Food and Faith 9.15am: Sunday Morning Youth

 The 6-12^th grade ‘Sunday School’ group will be 

• continuing to explore the real questions offered through the re:Form series AND
• beginning to include the biblical storytelling based Echo: The Story series.    

Re:Form is focused on bigger theological ideas like sin and creation and church, whereas Echo is centered in reflection and creative response to the biblical stories.  

We will revisit questions of last year (cause we have new minds and it is a new day) and keep exploring the fresh stories of Echo.

We would like to offer warm breakfast-y food with our class this year.  

Can you help us fill the formation freezer with heat and eat breakfast casseroles and breakfast bites and pastries???  

Breakfast casseroles should feed about 6 and be labeled with all the ingredients.  

For more information (or recipe links) check in with Jane.

October 20th: ReForm Class

Just because a whole lot of the leadership are out of town doesn't mean the learning and fellowship grinds to a halt. Youth ReForm class..... Here is your assignment!

Creative tension: reForm

Two stories, two styles. One much more orderly, one more an illustration seeking to locate us within the mud and rivers of the fertile crescent. St. Paul's has wisely invested in the Godly Play method and materials for young children. However holy playfulness doesn't end as we live and grow. It is an important part of any relationship:with each other, with the community and even our traditions. Not a frivolous destructive leisure, but a creative interaction with God's will for his people.

This week in reForm we played a bit with the multiple origin stories of Genesis. How they reflect different intentions and styles, how they mesh fairly well with the contemporary story told by scientific discovery. One of the benefits of lifelong participation in a fun and smart church setting is being able to play with our setting, to play with joy and holiness. If getting up and out on a dreary morning when the Seahawks were playing was hard...here is what you missed.

This week in Godly Play featured the Great Flood.  If you look at the stuff marketed towards children and featuring Noah's Ark you would think it was a cute and cuddly story. However it is a deep and dark story about learning to live with one another; about what is important and what is not; and a story about getting so upset that you hurt something you love.  Children know all about that last bit.  Part of growing into a mature relationship with God and his people is learning to not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'.

Lastly...if you are a pinterest pinner...we now have a pinterest page.  Just follow the link from the images in this post!

Community, Truthiness, Robin Hood, Firefly and how it all began..

Do you know Vibrant Faith?  They ask a very important question this week: what would life be like for you if your biggest problem evaporated?

A reminder to fill out the formation form if you have munchkins at home and are interested in youth, children and family ministry at St. Paul's.

Youth Group this Wednesday is the first amazing 'Whedon Wednesday' featuring an episode of the far to short series: Firefly.  This episode is carefully chosen and appropriate for all youth.  We will also be thinking about Robin Hood and how to paint a four square court.

Youth Sunday School will feature the provocative question..is the Bible true and even more so...what is true?

Godly Play this week will feature the Creation story.

A Lost Sugar Tower and Lost Coins

To illustrate the parable of the lost coin the Reverend hid three single dollar bills in the side chapel and invited the children to find them.  They looked and looked.  In the same places, repeatedly.  The stack of liturgical cloth in the window must have been looked through a dozen times.  The children looked under cushions and under chairs, but rarely stopping long enough to look through the hundred or so prayer books and hymnals that reside in the small chapel.  It was a parable in motion.

I also want to mention how carefully they looked; approaching the brass with awe and honor, carefully looking through the altar book.  When a cloth went astray, another child would come behind and straighten it.  If you are not familiar with the Godly Play method, then you may not see what I saw.  That attention to detail; that careful concern for the space...that comes from our love for the space; but also from what they learn in the Montessori based Sunday School method we are so blessed to offer. 

We began the regular schedule of Sunday morning formation for all ages today.  The youngest children returned to Godly Play and the youth class began a new program: reForm.  Today's question..who wrote the Bible (and how and when and where) included the metaphor of building a tower, a group project with a  wide variety of materials.  The green apple licorice was left out of the process because it tasted shallow.  The candy corn was left out because the builders have a considerably biased view of marvelous fresh fall candy corn.  Yet the master let them choose as they were inspired (and enjoyed the candy corn).


After the lesson, but having nothing to do with the lesson at all, the reForm group was offered the chance to burn their tower down..to which the response was decidedly chipper  The flag was removed, and then the tower was carried outside to the fire-pit.  Where it burned down.  And was a great joy to all. 

See y'all next week!