Amazing Lives: Godly Play Fall Schedule

Godly Play is a method we use for our 'Sunday School' at St. Paul's.  Godly Play is rooted in Montessori principles and is focused on helping young people grow in their relationship with God and learn the spiritual practices of the church.  

Our Godly Play class is open to all 3-year-olds through 5th graders.  It meets beginning at 9.15 am on Sundays.

This fall we will be focusing our explorations on some of the amazing lives of the Christian tradition: Biblical figures such as Joseph and Ruth, and historical holy men and women such as Patrick of Ireland and Teresa of Calcutta.  

Godly Play "shows children how to create meaning with wondering questions arising from the Christian language system. The parables are especially useful to stimulate the creative process, but the sacred stories and the liturgical action lessons are also needed to provide a place of safety to explore from and return to. Contemplative silence celebrates the wholeness of the relationship with God, which is more than language can articulate."

Berryman, Jerome W. 
Teaching Godly Play: How to Mentor the Spiritual Development of Children

Sept 7	No Class Yet….Ice Cream Social After the 10.30a Liturgy
14	The Great Family
21	Abraham
28	Sarah
Oct 5	Joseph
12	Jonah
19	No Sunday School due to Convention
26	Patrick
Nov 2	Julian
9	Teresa of Calcutta
16	Apostles
23	(TBA)…Advent Architects after the 10.30a Liturgy
30	Advent
Dec 7	Isaiah
14	Ruth
21	Mary
28	No Sunday School due to Winter Break

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.

Once More with Feeling: Yg Fall 2014

The fantastic St. Paul’s Youth Group will continue its adventures on Wednesday evenings starting on the 10^th of September with the ‘Big Watery Game’.  

As in previous years, we will need adults to sign up to offer dinner for our crew of 10-20 teens.  The sign up is here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c094ea4aa29a5f94-stpauls

We are also looking for adults who can help us monitor incoming door traffic as ‘doorkeepers’. It might be awesome for volunteers to sign up to both offer dinner and watch the door.  The sign up is here:www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C094EA4AA29A5F94-youth

We also have a few material needs.  For example...the very old TV in the youth room died this summer.  We would like to replace it with one with HDMI ports (so something that is no more than 5 years old).  If you want to upgrade your set or if you would like to make a donation towards a brand new TV...please contact JAG soon!!!

We now have our very own freezer!!!!  I think it should be filled with Otter Pops, Fat Boys and breakfast casseroles (for Youth Sunday School).  

Finally we deeply need to discern regular volunteers that can help JAG with the weekly program.   We want to be able to divide up into smaller dialogue and project groups, sometimes by age, sometimes by gender.  Who would you like to share time, faith and fellowship with our young people??

The regular pattern is as follows:

6p         Dinner and Clean Up       

6.45p    Nightly Focus (MiddleSchool/SrHi split)   

7.45p    Night Prayer      

8p         Done!

Camp Cross Camper-Ships!

Why Send Your Child to Camp Cross?  The American Camping Association offers these research backed outcomes and benefits of camp:


Social Skills Development

• Leadership
• Communication
• Participation

Self-respect and Character Building

• Responsibility
• Resourcefulness
• Resilience

Community Living/Service Skills

• Caring
• Fairness
• Citizenship
• Trustworthiness

We would add to this 'camps-wide' list the blessings of immersion in an open and affirming Christian community, and learning the patterns of daily liturgical prayer and Christ-like service. 
St. Paul's is glad to offer significant assistance in the form of a 'Camper-Ship' fund for those desiring to attend Camp Cross.  However this year we have a very firm early June deadline.  This is the form. 

Holy Week and Easter @ St. Paul's

There are many occasions this week to consider deeply our walk with Christ. The ministries with young people and families would love your participation. 


Families and youth: please take a moment to click through and sign up for your part in the Original Vigil.  We need a few more folks to tell stories and a few more folks to bring along some fruits, cheeses, olives and what not.  Sign up to offer your parts here.  This is a supremely wonderful occasion for friends with children who are curious about our community.

Youth group members who would like to offer a musical interlude during Tenebrae on Wednesday should contact JAG before Tuesday evening.  Youth group members at the church by 5.30 on Wednesday.

Our Resurrection Party is a lovely way to celebrate the risen Christ.  If you can contribute Easter cookies or finger fruits for our party please bring them by.

Have you shared our Holy Week Schedule with friends?  Maybe someone in your life would be pleasantly surprised by what they find at St. Paul's.