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Toddler Preschool Sunday School Class

If you are the parent of a toddler or pre-schooler you will want to read this! There is a new class designed just for this age group that meets on Sunday mornings at 9 am in the pre-school room (close to the nursery).

Abby Sweeney & Julie Householder are leading this class with lots of love and tons of fun! There is music, drawing and play all with one goal in mind: to teach kids, as simply as possible, that God is great, that He made the world around them, and that He loves them.

Please bring your toddler/pre-schooler and check it out this Sunday. Stay with your child and join in the fun – the more the merrier! You will be blessed!

Nursery

A fully staffed nursery, located on the first floor of the Christian Education Wing, is available from 8:45 am through Sunday morning worship hour for children ages birth to three years.  Parents will be assigned a pager when leaving their children in the nursery to allow peace of mind while separate from their children.

Young Children &  Worship

Imagine children sitting on the floor in front of rows of shelves where tucked away are some very special worship elements. This is a very special time and place where they sense the presence of God through the stories of God. The worship leader opens a gold box and explains to the children, “the story you will hear today is special because it is in this gold box. It is a parable and parables are very precious just like gold”. The worship leader begins to take other things out of the box: a large green felt circle. He or she begins to smooth it out and wonders about it – “I wonder what could be so green? Perhaps it is a large green meadow.” He removes other pieces from the box and wonders about each one as he places them on the meadow – “this light blue piece could be a pool of water and these dark pieces could be dangerous rocky places.” Then he brings out pieces to create a sheepfold and some hand-carved wooden sheep are placed inside. Then the story of Jesus the Good Shepherd begins to unfold before the children. The worship leader moves a carved Good Shepherd figure among the sheep saying, “I am the Good Shepherd and I know each one of my sheep by name.” As he tells the story, he gently touches each sheep and has the Good Shepherd lead the sheep to the cool water and through the dangerous rocky places, all the time asking “I Wonder” questions – “I wonder if the sheep are happy here”, “I wonder if you have ever had to go through dangerous places or were lost and someone found you?” “I wonder where this place might really be?” Questions all designed to make the story real and help them apply the biblical principles to their own lives. After the story telling time the children are encouraged to respond to the story they have just heard through art or another medium.

The above paragraph describes an exciting new way that children at First Presbyterian Church will be experiencing God during junior church. The program is called Young Children and Worship and involves helping young children (pre-school through second grade) learn how to worship apart from the congregation so that they are able to worship meaningfully with the congregation when they reach third grade. This innovative program uses a sensorio-motor style of storytelling as a primary means for encountering God, so God is experienced not just taught about! It changes our current junior church program format from another Sunday School class to an actual worship experience with praise, proclamation of the Word, sermon, response, and prayer. It enables young children to bring their life experiences into dialogue with God in the bible stories and remarkably, it provides a way for young children to tell the stories of God to others! But most importantly it helps children to understand the intent of worship is to experience God and praise Him. God is encountered as we enter into His Word and allow the Holy Spirit to convince us of the truth of God’s Word. Worship allows us to experience and dwell in the very presence of God, thereby cultivating a relationship with Him. I know every parents’ prayer for their child is for them to enter into a meaningful and close relationship with Jesus Christ and we are privileged to be able to help plant the seeds for this relationship.