Dear Friends
One of our core spaces for faith development as Anglicans is our immersion in sacramental worship. We know this as adults, but often forget this when it comes to our children. And we are surprised when our children in the suburban context often wander off as teenagers and young adults, despite their lack of exposure to sacramental worship in their formative years. At St Andrew's we offer the following opportunities for our children and Teenagers immersion in worship:
Morning Family Services
Our next quarterly morning Family Service takes place this Sunday, 21 June 2015, at 09:00. We recognise that it is difficult to keep younger children engaged for an extended period of worship, but really do encourage parents to persevere! Our older children and Teenagers are encouraged to directly participate with the readings and prayers, and the younger children to have time out of the pews by coming forward to sit in front for the participative sermon, and later in the service to join us around the altar for the Eucharistic prayer where we consecrate the bread and wine. Parents are also welcome to come forward where younger children may be anxious to do so on their own.
Evening Family-focused Services
We offer a monthly evening Family-focused Service for families with Teenagers or young adults who wish to worship together. Church Council has agreed that these now take place on the 4th Sunday of each month, and our next Family-focused Service will take place on Sunday 28 June 2015 at 18:30. School holidays, exams and long-weekends do prove a challenge to these events, and again some perseverance is required! Again, opportunity for our young people to be directly involved in readings, prayers and sidepersons duties, is offered. We seek to keep this service more informal in nature. Refreshments (Pizza!) are offered on the lawn after the service.
Archdeaconry Youth Services
At Archdeaconry level (we belong to the Archdeaconry of Rondebosch, which includes Rondebosch, Claremont, Newlands, and Protea) the involvement of our youth is a concern for all our Churches. We at St Andrew's will host the next Archdeaconry Youth Service on Sunday 26 July 2015 at 18:30. This will combine with our July Family-focused Service, and it will be great to have our youth and families participating, please.
Youth Event
Raymond Quinlan is organising a hike for our Teenagers up Plattekloof Gorge to the top of Table Mountain on Saturday 27 June 2015, 09:00 for 09:30. He would be keen for parents or other members of the Parish to join him for this. Raymond can be contacted on 0824277174 or raymondquinlan@hotmail.com if you are interested in participating.
Blessings
Mark
