Sunday Club Newsletter: April 2012

April 2012

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle
                     - Albert Einstein                                                                   

Dear Saint Anne’s families,

During April, the Sunday Club theme is New Life.   Sunday Club kids will celebrate the gifts of Spring:  longer days,  flowers that emerge from their dark resting places deep beneath the ground, new baby birds in the nests around St. Anne’s, and Easter! -  the new light shining in the church after our season of Lent.

As it comes up each year, the church calendar for Holy Week and Easter can feel intimidating for families with children and teens.  There is Palm Sunday AND Maundy Thursday AND Good Friday AND Easter Vigil on Saturday and then…what?!...EASTER SUNDAY TOO?! 

I spent some time Googling “Kids and Holy Week”, looking for ideas about how to make Holy Week fun and meaningful for kids.  If you Google it yourself, you’ll come up with more than you’ll ever need.  (My personal favorite is the Last Supper egg craft, which details how to re-create the Last Supper, using eggs.  Your children can paint and dress up hard boiled eggs to look like Jesus and the disciples sitting at the table?  Hmmm.)   

What Google cannot tell us, though, is why we bring our children to Holy Week services.  Why we busy parents look at the intimidating schedule and instead of hiding at home, we plan out what, where, and how we can make it to church as much as possible in these days. 

Google cannot sing Hosanna! with our children as we wave palms on Palm Sunday. 

Google cannot give our children the true sense of the call to serve to one another that we receive at the Maundy Thursday dinner service, where we are again given the greatest commandment.   Hmm…what was it again? Oh yes, the one that “even” the children know.  The one that goes:  

                                        love one another. 

Google cannot take us into the depths of Good Friday, nor into the renewal of the Easter Vigil where we once again tell our ancient and sacred stories, light our fire, ring our bells. 

It is not possible to feel through Google the joy we celebrate with our children on Easter Sunday with the flowers and singing and ringing – and the thrill of the Easter Egg hunt! 

Holy Week can feel like it is going to be about juggling schedules, taking young children out of routines, negotiating with older children about the fact that yes, their parents expect them to come to church, and about feeling guilty for all we do not do.  But if we allow it, Holy Week can be what it is meant to be:  an opportunity to grow in community, to grow in faith, to grow as families, and to pass our sacred traditions down to our children.  To suspend, for just a few days, the hustle-bustle of our lives in order to connect to our past, our future, and to something beyond ourselves. 

Even without the story of the Last Supper Told In Eggs, even very young children are able to experience Holy Week fully.  They soak up the stories and the fire and the singing and the deep connection to all that came before them, all that is yet to be, and to the divine all around them.  And that, itself, is truly a holy thing to witness.

Welcome to April, Sunday Club families.  Welcome once again to Easter. 

p e a c e,

Jennifer

Sunday Club April schedule:

April 1^st:  Palm Sunday Bingo (come for the Bingo, stay for the prizes!) at 9:15.  Southview Acres Easter Hat Parade:  after the 10:30 service.

Please visit St. Anne's website for the full Holy Week schedule

April 9^th:  Easter Morning!   NO Sunday Club.  Happy Easter!

April 11^th:  Protecting Your Online Footprint.  Internet safety for middle & high school.  6:30pm.

April 15^th:  Sunday Club at 9:15 am.  Confirmation classes resume from April 15^th – May 20^th.

April 22^nd:  Sunday Club at 9:15 am, including Confirmation

April 29^th:  Sunday Club at 9:15 am, including Confirmation

And a reminder about the May 1^st deadline for Summer Stretch and Summer Club registration.  If you don’t have it already, see Lisa Guyer-Rooney or St. Anne's website for registration.

Sunday Club Newsletter: March 2012

The upholder of the cycles which sustain all Life is water.
In every drop of water dwells the Deity.
                                                                       - Viktor Schauberger

During Lent in the month of March, the Sunday Club theme will be Living Water.   The Sunday Club kids will be leading the community in a celebration of water as one of our most sacred and life-giving gifts. We will wonder and delight in the sacred water of Baptism and we will give thanks for water as one of the world's most precious resources.

Join with us as we create Saint Anne's own Baptism Anniversary wall chart. A calendar will be on the wall in the parish hall along with a schedule of Baptism anniversaries from the church office.  The entire Saint Anne’s family is invited to find your name and write it on the chart. If you have any Baptism mementos or photos from your child’s Baptism or your own Baptism, you and your child are invited to bring that along to share with others.

As a social justice component of our celebration of water, your child will be taking special note of the amount of water we use daily in our households in the United States.  Your child will bring home simple tracking sheets to be tacked up to a refrigerator or bulletin board. Your child can use these to keep a general record of their water usage over a several day period.  This is meant to be a simple exercise to help us all appreciate how easily we have access to clean, readily available water, and a reminder to give thanks for this gift!

Your child will also bring home a Hope Chest from Episcopal Relief andDevelopment.  If possible for your family, we are asking that parents have a small bowl of coins – pennies, nickels, dimes - available to your children during Lent.  When your child notices water use at home, they can put a coin into the Hope Chest.  We will be collecting the Hope Chests after Lent, and will send the money to Episcopal Relief & Development, which supports clean water programs.  We are not looking to collect a high dollar amount, but rather to offer another reminder to give thanks for all we have, and a way to share our blessings with others. 

Please contact me if you have any questions.  As always, thank you for sharing your children with Saint Anne’s.  They are the greatest of our many blessings!

p e a c e,

Jennifer