What the heck do they do in Junior Church?

Or even perhaps why does it not tie in with the readings that you hear in Church? We sometimes get asked about this and what we study in Junior Church, and how it all ties together, and perhaps the time is right to explain how it is all put together.

In these days of 'time poor' parents (and I think nearly all the Junior church leaders have or had children participating in Junior Church), and also parents who do not feel confident putting together a 45 minute session to keep lively young people occupied, it is necessary to find some Christian materials that help us plan and put together what we hope are meaningful activities.

Over the years the preferred materials at St Edmund's have been those published by the Scripture Union. Not only do they cater for all our age groups, but they provide a choice of activities around a subject so that if you find one activity that you do not feel comfortable leading, there are normally two others that fit in. So if you do not feel happy with a craft activity, you may find a drama activity that is more your metier.

The materials normally start with a fun activity that should act as a lead-in to the topic. There then follows the Bible study, followed by 'Living the Life' - the section on how what has been studied is relevant today for us and the lives we lead now.

The two main downsides with the Scripture Union materials is that firstly, the readings used are not in line with the Church of England lectionary, which can be a major source of confusion. Secondly, the Scripture Union provide materials for 52 weeks of the year. St Edmunds Young Church does not meet 52 times a year. Once the scheduled Sundays for Worship-All-Together are excluded together with the holidays we find that we probably only meet some 25 times a year. This leads to what appears to be a lack of continuity. The Scripture Union do tend to pick a topic and run with it for 4 or 5 weeks, and the challenge then is to look at a term's topics in the published material and work out how to map that across the weeks of St Edmund's Sundays.

So for example, the 'term' leading up to Christmas there were three topics which were

So here at St Edmund's we only did one of the Easter story topics provided. The Scripture Union's idea behind this section was that come Eastertide the church calendar controls us with Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday and so that the topic does not get the coverage it demands for a topic so central to our Christian faith.

In January we are looking at The Epiphany, Barnabas and Paul and Simeon's meeting with Jesus. In February we will be moving on to Moses in the desert and how God takes care of those who follow him by providing for them, guiding them on how to live and wanting them to know and love him.

I hope this helps with your understanding of what we do. If you'd like to join the team please see Amanda Storer, Jerry Watson or the Vicar and we can give you more information.

Jerry Watson