There is an upcoming change to Children's Church. Children's Church is the preschool group that meets during the Worship Hour every Sunday.
This group will no longer be meeting on the fifth (5th) Sunday of the month. Fifth Sunday's are not every month but happen only 4-5 times per year.
This is the schedule for 5th Sunday's this year; 3/31, 6/30, 9/29, 12/29. This means we have a 5th Sunday this month in June.
This is being sent out to the church body as a whole so we are all aware and ready to encourage families with younger children.
Why are we making this change? Two Reasons.
First, this is just as important in the beginning steps to help grow our children in our purposes of bringing in them into our corporate worship. Please reference this previous post to see more of those details. See the previous article here.
Second, this will ease the burden on the needs of extra volunteers on 5th Sundays and help us to focus on filling the core weeks where we need additional volunteer help, both teachers and helpers, during this Worship Hour slot of Children's Church and Praise Factory.
These children would typically not be in service except during the singing and prayer times. The same resources are available on the table in the back of the sanctuary. Different activity sheets are available for different age ranges and as always, parents can bring their own activities to train up children in the Worship Gathering.
We will be sending out more materials in the weeks and months to come to help parents in this training ground and also some clear biblical teaching on why we feel this is important.
I have included helpful articles and a video clip of a chapel message Dr. Al Mohler gave at Southern Seminary in the recent past that gives help perspective and some helpful advice on this topic from Desiring God's founder and wife:
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-children-sit-through-big-church
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-family-together-in-gods-presence
https://twitter.com/SBTS/status/967212944546324480
If you have questions or would like more information, please feel free to contact me via email or visit with me in person.
-- Sam Walker SDG