Sunday School / Youth Education Classes
Feb. 2010 Church School Report:
Our Sunday School has an enrollment of over 60 children from nursery school through high school. We always look forward to welcoming new families and new students to our Sunday School.
The children start their Sunday in the church with their families where they participate in the first part of service and then join Father Lowry on the altar for a children’s sermon. Then the students go over to their classrooms for Sunday School classes. The schedule reflects a change from last year, a change which has been a unanimous success among the students and teachers. Our children’s Sundays are running smoothly and the children seem happier with the new routine. We have also noticed less interruption during the church service.
Cathy Trezza and Pam Smith continue with the 3’s, pre-K 4’s and Kindergarten class. Arlene Blocker teaches 1st and 2nd grades; Lisa Carr teaches the 5th and 6th graders and I teach the 3rd and 4th grade class. Jeannine Daly Stopford is our regular substitute teacher. All teachers are CAP certified.
Susan Bunyon has retired as of last June after giving so many years to teaching the 1st and 2nd grade class with Arlene Blocker. We miss Susan and we are enormously grateful for all she gave to our first and second graders over the years. We were happy to have Susan back with us at Christmastide to direct the successful Samaritan’s Purse project.
Arlene and I are delighted to have Assistant Teachers this year. Austin Kulka assists in the 1st -2nd grade and Steven Polis assists in the 3rd - 4th grade class. They alternate their Sundays between our classrooms and their own Junior Youth Group program.
We are so excited to have revived the Junior and Senior Youth Groups. Clare Peters meets with the 7th, 8th and 9th grades on the first and second Sunday of each month. The Junior High students say their Youth Group is “cool”! Clare leads them in readings and discussions regarding respect for others, honesty, self-control, courage and confidentiality. They are very involved. The students have expressed an interest in and planned a volunteer day at a homeless shelter. They are curious about mature spirituality, prayer and adult life tools and love learning through parables.
Jim McCarvill teaches the Senior Youth Group on the first and third Sundays of each month. Jim is well-versed in “mind mapping” – a diagram drawn by the students, adding words, pictures, ideas, etc. which are all linked to a central idea - spirituality. It is a life tool and is used as an aid for studying, organizational skills, problem solving and decision making. Attendance is sporadic in the 10th, 11th and 12th grade class due to school and sports’ schedules as well as serving at church services. However, we hope this will improve as the children’s schedules change throughout the year. The teachers feel it is an important part of our Sunday School program.
We highlighted our year in Sunday School with such special events: Welcome Back / Ice Cream Sunday; the Blessing of the Animals; Advent crafts and our famous Christmas Pageant that Lisa Carr works so hard on each year. Lisa, the children of our Sunday School and the always popular Dominick the Donkey and friends, bring a special gift to Christ Church during the Christmas season. Spring time meant the annual Easter ‘egg’ hunt, our beautification project of Spring Planting Sunday and our end-of-year Awards Sunday. In addition, Arlene Blocker organizes the preparatory class for First Communion run by Father Lowry.
The teaching staff keeps the children involved in outreach projects by having the students make cards for the Veterans at the hospital in Northport and by contributing each month to Fourth Food Sunday. Our biggest outreach project is the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes for the Samaritan’s Purse. Susan Bunyon coordinates the project and delivers all the boxes we make. We thank the congregation for their support of such a worthy project. Clare Peters’ Junior Youth Group discussed volunteering at a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen. The students, Clare and Christ Church supervisors are scheduled to work at a homeless shelter next month.
Our church is blessed to have teachers with such a high level of commitment, dedication and caring in our Sunday School Program.
Respectfully submitted,
Heather Angus Bennett
Last Modified
February 10, 2010