I will start off with saying how blessed we are with our junior church. We have over 45 children and young people on our registers, God is Good!
This last year has been exciting as usual. We had our annual fireworks night which had a good turnout of children, young people and their families.
During the Christmas and Advent period we did our usual children and young people’s service where the children and young people made gift boxes and gave them to the congregation. The children and young people also received a small gift from the church and the Sunday school teachers were also dedicated for their hard work. We also took part in the carol service with several of our children and young people. We finished off the period with our annual Christmas party (on the first Saturday in January) however it was not well attended. To get more children involved and attending, we have decided as a team to have it earlier this year in December. The children who did come had a lovely time making crafts, playing games and eating.
Another family event that was organised and led by the Sunday school team was pancake evening this year. Not many children, young people and families attended but the few that came had a good evening making and tossing their pancakes.
Over the year several of our children and young people are on the reading, book and coffee rotas. This was wonderful to see them participating in the church. As time goes on we hope to have them involved in more jobs/positions in the church such as Technical steward, Junior steward and helping with the younger Sunday school groups.
Our Sunday school team was getting smaller at the start of 2015, as a result we announced in church for some help. From this, we now have a much larger team of 13 adults and we had our first ever Sunday school training in March. Now as a larger team, we have much more different ideas and we all bring different skills. For example, Karmen, Chris and Adrian did some drama one week and the children and young people performed to the congregation at the end of the service.
During one of the Sunday school services, the children learned a new song which they performed to the congregation. From this we wanted to ask the church if we can buy our own set of CD’s.
As I started off with my report saying we are blessed to have over 45 children and young people, we are very aware that we need to do more than a Sunday school session once a week. We are looking as a church to the possibility of having a Children and Young people’s worker. We met with Brian who is the District Children and Young people worker to start the discussions going. We have spoken to some of the children and young people. This is an exciting venture in Bell Road.
Just to end my report, I am so happy to be part of the Sunday school team and I want to thank everyone who plays a part in nurturing our children and young people.
Dinnie