Page 3 - Moravian Messenger Jan 2021

So, has your Sunday School/Junior Church returned or thinking about going back? Are you offering an alternative to in person meetings? Many churches quickly started to provide some sort of replacement online when the country went into lockdown in March. There was a range of content, with many different styles, produced for the children and families in churches. For most churches this was a completely new venture, for others it was just too much stress added to all the others of providing 'something' online for everyone and they decided to delay doing Sunday school online. Dr Sarah Holmes considers the affect on children's faith nurture of online offerings in a research project through the Centre for Christian Education.
The research project investigated the material provided by 100 UK churches from a range of denominations. One of the first difficulties was evaluating the diverse offering and comparing them to the objectives the churches had. I wonder if the leaders starting the online content even thought about the objectives of their content in relation to the children's nurture and growth, and if they really have 'aims and objectives' for their children's work! It was recognised that the common key objectives are knowledge, moral values and spiritual elements, in different proportions for different churches. The material produced has a very wide range depending on the churchmanship, theological beliefs and understandings of the child, but all brought by leaders who take their responsibility seriously and adapt and change the material to suit the children in their care, many of them volunteers with a heart for the children and young people in the church.
The key findings of the research are put into four headings: 'Improving the format', 'The session content', 'Connecting and engaging', and 'Equipping and supporting families'. Who knew Sunday School did all these things? The full report, which I
recommend you read as it is only seven pages long, goes into more detail for each of these areas. Observations that many offerings are passive, that the presenters tend to talk in a quiet voice to the camera (unlike when in a room full of children), that interaction with the participants isn't always present, that connecting with the families may mean doing addition work - family Zoom calls, dropping off craft parcels, etc - and that support for growing faith in the home in a natural unthreatening way helps to resource parents but equally can just add more stress to them.
Overall, there are many different ways of reaching out in these challenging times, and many ways that the material could be improved and built on. There are many lessons for anyone considering an online children's session and her full academic paper on the subject will be an interesting read. If you are considering going down the online route this gives some basic guidelines to making the material engaging, faith growing and nurturing, and relevant to the children and young people in our churches.
Holmes, S.E, (2020) Sunday School shutdowns during Covid-19: How will this affect our Children's faith nurture? Liverpool Hope University, UK.
Find the article here:
https://www.hope.ac.uk/media/studywithus/departments/ theologyphilosophyandreligion/documents/Children's% 20Online%20Nurture%20-%20Sarah%20Holmes%20LHU.pdf
Or email youth@moravian.org.uk requesting a copy and I'll email it to you.
If you need support to start something please contact me.
Sr Joy Raynor
Provincial Youth and Children's Officer
Sunday School in a time of Covid-19
BMB (British Mission Board) News in Brief
Service of Celebration & Thanksgiving - South Asia
On Friday 13th November more than 155 people from across India, Nepal, the UK and the wider Unity came together for an online service of Thanksgiving and Celebration. Br Joachim, ministers and members from India, Nepal and the British Province brought greetings and led us through the service as we celebrated the centenary of the first local ministers ordained in Ladakh and the legacy that has been created. Br John McOwat, a former Chair of the BMB, preached and it was a joy to hear greetings from all across the world. Although there were some technical hiccups experienced, it was a joy to be able to come together and share a time of fellowship together especially when we are so restricted in travel due to the pandemic.
Hurricane Iota & Eta - Update
In Nicaragua, many of the over 60,000 persons evacuated from their homes are now returning to assess what remains. Small towns such as Haulover were destroyed entirely, with scarcely a structure remaining intact. The Moravian Church there was left only with its front facade and steeple still standing. In Honduras shelters are beginning to empty out as rivers are now receding. Over 150 homes were completely destroyed, and more than 800 sustained significant damage. Roads and bridges were washed out hampering the delivery of food and supplies. In Nicaragua and Honduras, many of the farms that line the rivers and creeks are now covered with two feet of sand and mud. They have lost much of their rice harvest this year, and now is the critical time for planting beans. As a result, food insecurity will be a factor for months to come. The most pressing issues now include the immediate purchase of clean water and food, getting farms working again, cleaning out wells contaminated by raw sewage, and getting building materials in place.
The British Mission Board asks for your support and we will collect donations to transfer to the relief efforts directly.
How you can donate:
Cash: donations to your local congregation.
Card payment: please telephone Church House on 020 883 3409 who can take payment over the phone.
Cheques: should be made payable to Moravian Union Inc.
Bank transfer: 40-52-40 Acc # 00023436. Please use reference: Hurricane Eta and Iota
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© Sr Edna Cooper
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