Liturgical Year Resource

In her Convocation address at Virginia Theological Seminary in fall 2009, Lisa Kimball asserts that today's global and consumer age "are presenting us, the Church, with a profound invitation: focus on the basics. Read the Bible, Challenge the skeptics. Learn our history. Claim our unique identity in Christ."

The liturgical year is a basic part of our common life in the Church. It takes us through Jesus' journey beginning with Advent and acknowledges our need for growing and telling the stories in the long season of Pentecost. The liturgical year is a part of every Godly Play classroom. But it is often forgotten in classrooms for middle and high schoolers, and this is just the time when youth, who are growingi in self-awareness, need the liturgical calendar even more. It marks not just Christian time, but it gives our souls the opportunity to practice the rhythms of life. Advent helps us practice waiting, Ephiphany--a time of noticing Christ among us, Lent--a time for self-examination and repentance, Easter---a time of celebration, and Pentecost--the long time of growing.

When a youth faces waiting (such as waiting for a college decision or a job decision) or faces times of needing repentance (when they have broken relationships), their souls know just what to do because they have practiced. They know the prayers, they know it might take a long time to go through that period.  Keep the liturgical calendar in the youth room, give it out for bedroom bulletin boards, and dress your worship table with cloths that signify the color of the season. Through this practice, youth will also be more articulate about their faith in our pluralistic society.
THANKS TO JENIFER GAMBER FOR SHARING THIS TOOL FOR MINISTRY!

A lifelong Episcopalian, Jenifer Gamber has served as a teacher and youth mentor for over 20 years and currently leads confirmation classes and baptism preparation at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, PA. She was recently elected Vice-President of NAECED (the National Association for Episcopal Christian Education Directors). Jenifer keynotes at conferences, leads workshops and retreats nationally, and maintains the website http://www.myfaithmylife.org/, a non-profit site offering free resources for adults who work with youth. She is a regular columnist for the Episcopal Teacher and author of several books for teens and adults about the Episcopal Church. Adults who work with youth might consider attending this popular retreat in September at Holy Cross Monastery: www.myfaithmylife.org./ohcretreat.html

Resource to Address Haiti

Leader Resources, publisher of the well known Journey to Adulthood program, has made available a new resource addressing the catastrophe in Haiti and our Christian response. Searching for God in the Rubble of Haiti materials are designed for use across all age groups with specific resources designated by age groupings. It has been designed for use in Lent. All packages address the following questions:

• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• Why doesn’t God prevent disasters?
• Why Haiti? (an overview of Haitian life and history)
• Where is God in Haiti (or any disaster)?
• Where was God in Christ’s crucifixion?
• What is on the other side of crucifixion….or disasters?

Click here to see the description of the Youth materials.

A link for Leader Resources can be found here and using the links in the right column on this blog. There is a free download on the home page that addresses Talking with Children/Teens about Tragedy.

Please also continue to check in with Episcopal Relief and Development for updates on our Episcopal response.

If you have other resources to share that would be helpful in addressing this crisis, please comment on this post or send an email my way.

NAECED Tapestry

I have spent the past two days with Christian Formation Professionals, Christian Education Experts, Youth Ministers, Sunday School Teachers, Adult Educators, Resource Specialists and numerous other colleagues in ministry. We have been weaving our stories together over the two full days of the Tapestry Conference in a beautiful retreat setting in Menlo Park, California. The Board of Directors and local members have done an outstanding job in planning and welcoming us to the bay area where we have been re-membering  who we are, whose we are, and why we do what we do.

NAECED is really the only association within our Episcopal umbrella that intentionally seeks to meet the many needs of those engaged in Lifelong Christian Formation and Education ministry. Attention is given to welcome and include volunteers and those blessed with paychecks, lay persons and those in the clergy orders. The title of the group may be misleading for some; National Association for Episcopal Christian Education Directors. I invite you to give more consideration to our descriptors; Your Network for Christian Education and A dynamic community celebrating and upholding the diverse ministries of Christian Formation.

This truly is a dedicated network of faithful saints working to support one another in creative and compassionate ways, building relationships while building the body of Christ within our denomination and beyond. Membership gets you access to a wonderful forum for conversation and consultation, the list serve, as well as discounts on resources and more. Membership is a great value!

Mark your calendar for the 2011 Tapestry Conference, February 3-5. We'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina, "Equipping the Saints for the Work of Ministry."

I hope you'll join us!

http://www.naeced.org/

Illumination

For the rest of this month EpiscoYouth will be focusing on providing some illumination about available resources. I invite you, faithful reader, to do two things:

1) Send me a quick paragraph to introduce yourself in your ministry context to the Blogosphere, and then tell us about your favorite resource and how we can acquire it. This should be sent to my email so I can edit and format your blog contribution and coordinate when to post it.

2) Invite a new colleage to join the EpiscoYouth Blog as a follower so we can expand our breadth of knowledge through greater participation and exposure.

I offer thanks and praise for our colleague, Jay Phillippi, from Western New York, for agreeing to be our first Illumination contributor. Following is his brief autobiography and what he has to offer on the topic of resources. Thank you, Jay, for the gift of research and sharing!

I've served as diocesan youth missioner for the Dio of WNY for the last 9+ years. Prior to that I had a nearly 20 year career as a radio disc jockey working in western PA and NY. Through out my life I have been a story teller and I've never had more fun (or better material!) A lifelong Episcopalian (OK I wasn't baptized till I was actually 30 days old but after all this time who's counting?) I felt an unexpected call to help out with the youth ministry at my home parish in Jamestown NY about 20 years ago. That offer to "help out" has taken me to some very unexpected, exciting and holy places along the journey. Married to my college sweetheart and with our only child about to graduate from college I'm wondering what's the next phase of my life and where it's going to take me. I'm getting better at trusting that God will open the right doors for me.


So did you ever have an idea that sounded like a really GREAT idea only to get half way through the process and wonder what on earth you'd been thinking? That's what happened with the 52 resources in 52 week challenge. I've been blogging for about 6 years. First as a way to share my experiences with the folks back home about my first trip to General Convention. Since then it has grown into a place to share thoughts, dreams, ideas, sermons, jokes and silly stuff. One day I looked around my office and realized that I had all these resources and no easy way to share my thoughts on their strengths and weaknesses with the youth leaders with whom I work. So I thought: Hey, one review a week. Piece of cake! By September it was tough making sure that I had something useful to review and the time to review it. In the end I hope I've created a resource list that will give folks a starting place as we all search for better ways to share the Gospel and live our lives.

Here's the link to Jay's Blog: DaYouthGuy Thinks Aloud

Enjoy exploration of the 52 resources as reviewed by Jay. I hope this stirs your imagination and that you will respond with your favorite resource(s) soon!