Sunday School Unit 2, November 3rd-24th, Blessings
Our second Sunday School unit will again focus on St. Francis, this time learning about and celebrating his understanding of how blessed we All are by God.
In this season of plenty and thanksgiving our children will work with the understandings and questions below. We look forward to having them with us.
On November 3, the children will first come with their families to the sanctuary and then, following a story from David, begin their Sunday School lessons.
We are all blessed by God.
There is more to learn from Saint Francis
November 3, 10, 17, 24
Understandings
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There are many ways in which each of us is blessed by God.
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Blessings take many forms.
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I can be a part of blessing another person.
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I can be deliberately thankful for my blessings.
Questions
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How did Saint Francis’s understanding of being blessed change from when he was a young man to his older years?
How was Saint Francis poor? How was Saint Francis rich? -
How did Saint Francis bestow blessings on others?
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How am I blessed? What does that mean to me?
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What can I do to help others feel blessed? How can I be a blessing to this world?
Sunday School Curriculum for 2013-2014
We begin the first unit of our Sunday School curriculum celebrating the life and work of Saint Francis. The curriculum is appropriate for children from the age of 5 to age 11. In total there are seven units throughout the church year. We look forward to sharing this learning with your children and welcome them into our church.
Please read on to gain an understanding of the scope of this first unit.
We are all God’s Creation
“Pleased to meet you, Saint Francis”
September 15, 22, 29, October 6
Understandings
We hope that the children will understand that:
- We are all God’s children—flowers and trees and birds and bees and of course all of the people.
- We are all connected to each other, people to all living things and all people to each other.
- We humans have lots in common with the other living things on our planet, but we have also been given special gifts [the ability to think and reason and ask questions] and because of this we are responsible for taking care of our world.
Questions to guide our study
What did Saint Francis believe about God’s Creation?
How did Saint Francis take care of his world?
How are you a part of God’s creation?
How can you help to take care of our beautiful world?
Meditative Retreat
Note: The full texts referred to are included below the commentary and photos from the event.
We affirmed to set aside the day, to put down our daily striving, and to remember.
The framework for our Meditative Retreat was contained in readings that Father David shared from poet laureate Mary Oliver, and from Isaiah 58, and Luke 12 (consider the lilies?).
Mary Oliver in her poem The Summer Day talks about what a prayer is. The folks who gathered at the Pine Creek Campground followed her mantra. By that I mean we learned a measure of what it was to pay attention, to kneel in the grass, to be idle and blessed and to stroll through the fields.?
It was a fun day that very intentionally used our experience outdoors in nature to bring about a state of prayer and make us attentive to our relation to creation. Our walking meditation on the trail and conversations around the campfire helped us to answer Oliver’s question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Karen Searle
