www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization ECF over for the summer

gtJC!

Hello all,

Now that ECF is over until September, what are some ideas to keep the parish children interested in coming to church?

Not that there was super attendance during the ECF school year... Sigh! Given the attendance rate and that we will be down a teacher nevt year Marya proposed the idea of maybe a one room school house set up (with break out groups geared by age of course)... Any helpful ideas? It sounds ok to me. This year the high-schoolers had the best attendance... Many of my 1st & 2nd graders poorly attended this year.

Please submit positive and constructive solutions.

Toodles & God bless, sUSAn

Susie,

You might try contacting the Romanian Eparchy of Canton, Ohio. They have, for a number of years, used a Byzantine version of the Christ the Good Shepherd Catechesis - based on the Montessori method. There may be some ideas you can glean from them.

Just a thought...

Gordo

You don't need a traditoinal ECF lesson from a book. Here are some suggestions:

1. After liturgy (during coffee/social hour), have the younger ones draw placemats for an assisted living facility. You can get a package (25) of colored placemats from the party store. The reverse is white. Use the Epistle or Gospel reading and re-read it to them then have the children draw what they remember. Assistted living facilities LOVE this idea. Or, do a craft based on the Epistle/Gospel reading. Oriental Trading has some new "Vacation Bible School" crafts.

2. For the blessing of fruits, get some parents and go on a field trip to the grocery store to get canned fruits to donate to a food pantry.

3. For Dormition, make paper tissue flowers, or fimo (or other oven-baked clay) flower bookmarks along with some chidlren's books and take to the Children's Crisis Center, or other shelter.

4. Make a field trip to a nearby monastery or mission.

5. Do some alternative lessons after liturgy inside church for all the kids; i.e., learn about the Apostles, choirs of angels, etc. This will require some resarch on your part. For the Apostles lesson, we used a children's inflatable little pool and had them go "fishing" (use a dowel, some string with a magnet on the end, and paper fish with a paper clip on one side) for each of the Apostles, then we talked about each of their special gifts.

6. Meet at someone's house and watch a movie (age-appropriate, of course) discuss it over snacks. My favorite is "Wide Awake".

Hope this is helpful.

Susan,

How are you doing? We haven't emailed in ages!

Anyway, I'm not sure what to do about your little ones -- I would figure the parents play a large role in that. However, I'm going to continue to work with my teens over the summer. A few ideas I had was a trip to Mt. St. Macrina to help ready for the Otpust, and we're going to have them design a web page for the church. I'm really excited about that one, because it will force them to research the church's history and write it all up for the site, and to delve into the iconography and liturgy. Make them learn without realizing they're learning.

Good luck!

marc

Fantastic solutions! =o)

I already spoke to Most rev. Bishop John Michael about the catechesis of the good shepherd & I will write to my friend Fr. Voida.

Definately will use those great activities like placemats. Wow!


Marc-I'm such a slacker of a friend. I apologize. I'll write you soon. In short I've been laying low - still sulking. But I keep making myself smile and face forward. Its up & down of course. I bought myself a pet fish.


Thanks for all the really GREAT solutions. You all are super!


Toodles & God bless, sUSAn

I forgot to add, this summer I've decided I'm going to work with my daughter and the other 2 Girl Scouts from our parish on the religious award (they're 9th graders). We don't have a program in the Byzantine Catholic church, but in the past we've used (with permission, of course) the Orthodox program. There is a Boy Scout program for the Byzantine Catholics. Anyone wanting to discuss this further can send me a private email.

Mrs H,

I work with the EOCS (Eastern Orthodox Committee for Scouting) on a regular basis regarding their awards. I just want to remind you for the Orthodox awards that there is a retreat requirement that has to be met and signed off on.

For the Orthodox Scouts, at least in the Northeast we coordinate that with a retreat-camporee covering one weekend each year for both Boy and Girl Scouts. You may check through your local council if the Catholic scouts run a retreat annually in your area. If not there may be a way of working through this requirement by some sort of special waiver or modification.

I hope this helps you.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

I posed your question to the ladies at church and they came up with some more:

-- Work with the "One Good Sock" organization (www.onegoodsock.org [onegoodsock.org]) and collect socks (new or used clean) and underwear (only new) for those in need.

-- Adopt the spouse/family of a military person and do little chores for them (mow the lawn, etc.)

-- After liturgy, gather the kids and work on the "Build an Iconostasis" or "Build a Church" from the OCEC people.

-- Enlarge a page to poster size from one of the Byzantine coloring books (around $3 at the office store) and form teams and with sidewalk chalk on the sidewalk "race" to see who can complete their team's picture first.

