Faith Inkubators (GIFT) Curricula
Faith Inkubators has this multigenerational Sunday School Program called
GIFT (Generations in Faith Together) at
www.tfss.com
Please add your comments below!
posted by Skipper Don @ 11:50 AM
Alleluia! Youth and Family
The Family Ministry of Alleluia! Lutheran Church (Dublin, Ohio, USA) Our adult and elementary Sunday School is held at 9:15 a.m. during the school year. A staffed nursery is available from 9 a.m. to Noon. Middle school (Confirmation) and High School groups (F.E.E.T) meet weekly after worship at our church office. Check the website for more information and our current topics.
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- Sunday School 2004-2005
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Faith Inkubators has this multigenerational Sunday School Program called
GIFT (Generations in Faith Together) at
www.tfss.com
Please add your comments below!
8 Comments:
kewl
Man, I'm jealous. Skipper Don's blog is cooler than the pastors. I believe it's stated in the skippers contract that he's not allowed to make anything more hip than mine.
Seriously... about the Gift Stuff. I like what they do. The theology is excellent! However their materials can be abstract and leave you wondering what you just talked about (much like the messages at Alleluia!). (We used to use Faith Inc. stuff for Confirmation class and switched).
Kathy here....As most of you know, I love this program, but that's probably because it's designed for right brain (artistic) thinking! I agree with PD and Toni to an extent in that this can be abstract. However, the intentionally repetative and interconnected format reduces this problem if the "hosts" continually reinforce the "theme" at each opportunity. I especially think this is true with FINK's new "rotational" option. We would have a theme to explore over a 4 week period where groups of up to 12 rotate through 2 activity stations per Sunday, and wind up with a group "show & tell" session on the 4th Sunday. Although the website says these stations are self-directed, I still believe we should have 2 volunteer staff on hand to guide the groups. Along with the necessary theme "host," we could potentially only need 3 people serving on a monthly basis. However, the website also recommends having music, power point techie, and senior high care guide people involved. The 4 week theme formats are enhanced with take-home sheets that are intended to be used on a nightly basis. According to Pastor Milheim, this is where the traditional, left-brain (logical) Sunday School teaching occurs with the parents actively involved as teachers. Each entire Sunday program is designed to take up 60-75 minutes, including praise and worship, and is supposed to begin with the announced theme, Bible reading, group prayers, shared highs and lows, before breaking off into rotational groups. It is supposed to take 15-20 minutes to complete a station. Obviously, we would need to pare this down. Maybe we could do only one station per Sunday, and just have our large group of 25-30 kids divided up into smaller groups doing the same thing. Cost: Based on our average weekly worship attendance catagory (101-200), we would enroll for $1000 the first year and $500 to renew following years. Price goes up as attendance rises. Preschoolers could be included (Milheim says no age group should be excluded), but since we would be tweeking the intergenerationl idea to fit our situation, we would need to be careful that the older kids aren't meant to constantly feel like parents or babysitters - they need to be able to get something out of the experience, too, beyond just mentoring. Also, the Confirmation/Affirmation kids could be station leaders as long as we don't over-use them. I like the idea of having them lead as a service requirement.
Thank you, thank you Kathy, for your comments on this.
I am enjoying reading the philosophy behind this program. Here is a sample of the excellent observations the TFSS group is making:
Problem #4:The Drop-off Kid
Parents have been, are, and always will be the main faith teachers.The question is not,“Will they be faith teachers?”The question is,“What faith are they teaching?” Parents are the faith teachers. When parents give their child $10 for a movie Friday night and $1 for the offering plate on Sunday, they are teaching faith. When a child is dropped off for Sunday school and parents go out for coffee or sleep in, they are being taught faith. When a teen is told, “Just get through confirmation and you can decide for yourself if you want to go to church,” parents are teaching faith. Given this situation and the fact that few Christian homes have any regular, ongoing, spiritual dialogue (devotions,daily scripture, mealtime prayers, etc.), what good does it do the body of Christ to separate parent and child in faith education?
What I like about this:
involved parents
involves older people, younger people, unmarried people
creates church family groups
makes Confirmation/Affirmation students into teachers and leaders -- you learn much more when you teach
has powerpoint shows already done
What I think may be difficult:
has no DVD/video option
is idealistic. Nice idea to draft elderly and teens, but will it work practically
our Adult Sunday School is going well, is well attended. I don't want to fix something that ain't broken
is idealistic about having families get together every weeknight. I am skeptical about the home huddles -- might hope for once a week at best?
Overall:
Good idea, but (forgive me) not flashy enough for today's kids.
I reserve the right to change my mind on this though!
If we went with GIFT which "systen" do you think we should use:
System I: GIFT Classic Plus
with PowerPoint and karaoke music
System II: GIFT Rotational
three weeks of multiple arts stations followed by a show and tell style Celebration Sunday on the final week.
System III: GIFT Edu-Worship
blended education/worship experience for families to attend together.
System V: GIFT Elementary
For churches unable to pull off the full-blown GIFT concept but wishing to ease into arts-based whole family education during the elementary years
I left out System IV - Gift VBS, but maybe that's what we're looking for.
Honestly, I think they are giving us too many good choices. Could someone look into this for us?
Kathy here... I definitely like the rotational format. I think this works well with our constrained time, and also allows for repetition of theme in various ways throughout the month. If we find we just don't have enough time to get the kids through more than one station, its ok. We have the whole month to explore the theme, and because of this, the kids will remember what they've learned as opposed to just going through it for 1/2 hour and moving on to something else the following week.
I think Gift Rotational would be our second choice after trying G-Force (see my comments on G-Force).
Maybe if G-Force doesn't work we could try Gift next year when the congregation grows a bit more.
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