardens. We are so grateful for your ministry! Our Youth Leaders this year have been Justin, Mischelle, Jenn, Brad, and Katie.

Thank you to the many adults in our parish who have served as Substitute Teachers when regular catechists and youth leaders needed to away. We are grateful to Marion, Anne, Lisa, Sabrina, Deidre, Frances, Julie and Kate for all of your help this year!

Thank you to our Education For Ministry (EFM) Leaders, Greg and Hilary, and to Rev. Peter who leads Bible Study, Adult Forum, seasonal classes, and preaches all year long! Thank you also to all of the lay people who led Adult Forums this year!

I pray that all of you have been blessed by your ministry this year, just as you have been a blessing to so many others! Thank you teachers for a wonderful year!