Dear Parent(s) and/or Guardian(s),
We, at Our Saviour’s, strive to give all of our children and youth the best learning experience and taste of Christian community that we possibly can. We’ve considered Wednesday night programming; we’ve grappled with the reality that our space is limited as our programming numbers continue to grow. Continuing the same Wednesday night schedule next fall does not provide the best education experience for our growing community.
In order to provide the best educational and relational experiences for our children and youth, PreK through 3rd grade programming will take place Sunday mornings and pre-confirmation (4-5th grade), Confirmation and Youth Group will take place on Wednesday evenings.
In our grappling, we have identified three areas that need our attention: time, space and group sizes. These are the ways we are addressing those areas for each specific ministry starting in the fall of the 2019-2020 programming year:
Confirmation
We have heard your consistent feedback that our confirmation students are not getting enough time together. The learning time has been too short, youth are wanting to learn more, our small groups are not getting enough time and the small groups simply are not small.
In order to meet the needs of our youth, confirmation for all 6-8th graders will run from 5:30 pm-7:30pm. Half of our confirmation youth and adult guides will start in large group while the other half start in small groups. Then they will rotate to the other. They will end with a time of worship all together.
This provides longer learning times, longer small group times, greater community building and smaller group numbers.
Connect
Our Connect Youth (grades 4 and 5) will meet from 5:30pm -6:45pm. This gift of more time together will allow more learning time and time for our students to meet with highs and lows and build relationships.
Connect is a time when we begin to prepare our older elementary youth for confirmation. We are being more intentional in the structuring of this time and giving them a bridge to their confirmation years; including joining our confirmation students a few times throughout the programming year.
Please note, for the safety of our children, parent(s)/guardian(s) will physically check their child out of Connect classrooms at 6:45pm. Connect families are encouraged to worship together as a family on Wednesdays and/or Sundays.
Connect will continue to be offered on Sunday mornings as an alternate option to Wednesday evenings.
JAM/JAM JR
We want to give this age group the time and space that they deserve as well. To do this, PreK-3rd grade programming will move to Sunday morning regular Sunday School.
This will allow this program their own classroom space and a stronger grade-based learning.
Worship
Worship is central to who we are and we are committed to providing that space and time for you and your child(ren) to worship as a family. The time of worship will be moved to 7:00pm and will be half an hour in length, concluding at 7:30pm. Worship will include music, a brief message and communion.
Youth Group
Youth Group (high school and college-aged young people) has continued to grow since the beginning of this program year. This coming fall, Youth Group will meet from 7:00pm-8:30pm; starting together in worship and moving to the Youth Room for learning and fellowship.
This end time gets our young people home earlier while also expanding the time that they have together.
We thank you for your continued support of our Children, Youth and Family Ministries. We recognize the desperate need for more classroom space for our young people. Once we have built on more classrooms and meeting areas at Our Saviour’s, we will have more opportunities to expand our offerings but until then we will continue to make do with what we have. I am convinced this plan achieves our goals for the growth of faith for all of our youth with our limited space.
For questions or feedback, I encourage you to talk with:
Leisha Tays, Director of Confirmation and Youth Ministries
We look forward to continued conversation surrounding our Children and Youth. Thank you for partnering with us.
Blessings!
