Church Notes

I got everything all set for Junior Church today. We have 5 teachers now, plus assorted helpers (in fact, we have a back-up helper, which is nice). This means that they teach for 2 months between now and June (one month at a time). Summer is always a bit complicated, but if everyone takes a week I can cover the rest. It's usually the only time I teach now unless there's an emergency. Mostly, my teachers trade off among themselves. This year, though, I plan to be in Junior Church a bit more just observing. I figure I should know what's going on, and I haven't actually seen some of them teach. Plus, I have a couple younger teacher who still need some guidance.

Sunday School is good to go as well. We start in 2 weeks. I have all the books for the classes and there are teachers and a spare teacher. For my class, we're following the regular curriculum for the most part, which means we teach the lesson one week and do review and workbooks the next week. We're continuing our study on the providence of God. I have it set up with my new helper that I'll do the lesson weeks and she will do the workbook weeks. That way she gets to start teaching with less stress. It's sort of a training period for her. This year, though, I'm adding something. One Sunday a month I'm leaving the regular stuff to do a lesson on what I'm calling "Reformation Heroes" (so named after a book I have teaching about them). We'll learn about Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, etc. I think the children need to know some church history. After them, maybe next year, I'm going to start on missionaries: William Carey, Hudson Taylor, whoever I think of.

That's the news from church! I leave you with one of my favourite hymns....