At Plymouth Church we believe that God calls our children to faith and discipleship just as surely God calls us adults. We offer our children the stories and traditions of the Christian faith through worship and Faith Workshop, and when they bring back new ideas and hopes we listen and respond! We don’t do ministry for our children; we support our children in recognizing and fulfilling their own ministry!
Our Children’s Ministry programs are all about Faith Discovery! Our children aren’t empty vessels, waiting to be filled with grown-up ideas; they are explorers on a life-long adventure with God. From Sunday morning Faith Workshop, to summer camp at Pilgrim Lodge, we offer our children a breadth and depth of experiences that spark curiosity and facilitate encounters God through the stories and traditions of our faith.
Faith Workshop
Faith Workshop is what we call the learning time for children during Sunday morning worship. Each week, children are guided through the stories of our faith by adult leaders using the Spark Lectionary Curriculum. Together, children and adults do the messy work of figuring out how these stories apply to our lives today. Workshops are offered for children in Pre-Kindergarten through 6th grade and visitors are always welcome. We make it a point to match the scripture in worship with the scripture lesson in Faith Workshop so parents and kids are learning and thinking about the same stories and ideas each week.
On a typical Sunday, children attend the beginning of worship with their families and are led downstairs to their Workshop after the Children’s Time portion of the worship service. On the first Sunday of each month, children begin in their workshop and are brought upstairs to rejoin their families for Communion. All children are welcome to participate in Communion and allergen-free options are available.
If it’s your first Sunday with us…
…consider arriving a few minutes early to meet your child’s Faith Workshop leaders and see their classroom before worship. If it makes the transition easier, you are also welcome to join your child for the Time With the Children, walk with them downstairs, and then return to worship. Every child is different and you know best what they need; we will follow your lead! When is a child ready for Faith Workshop? We look for 3 things when helping parents make this decision. For a child to join the Pre-k Workshop, we ask that they:
Be at least 3 years old.
Be potty-trained and able to use the bathroom with minimal adult support.
Be participating in some kind of preschool or daycare program.
Aisha’s Offering
In 2015 the Afirca Exchange Project of Plymouth Church traveled to visit our sister community in Pomerini, Tanzania. One of the travelers in that group was a young man from the Plymouth Youth Group and while in Tanzania he was inspired!
Our children who benefit from free public education in the USA, could help change the world if they pooled their money and paid for even one child’s tuition in Tanzania. When he came home, this is exactly what he set in motion. For three years now, our children have been collecting their own offering every week in Faith Workshop. Together they have covered the school fees, room, and board for a young girl named Aisha. When we met Aisha she was 11 years old and living with her grandmother because both of her parents had died. Education was out of her reach. In the years that we have known Aisha, we have exchanged birthday and Christmas cards, postcards and artwork about our hometowns, and everyone once in a while we skype! Today, Aisha is a healthy teenager and has progressed to secondary school. Help your child be a part of something bigger. Show them what God can do when we all pitch in a little bit. Each week help them count out some of their allowance or chore money to give to Aisha!
Christmas Pageant
The Christmas Pageant is a highlight of the year for our kids. With lines for everyone who wants them and more than enough costumes to go around, we gather together to tell the story of Christ’s birth. The Junior and Cherub choirs sing, the congregation joins in the carols, and the Red Cow tells jokes. It’s different every year and always the same.
Children’s Sunday
Every spring, our children’s program year ends by giving the children the reins and asking them to lead the congregation in worship. This is always a joyous service full of laughter, art, and wisdom from our littlest theologians! Words will never do it justice, so we hope you enjoy this slideshow from years past.
