Nurturing our Spirit on Ash Wednesday

March 14, 2019
Ash Wednesday, Children and Youth, Worship

From sharing a delicious meal together, to exploring a variety of interactive prayer stations, to quietly ushering in the season of Lent with prayer and music in our Vespers service, Ash Wednesday was filled with opportunities to nurture the spirit in preparation for Lent. How will you feast and fast this season to nurture yours?

The evening began with a shared soup supper
Great food…
…and wonderful company
We then moved up to the sanctuary to explore the prayer stations
Kinetic sand…
…for meditation and writing what we are sorry for…
…then smoothing away in forgiveness
Writing our Lenten intentions
What are you fasting from or feasting on this season?
Strips are now the soil for our Lenten garden
Watercoloring strips for jars
Lots of jars for cuttings! Pick a size for your plant!
Attaching the colored strip…
…and carefully choosing a plant
Carefully pouring…
…and planting a cutting!
Cutting our leaves and stems for our growing paper garden
Meditating in our mini labyrinth
Our garden is growing…
…and growing…
…and growing!
How will you nurture your spirit this season?
Later in the evening, our Vespers service began

Angels in Advent: a peek into Sunday School

December 20, 2018
Advent, Children and Youth, Multiage, Sunday School

Angels have been hovering all around us this Advent season, and we continued this theme last Sunday in our multiage Sunday school class. After lighting our third candle in our Advent wreath and a candlelit opening combining all three classes, the multiage children enjoyed finding angels illustrated in the book The Nativity by Julie Vivas and then watched a fantastic short video called An Unexpected Christmas, featuring God’s host of angels very surprised by God’s plan for Jesus’ birth. Check out the video here. We then explored three different activity stations: decorating angel coloring pages, creating sparkly angel messages, and reading Christmas books in an ever-expanding twinkling fort. The reading fort started under one table with three children, then grew (with the help of some very motivated kid engineers) to encompass the entire stage to fit everyone. Always room for one more!