-- Use the ECF books for Qs & As and create a Jeopardy-like game.

-- Do a "bingo" but instead of numbers, fill the blanks with items like "Find the parishioner who speaks Slovak (or Italian, or Lebanese)"; "Find the parishioner who puts the flowers on the Tetrapod" etc. This will get the kids to interact with the "older" people (lol) -- they love that!! Don't forget the prizes (McDonald's or Dairy Queen coupons work well!)

-- Have a talent show after liturgy -- prepared silly monologs, singing, playing musical instruments, dance, gymnastics. Tie it in with the Parable.

-- Teach them all to crochet or knit (many famous stars like Hillary Swank and Julia Roberts do!) and make basic 8" squares. Someone can connect them together to make a blanket for the homeless shelter.

-- Learn to make the Prosphora -- keep it simple.

-- Make an area on the bulletin board to put photos of churches they've visited while on vacation.

-- Use the directory on this website's homepage and write to a sister church, attention ECF director, far away from yours and set up pen pals.

You know, I really like that idea! Remember the kids' book "Flat Stanley"? (Flat Stanley went on all sorts of adventures and some schools have the students mail out a "Flat Stanley" to relatives and friends and have them create a journal of his adventures.) Who wants to Pen Pal with the kids from my church (Gilbert, AZ)?? We can create mascots and have the kids send them out and chronicle their Christian adventures and send them back to the home parishes??

Mrs. H.( After liturgy, gather the kids and work on the "build an Iconostasis" or "Build a
Church" from the OCEC people)

I have a parishioner home schooling her eight kids and would like to do this project with her kids--could also use it in our ECF classes. Could I get an example somehow and what is OCEC?

Fr Anthony-- Same person above would like to know this" I have tried unsuccessfully in the past to get more info about the Byzantine Religious Emblem program for Boy Scouts, but I have had no luck. I know they have one, and I would love to get it. Do you know where I can purchase the stuff from? I should be able to get a leader booklet, and then two scout booklets. Also I came across a list of 3 books that I researched to get for school/ECF for the kids last year, but I only have titles, and no supplier. The titles are: Reaching Out: Our Call to Minister---- What Would You Do? Making Your Way in Today's World---God's Angels, Our Friends."

Can you help or anyone else? Big John of Anchorage.

Dear John,

In answer to your question, there is a Byzantine Catholic Scout Award. I went to the Catholic Committee For Scouting website and it is listed on there. I am linking the full requirements for it below. I hope that this helps in some way.

Light is Life Scout Award requirements [nccs-bsa.org]

Also you can contact them through their website and I am sure they can help you.

National Catholic Committee on Scouting Web Site [nccs-bsa.org]

Well, back to baking prosphora .

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Glory to Jesus Christ! OCEC is the Orthodox Christian Education Commission. Address and phone is:

OCEC
PO Box 1051
Syracuse, NY 13201-1051
(800) 464-2744
(315-428-1566
FAX -- 315-422-1893

The Build Your Own Church and Build Your Own Iconostasis are "books" made of card stock with all the pieces of the church, Preparation Table, Holy Altar, etc. You cut them out and put them together (Tab "A" into Slot "A" ...) They are fun for all ages starting around 2nd grade on up. I don't know how to show you an example. We have one my class (5th graders) put together last year. Can we post photos here? (Can you tell I'm a little computer technically-slow? lol) I would venture to guess the finished pieces are around 15-18" in diameter once put together. They actually become a church building or iconostasis -- a great reference and visual education tool, especially if a child is a kinesthetic (seeing and doing) learner.

There are also Scouting Awards from the Orthodox Church for ALL levels of scouting. You can obtain the books from

PRAY (Programs of Religious Activities with Youth)
8520 Mackenzie Rd (PO Box 6900
St. Louis, MO 63123
(314) 638-1017

I hope this helps.

These titles are available from OCEC. See the above post.

Both of our sons are Eagle Scouts. The youngest one accomplished the 'Light is Life Award'. It is very good. We used Seaton Holy Schooling and Archmadrite -humm, forgetting his name - reviewed his project and materials and accepted it as part of his religious education for the year. It is a very through program.

I got the materials from the Roman Catholic Diocese, their youth/teen department ( can't remember the name of the department either ) But, they always have a religious awards person working the Alatari Dai for Scouts, so it was easy to obtain from there.

Father Anthony---Mrs. H. and everyone else with your excellent contributions. The lady said she went on this site and enjoyed the tremendous amount of information. I am sure that not only will she get something out of this but think of the many others that this has opened up their eyes to this. THANK YOU, ALL. big john