Gathering the Chicks and the Nest

Our Ingathering worship service this past Sunday was wonderful! I was full of joy to see so many families and young people – especially to see them enjoying our new family-friendly area we are temporarily calling The Nest. Having the kids all gathered and seeing them and parents getting to reconnect was the highlight of my day.

Over the next few weeks, the Family Ministry Team and I welcome feedback from parents as well as older adults on how we can improve this area and make the worship experience enjoyable for all ages. We will also have a time to vote on possible names for our family area, so look for that soon.

And so now we get to work gathering our chicks of different ages for their first Sunday in their Faith Formation program this week. As always, our nursery will be open for our youngest beginning at 9a. This will allow parents to attend adult faith formation programs and other groups before worship. My hope is to expand childcare in the future to include elementary ages. If you are interested in helping make this a reality, let me know.

We will also have a preschool/kindergarten group we’re calling Chalice Children led by Ann Gadzikowski in room 9. For our elementary ages (1st-6th), we will have Heads, Hearts, and Hands in room 8 led by myself and Sue Larson. Our youth group for 7th-12th grades will be in room 13 and led by Linda Herried, Gillian Lawrence, and Margaret Shaklee.

On the Sundays we have programming for children and youth, they will begin their morning in worship and move to their programs around 11a until noon. This will give parents 20-30 minutes of Kinship Time with other adults before their children’s program ends. You can see our working calendar here and refer to it throughout the year as things get added to it.

I’m pleased to say that many folks have volunteered to help with our pre/k youngsters, and I’m hopeful that we can get more folks to help with our elementary ages. Ideally, we need four more adults, which would mean each person would only need to help twice between now and December! If this is something you could commit to, give me a call or send an email and I can give you more details.

And let’s not forget the adults here! We are starting Faith Formation programming for you too, with the Forum Discussion Group this Sunday at noon in room 6 and on Zoom. Following this, we have two opportunities for a discussion on Faith as Faithfulness led by Bob Mesle. The first one will be Sunday, Sep 25, 9:30-10:30 am and the second on Tuesday, Sep 27, 7-8:30 pm. Both will be In-person and on Zoom.

Be sure to read more about what is happening in Faith Formation elsewhere in this newsletter.

In Faith,

Kathy