Welcome to Cultivate, a place where we share some of our favorite resources for Christian Education! It is our prayer that this month's list of treasures we've curated help sustain you and your congregation. This is another way that we at the PRC are living out our calling- helping you!
You're just a few clicks away from all the resources you need to get your professional development scheduled for the month!
Are you new to children's ministries and looking for a cohort to help nurture you? Check out our new offering to subscribers! Not a subscriber? We can help you with that. We have membership levels for everyone.
PRC's Online Resource Center is rich with resources. Be sure to pour yourself a mug of your favorite beverage and peruse the Sunday School curriculum booklet to help you as you plan!
Are you in the throes of planning your Christian Education year? Have you seen this resource? Comprehensive and linked with research and resources- it's the stuff of my dreams.
Have you seen Picture The Bible? The illustrations are the most amazing collages, and there's one for each week of the year. You better believe that I'll be using these as inspiration for multigenerational collage time in our Maker Space.
Back To School is upon us! I'm using these amazing options from Vibrant Church Communications. For the children and youth in my congregation, we're doing a traditional blessing of the backpacks with the tags we print ourselves. I'm also collaborating with the chaplain at the college my husband works at and we're going use the stickers for laptops and phones. Everyone will get a battery powered tealight candle to light daily. Lots of different ways to remind us who we are called to be and how God is with us even in the dark.
This planning calendar from Rev. Christine Hides is invaluable. Save it to your Google Drive and make it your own. I do a happy dance every time I use it.
I was creating alongside my crew at our Maker Space last weekend when we started chatting about stained glass. We came up with the idea to create our own out of shrinky dinks. We have just enough time to pull together a fabulous Advent and Christmas display if we start this month, using Twas The Season of Advent by Glenys Nellist as our inspiration.
I received a copy of What Do I Believe About What I Believe by Jen Bradbury and I'm loving it. It's well written, accessible to youth, and talks with, not at, the reader. Plus, it starts with a quote from Homer Simpson about the Bible- it's absolutely worth looking at.
This game is going to be part of care packages we send to our youth in college. Pop a vinyl sticker with your church logo on the inside of the tin along with a handwritten sticky note that tells them you're praying for them and you've got a nice connection. Bonus points if you set up a time on Zoom for everyone to play together.
We're at the point in the liturgical year that I have Advent mostly planned out. I'm planning on using Advent in Plain Sight by Jill J. Duffield in two ways; one is as the spine of a traditional faith formation class each week of Advent and one is an asynchronous class that has participants read on their own and interact with discussion questions via a closed Facebook group. I have just enough time to collect several examples of each of the ten objects to display in the church, around the church, and on our social media.
Adults often get left out of the blessing of the backpacks, but this year I'm looping them in. I'm ordering extras of the Be The Light stickers from Vibrant Church Communications for the adults to have for their phones and water bottles. Everyone likes swag, especially when it reminds us of who we are.
I doodled about on Canva and made a template for some lunchbox jokes and notes for families. It's a page of ten notes for families to cut out and pop into lunchboxes throughout the month. I branded it with our logo (Canva makes it easy) and alternate between jokes, trivia, and simple blessings. If I can do it, so can you.
I'm prepping for our annual Church Family Retreat, which involves field day games, watermelon eating, a photo booth (super simple- just a frame from oak tag), and lots of giggles. It's the perfect wind down to summer and allows families a few hours of dedicated fun before the fall schedule starts up. Favorite games include water relay, dress up relay, and capture the flag (kids vs, adults).
What links have piqued your interest? Send us an email, drop us a photo of how you have used one of the ideas, or tag us on social media #prccultivate so we can see how you are going forth, spreading the Light!
