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A Message to Families
Rev. Kristi Denham
If you are looking for a faith community where your children would be nurtured in their lives and understandings. I suspect that our church might be a really good fit for you. As a family sized church (under 200 members) we are able to focus very specifically on the needs of our children. We have quite a few young children and an excellent Sunday School curriculum designed for preschool to third graders. Our child care providers have been with us for over 10 years and are certified public school teachers as well as our regular care givers. They are wonderful. Our Sunday School teachers have had training in a Montessori based program called Godly Play which tells the stories with a focus on exploring the questions they raise rather than easy or absolute answers. We always have a teacher and a doorkeeper with the children's class to ensure that everyone feels welcomed and attended to.
Children are welcome in worship and usually stay for the first 20 minutes or so to share in the experience of prayer and music and then come forward for a special "Time with Children" that shares the theme for the day in language and story that fits them. Then they are invited to go downstairs to Sunday school or child care or back to their seats to be with their parents as parents choose.
Parents often come forward with their children. Some children go down to child care right at the beginning of worship, if they want to. Some parents hang out downstairs with the children to get a feel for the program and when both children and parents are comfortable they come back upstairs for worship. Children who stay in worship are celebrated even if they get a bit noisy and we have a rocking chair in the narthex in the entrance to the sanctuary for moms and kids who want a less stimulating environmen. Children are central to our worship, to our faith, to how we practice love and caring.
During this season of Advent our children are preparing a Christmas Pageant during their Sunday School time so they are leaving worship a bit sooner (right after we light the advent candle and share the time with children towards the beginning of worship) to have more time for practice. Most of our youngest children will be angels in the pageant, with no speaking parts, so if your children might enjoy this, let us know and we'll be sure to have two more angel costumes made. The pageant will be central to worship on December 23.
We also have a wonderfully simple Christmas Eve Service, December 24, at 5:30 p.m. The children all participate in adding their chosen figure to the manger scene. We sing first verses of lots of our favorite carols and end with Silent Night. The whole service is never more than 45 minutes long so that families can enjoy the meaning of the season with a child's time frame in mind.
If you have any other questions I can answer, please feel free to give me a call.
The best way to learn about us it to just join us on a Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. Worship is usually over by 11:30 a.m. We sing. We laugh. We pray together. We learn. We celebrate the sacred in our midst. We honor and try to live out the teachings of Jesus. It would be wonderful to meet you!
Warmly in the love of Christ,
KristiRev. Kristi Denham, Pastor
Congregational Church of Belmont
751 Alameda de las Pulgas
Belmont, CA. 94002
(650)593-4547