volunteers | The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd

A few weeks ago, parishioners met to discuss plans for our upcoming Sunday school year. One topic on the agenda was our Bible Story program. For those unfamiliar, at the start of class each Sunday, a parishioner volunteer would spend 10 minutes telling a bible story to the students. For MANY years Pat Braidwood has dedicated her time leading this activity and scheduling volunteer storytellers each Sunday. After prayerful consideration, Pat has decided to step down.

Due to this, along with declining volunteers over the past few years, we’ve decided to repurpose the program slightly.

Four times during the school year, Mother Susan will visit with the children at 10am (former Bible Story time) to discuss various stages of Church year using a wooden calendar. The students will have the opportunity to connect with Mother Susan, while also gaining understanding of how we progress through the Church year
We will introduce on-going service projects the children will work as a group (all grades together in the all purpose room) for the first 10-15 minutes. Service projects will range from Project Linus, placemats for Meals on Wheels and various other outreach activities. (Please let us know if you have other ideas for service projects.)
During the time of the pageant, children who are in the pageant will use the Bible Story time to rehearse while students not in the pageant will work on the service project.
In the event parishioners would still like to volunteer to tell a Bible Story, they are MORE THAN WELCOME to do so!! Please contact Amanda or Kathy if you are interested. We’d love to have you!

We are excited about the various aspects of our Sunday school program and the opportunity for our children to learn about God’s love and our Church through various activities and programs!

More commonly, churches maintain their youth Christian education program for grades K through eighth. At Good Shepherd, we believe it’s important (arguably even more important) for our older kids to participate in some sort of youth education program. Let’s face it, high school is tough–and it seems kids face even more challenges these days.

One of the goals of our Sunday school program is to not only provide our children the knowledge of God’s love, but also understand how His love can help guide them even after they exit the ‘big red doors’ each Sunday. For our High School students, this means providing the opportunity to hear how our adult parishioners implement their faith into their day-to-day lives. One way we do this is through our High School guest speaker program.

Last year the students were fortunate to engage and interact with some of our adult parishioners; hearing first hand about challenges, overcoming obstacles, volunteer work, and other topics that demonstrate the act of implementing the guidance and support they receive through knowing and understanding God’s love.

After each guest speaker discussion, we always receive very positive feedback from the students. High schooler, Victoria Nelson shares her experience with the program.”

“Having guest speakers coming into the high school class has given me a different perspective on how others live their daily lives. The guest speakers speak on a topic that relates to their job or something they have to deal with; they talk on how their church life and faith helps them get through this thing they talk about. This exposes us to other careers, organizations, and issues going on that we can do or help with. When the speakers come into the class, they allow use to have a better idea of why having a faith in the “real world” is important.”

We typically include a guest speaker as each month as part of the high school curriculum. In order to continue this program’s success, we need your help! Please contact Amanda McNally or Kathy Pastiu if you’d like to be a guest speaker or would like to know more about the program.