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Sunday School & Bible Class 1st Corinthians 12; 27 - 28 Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a part of it. "And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration." The Bible Class and Sunday School are very much part of the body of Christ, and as teachers in the Bible Class and Sunday School we are called to share our gifts and our faith with the children and young people. In 1st Corinthians, 13, we are urged to love one another. The Greek word for love indicates a selfless concern for the welfare of others, which is the product of a will to love in obedience to God's command. Sunday by Sunday it is our earnest desire that we fulfil this command to love each other and the young people and children in our care. 1) We learn about God from both the Old and New Testaments, from everyday happenings in our own lives, and most of all, we learn to worship him. 2) We pray together and learn that God always listens and always answers; sometimes not right away, and sometimes he says no. ( a hard concept for children to understand ) 3) We sing; action songs, quiet songs, noisy songs, but most of all we sing songs of worship to our heavenly Father. 4) We play games which help us to understand better, parts of God's word. Treasure hunts and word searches also help to bring stories alive. 5) We make things. We make models. We have depicted both the Christmas story from Mary and Joseph's departure from Nazareth to the birth of Jesus, and also the Easter story from Christ entering Jerusalem to the resurrection. These have been done in story board form on the walls of the hall. In other years we have made temples, shields, soldiers' armour, etc. We bake, e.g. manna from heaven and we have prepared a feast. 6) We do drama. From time to time we act out little plays Iin our classes . On occasions we have involved members of the congregation dressing as Biblical characters for us. Every second year we do our Nativity Play exploring the Christmas story from different perspectives; from that of the shepherds, or the wise men, or Mary and Joseph, or even Herod. 7) We make friends with children from other schools, children who visit us, perhaps with grandparents, and with new born babies of the creche. We meet pets which the children and teachers bring in; rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, stick insects, dogs, and hamsters. 8) We help others. Over the years we have collected for many good causes. Toilet rolls, soap, toothpaste, children and adult clothes, medicines, rubber gloves, and many other surplus or recyclable goods to help others in greater need than ourselves. We have collected pennies and supported Sight Savers International , "Goats and Seeds for Africa" and the Leprosy Mission.In all thses things we have welcomed the enthusiastic support of the congregation. 9) We have fun. We have parties at the beginning of each new session and our annual Christmas parties. On occasions we have family fun days. We have an annual trip in the summer and have visited various places, Calderglen Park, the Ayr Farm Park, Blair Drummond Safari Park and the David Livingstone Centre to mention but a few, when about 100 of us join in the fun of the races, barbecue, and treasure hunts, etc. Some years ago we had a lot of fun in the church pantomime, there was a lot of hard work by a lot ofpeople and every child a star! 10) We have Coffee Mornings. Through the years our coffee mornings have had different themes; a jungle theme, Easter theme, Over the Rainbow, etc. The monies raised from our coffee mornings offsets the cost of the Sunday School trip, allowing children to go free and helps towards our every day expenses, including prize giving books at the end of the session. Senga McCallum Mary McCammon | |
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