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Philosophy/religion

Anyone involved in a Sunday school/club, Unitarian in particular?

6 replies

KanyesVest · 24/06/2015 22:39

In the last year I've started volunteering at our church's Sunday Club. It's a Unitarian congregation, a mixed age group, from approx 4 - 12yrs old. Some weeks there could be 6 children, others could be 15.

At the moment we typically end up taking the theme of the service or the children's story, and talking about that for a little while and usually draw pictures or do some sort of craft work based on it. Depending on the theme there might be a game/activity that corresponds. There is no set curriculum or even format though, and it's very much up to the leaders (2 per session) to take on what they want and make it their own, but given we only take around 4 sessions per year, it's hard to keep momentum. (I sit in on more sessions as DD, who is 5, is still quite shy and doesn't like me to leave.)

I don't want to be the newbie coming in and suggesting an overhaul new ideas, but I'd be interested in getting some ideas of what other groups do in your work with the children of the congregation?

OP posts:
DadDadDad · 25/06/2015 17:43

Memory verse: find a Bible text relevant to your theme, and learn it together. (There are a lots of little games / tricks you can use to learn as a group)

niminypiminy · 25/06/2015 21:12

I think it depends on what you want them to get out of the session.

At my last church we decided that we didn't want to think of it as 'Sunday school' and teaching wasn't going to be the main emphasis. We decided instead to think of it as a time when we would help them encounter God. So instead of a lesson-type programme (learn something, do something) we decided to make it more reflective.

We had a simple and regular structure:

  1. All sit on the floor, sing a welcome song/welcome every child by name.
  2. Eat together (a simple snack like cut-up fruit) while listening to a Bible story.
  3. Play - this could be doing something creative or a game.
  4. Pray, again sitting on the floor (we had a lot of cushions and mats) - really simple, passing a candle round for each child to hold and pray silently, with the response 'we thank you God, for [child's name].
  5. Lord's prayer (with actions)


This is quite an adaptable structure - and you could vary it to cope with your age range. But I think the first thing to think is about what your children are like, how old they are, how good their concentration skills are, what their needs are.
KanyesVest · 27/06/2015 08:03

Thanks for those ideas. I'm hoping to get more involved in the committee when we start up.again after the holidays so I'll have some time to do more proper thinking about it.

OP posts:
JasperDamerel · 05/07/2015 15:28

We usually light a candle, sing a song, have a circle time discussion about the theme for the week, do an activity working towards one of the Chalice Awards (recent ones have been litter-picking, a nature walk in the chapel grounds, making a collage about ourselves, preparing tea and biscuits for the congregation) have a story if there is time and another song to finish up with.

JasperDamerel · 05/07/2015 15:31

www.unitarian.org.uk/pages/chalice-award has more details about the Chalice Award scheme.

KanyesVest · 05/07/2015 21:50

Thanks, Jasper, that's really interesting. We have a coming of age programme, but I haven't been involved in any of it so I don't know if it's based on the Chalice Award.

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