The youth gathered on Saturday night for a pizza and game party and also to decorate and fill duffle bags for foster care children. Check out this amazing organization: https://www.togetherwerise.org
“Telestrations” has become a youth group (and little siblings) favorite!
To celebrate the upcoming Minute Man March on May 5th, our combined Multiage and Middler Sunday school classes met on Sunday to celebrate our abilities, disabilities and VisitAbility! Visitability is a term used to describe a measure of a place’s ease of access for people with disabilities. We acted out a story about a young girl named Libby who used a wheelchair, and after her best friend moved to a new house, she wasn’t able to go visit her because there were stairs up to every entrance and the bathroom doorways were too narrow. But instead of feeling sad and frustrated and powerless (and invisible), Libby fought for VisitAbility in her neighborbood – successfully lobbying to build a new housing development with VisitAble houses for people of all abilities! She dreamed she had a Cape of VisitAbility that allowed her to fly all over the world, and all the other children had capes too!
To measure the visitAbility in our own church, our children split up into four teams on a scavenger hunt throughout our building? Do you know how many visitAble entrances we have? Do you know how many visitAble bathrooms we have? What accommodations do we make for people with visual and hearing impairments? What else could we be doing to make our building and community more visitAble?
After our scavenger hunt, we explored writing in Braille and the children then started creating their own Capes of VisitAbility to wear during the Minute Man March. We will continue painting these capes this coming Sunday, along with welcoming two very special visitors from Minute Man Arc who will come talk to us about their experiences. Come VISIT us on Sunday to learn more!
Take a peek into the Multiage class from this past Sunday as we celebrated the Easter resurrection story! Here’s what we were up to:
Enjoy all the photos of our wonderful Easter celebration!
Christ is Risen! We celebrated with festive worship featuring our combined choirs, lots of joyful music, and even dancing! Take a look.
On Maundy Thursday we gathered for a simple supper and communion in North Hall, travelled to explore prayer stations in the sanctuary, and ended with shared prayer and song. Thanks to all the cooks, servers, musicians, cleaner-uppers, and many other helpers who made it possible!
Palm Sunday presented an incredible opportunity for children of all ages to explore the stories of Holy Week together, so the teachers decided to create a free-flowing, open door format that allowed our children and youth to engage in a variety of activities across a variety of classrooms. And it was a wonderful success! After a whole-group opening with darkness, silence, story, and candles (including a trick candle!), the children were free to explore in four different classes: painting kindness rocks in the Youth room, building Jerusalem and playing games in the Preschool/K room, dancing in the Middler room, and art explorations and prayer reflections in North Hall. There are a LOT of pictures documenting all the experiences of all the children – please enjoy them all!
Thanks to our musicians and teachers for guiding us and to David for capturing these photos!
True Story Theater brought down the house on March 18th when a intergenerational audience of over 60 people came together to share stories about learning. Trained in the art of “playback theater,” six actors expertly used colorful scarves, musical instruments along with their bodies and voices to create evocative, multi-sensory interpretations of the stories shared by the audience. Camp chairs, coloring pages and construction toys were carefully placed to ensure that everyone could participate as they felt comfortable.
True Story’s director and co-founder, Christoper Ellinger, deftly created a safe space for personal sharing by inviting each actor to open Sunday’s performance with a story from their own experience. Children and adults were rapt with attention as the actors shared and then acted out their struggles with
dyslexia, mastering a foreign language after failing to learn it in an academic context and a deep affection for a teacher who encouraged children to move in her classroom
A child talked about a favorite teacher who is silly and “looks like me” and adult with a hearing-impairment used a combination of sign language and voice to express her uncanny ability to share her joy with everyone regardless of communication style.Brave adults and children described the scary but ultimately beneficial decision to change schools when meet their needs were not being met. Everyone could relate to the difficult journey of learning healthier eating habits!
As more and more of us shared our stories and experienced the healing balm of being lovingly heard, the more connected we felt. It was as though the final words of the Hokey Pokey, one of the songs we used to open the gathering, were being acted out through all of us:
You put your whole self in,
You take your whole self out.
You put your whole self in and you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!
Special thanks to all who attended, to Children’s Ministries, the WCUC Youth Group and to the members of the Sunday Fellowship Planning Team (Julie Beyer, Sue and Jack Faasse, Pat and Jane Fleming, Mary Jane Hall, and Joanna Swain) for all of your work to make Sunday’s gathering possible.
Take a look at these photos of all ages worship from March 4th!
“All you need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” - Charles M. Schulz
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” - Luke 10:27
“Love is a song that never ends.” - Bambi
“Love can move mountains.” - Celine Dion
“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” - George Sand
“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” – MLK Jr.
“Love is patient. Love is kind.” – Corinthians 13:4
“Welcome everyone, to the love of God.” – WCUC
These are just a few of the “love quotes” generated by the youth to be used at WCUC’s Ash Wednesday prayer service: ”Marked by Love”. The youth have been exploring the promise of God’s unconditional love and it’s power to inspire us to put our faith into action as we share that love with our neighbors. During vacation week, several youth volunteered to help out at Household Goods in Acton, an organization that receives donations to be given to people who are in need of home furnishings. Later in the week, even more youth came to church to paint some bulletin boards that will be hung in the downstairs hallway to hold pictures of our congregation.
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
Mark 1:12-13
These verses from Mark, traditionally read at the beginning of every Lent, inspired a youth art project that illustrates the answers to two questions: What “wild beasts” challenge you in life? and Who are the “angels” that support you along the way?
Stop by the Youth Room when you get a chance to take a look at the creative results!
