Why worry about classrooms, a teen space,
and enhancements to LEARNing?
Our Children – Our Future:

Keeping kids interested in attending Sunday School is changing. Kids like interactive (key “active”) learning:
being outside, cooking, creating and maintaining a butterfly garden for example, and using those activities to DO the Bible (not just teach the Bible)!
Consider how much fun using the cycle of caterpillar to butterfly is to teach about the resurrection!

Teens today experience unprecedented social pressures and conflicts.
A “safe space” of their own in the church that welcomes them as they are, and helps them to engage in healthy, meaningful relationships
will help keep them engaged and participating in the church.

List of Nursery, Sunday School Classroom, Teen, and  Adult Education Issues Addressed

  • Adult education has dedicated space in flex meeting room
  • Teens HAVE a space of their own
  • Nursery is in a new, safer, more welcoming location for easy access to parents
  • CE office is next to Sunday School classrooms
  • Sunday school classroom have walls instead of dividers
  • AV capabilities in classrooms and flex meeting spaces

Quotes

Kim Verrecchia (on Sunday School)

We’ve learned that the kids just absolutely love doing different kinds of activities rather than lessons from the book. They love to be outside, they love to be cooking, they love to be doing different things like that. Those are the kinds of things that we want the kids to be able to experience so when their parents come to get them at the end of the day, they are excited about what they’ve done. That makes parents more apt to bring them and keep them coming back. We want to make the space better for them so that they can not only learn, but have fun here.

Pat Harris (on Adult Education)

[Right now] it’s a lot of up and down and taking a map and unfolding it and holding it and the same time trying to point out, “OK, so here’s Jerusalem, here’s Nazareth, here’s how small Israel is compared to Syria. And here’s how vulnerable it’s always been and why is it so important when it’s such a tiny country. It’s very doable when we have a nice classroom space, having a space where we can hang maps.

[With the new multi-purpose space] when you walk in and you see all these maps around it, it catches your eye [and think] “Oh, this is what the ancient temple looked like.” Now when we read a passage that refers to the ancient temple, you can visualize it. It gives context. In the sanctuary we “hear” it. In Adult Ed, we’re trying to get people to “see” it as well and to take it in and think about it and make it their own.

Deb Blannin (on Teen Space)

The high school kids, after confirmation, they have no place to go. We have no room for [them] to have activities in the church and they will have a new space all of their own downstairs just off of Hardy Hall, to grow.

Kim Verrecchia (on Teen Space)

It’s important to think about what they [teens] want in the future and what’s going to make them continue to come back. The [youth room and patio area] is what’s going to retain their interest and make them feel comfortable coming here and being with their friends.

Naomi Kopser (on Teen Space)

I envision the youth space as a place to relax and study, or just to relax and play games with classmates

Devon Kuchta (on Teen Space)

There isn’t much teen activities here to do so I feel like by having a space that you can just hang out and have fun and chill out, it will create a better space for our teen community.

Dot Hyde (on Teen Space)

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to offer teens a special place that says, “You’re important in this church. God loves you.”

Pat Harris (on Sunday School)

It’s not that you have to sit around a table and take turns reading passages from the Bible, it’s “You can DO the Bible!”

Video

Watch video of congregants talking about how the proposed renovations will improve our LEARNing spaces for Faith Formation, Christian Education (CE) and Adult Education.

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