Children, youth, and family Ministries
Welcome!
What follows is an overview of weekly offerings of Christian formation for Children, Youth, and Families at Saint Philip’s during the school year. If you would like to register your children for participation, please contact Kate Appel, Saint Philip’s Pilgrimage and Special Formation Projects Assistant. She can help you find the appropriate classes for your children, introduce you to other parents and caregivers, and sign you up for the weekly newsletter. We look forward to getting to know you on your journey of faith!
You are always welcome just to join in - please join us during the Formation Hour in the Children’s Courtyard on the north side of campus. Once there you’ll find help getting to the right place for each age group! More details can be found below about each formation age group.
Formation Hour
During the school year, Sunday School, Youth Group, StoryMakers, Atriums, and Parent’s Formation typically occur 10:15am-11:15am.
Easter Season 2024 Details
Sunday, April 7: We are blessed to be baptizing several children and babies on Sunday, April 7. We want to celebrate this big day well—and you are invited to help! We will have a reception at 10:30am; please consider bringing a small cheese tray, fruit tray, or other healthy allergy-conscious snack (no nuts, no sesame, labeled if gluten). Children, youth, and parents’ formation will resume at 10:15 for April 14-May 5, with May 12 moving to the summer schedule.
During the Summer our main service is at 10am, and formation is at 11:15. We will have an end-of-program-year party on Sunday, May 19!
Parents’ Formation: April 14, 21, 28, May 12: Easter panels with long term ministries in the church.
Look out for summer offerings for fellowship, service and Christian formation in our Saint Philip’s newsletter, or sign up for Faithful Families, our CYFM newsletter with Kate. Save the date for our fall family Orientation, Sunday, August 18, at 11:30am, for Be a Chorister Day on Saturday, August 24, and for the first day of the 2024-2025 CYFM Formation year for those 2.5+ on September 8, 2024.
Saint Philip’s Nursery (Infants and Toddlers)
Saint Philip’s offers childcare services every Sunday, led by our trained professional staff.
October 1, 2023 - May 5, 2024: 8:30am-11:30am
May 12, 2024-September, 2024: 9:30-11:30am
If you would like to inquire about the nursery during special services, please contact Mtr Taylor.
CATECHESIS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD (Ages 3-9)
During the Formation Hour throughout the school year, children in preschool through the third grade meet in one of three lovingly prepared atriums in the Children’s Center to hear and tell stories, and to engage in response activities as they grow in their knowledge about and relationship with Jesus, themselves, and each other. Using the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd—a hands-on, sensory-rich Montessori-based curriculum—experienced catechists facilitate each child’s encounter with Christ the Good Shepherd and true Teacher. Level one is for those ages 3-6. Level two is for 1st-3rd graders.
StoryMakers (Grades 4, 5 and 6)
During the school year in the Formation Hour, our youth in grades four and five continue exploring life with the Good Shepherd. This year there is a special focus on Creation, art, and emotions as we continue to walk with children in their relationship with the living God.
Youth Group (Grades 7-12)
Two different youth groups (based on age (Junior 7-8th and Senior 9-12th) meet during the Formation Hour. The youth leaders focus on fostering the prophetic voices and unique Christian identities into which our youth are growing. We look to develop a strong sense of support among peers and mentors, provide settings for genuine community, prayer, worship, service, questioning, doubt, dialogue, and growth in discipleship that aims at empowering young people to make an adult profession of faith and to live a life of committed witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ.
We offer a rotation of Bible Study, Confirmation preparation, fellowship, forums, group gathering, service work, church leadership, Diocesan events, retreats, camp, and other opportunities to build personal and communal relationships in Christ.
PARENTS’ FORMATION GROUP
Parents are the principle agents of spiritual formation in the lives of their children, and while their own growth in the Spirit will necessarily have much to do with their vocations as parents, they also have formational needs by virtue of their vocation as Christians. This group meets on Sundays during the Formation Hour in the Children’s Courtyard. The Parents Formation Group is a place for parents and caregivers with children at home to learn ways to companion their children in their formation and offers a way to be formed in the particular vocation of being a Christian parent.
Participation in worship
Children are welcome at every worship service and are invited to offer their gifts to God and the community as Readers, Acolytes, Choristers Ushers, Hike, Mission and Bible Study Leaders—really in every area of church ministry to which they feel called. If you are curious about how you might serve as a family in these roles please contact Fr Peter. If you are curious about children’s choral programs, please contact Dr Justin Appel.
Pictured here is our Soft Space, located on the left side of the Church when looking toward the front Altar. This space has books, toys, and manipulatives to help engage the youngest members of our community in worship. If it would be helpful to you to have support with your infant or toddler, trained Nursery workers are available to care for your infant or toddler in the hours listed in the Nursery section above.
PILGRIMAGE
After two years of preparation, high school youth typically go on an international Pilgrimage together with Chaperones. This time is one of spiritual, corporate and individual growth by which pilgrims are encouraged to more fully inhabit their faith, their tradition, their world, and their own unique identities as ministers of the Gospel and disciples of the Living God.
Youth and their families are currently planning for and fundraising for the 2024 Pilgrimage starting with Residency and Lincoln Cathedral and ending with a walking pilgrimage along the Walsingham Way.
CYFM Leadership
Mtr Taylor Devine, Associate Rector for Intergenerational Ministries, is the primary contact for CYFM. She is on sabbatical at present, and the CYFM Commission and Kate Appel are the best contacts this summer for questions regarding CYFM.
Catechists in the Atriums, Teachers and Youth Leaders, Parents, and Youth, along with the Clergy and Vestry of Saint Philip’s work together to plan, vision, and make ministry with families happen. A special focus of our work is building relationship and caring for one another in the name of Christ across lines of difference: age, ability, experience, personal challenges and gifts, and we invite you into this work. Through quarterly meetings with leaders and parents, with the input of children and youth, and with the guidance of parish leadership, we seek to love and serve God in this season with grace and care.
Some specifics about timing and location of special events are not on the website to protect children’s privacy and families’ autonomy. If you would like more specific information about how to get involved with CYFM as a family or as a community support to this program, the clergy and families at Saint Philip’s would love to meet with you in person. The Episcopal Church takes Safeguarding practices seriously. If you have any questions about practices that keep children safe and ready to learn and grow in community, please be in touch.
Our Mission
We believe that Children, Youth and their Parents are all full mission partners of the Church, all disciples of Jesus Christ, all called to ministry in distinctive (and distinctively different!) ways; that these prophetic calls must be honored, encouraged, and supported by the wider church; that space must be made in and through a variety of formation opportunities to midwife life-changing encounters with the Holy One of Love.
Formation for Children, Youth and Families at Saint Philip’s begins with an acknowledgement of the intensely full and active religious life already present in each person from infancy. We seek to nurture and deepen that life through engagement with the living Jesus alive in Scripture, Sacrament and Community, encountering there God’s gentle but powerful desire to bring all people into loving relationship with God through Christ. Our mission is to know and love God with you and yours, and we look forward to getting to know you!
“Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the joy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient wisdom as we bring them up, that we may teach them to love whatever is just and true and good, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”
