Children and Youth
Sunday School
Our Sunday School serves children and young people from age 2 - 6th grade. Lessons for each grade level are based on the church's lessons and gospel for the day. The lessons and activities are age and developmentally appropriate, featuring many hands-on activities which help support the theme for each Sunday.
Among are goals are:
• To ensure that children learn Bible stories based on Lutheran faith
• To expand the cultural context of the Bible and Christianity through understanding our relationship with people around the world
• To engage the congregation in intergenerational activities
• To teach social justice as an outgrowth of faith
• To build a strong child-centered Sunday School community
Each Sunday School class is supported by two teachers, the Service Learning Coordinator, the Community-Building Leader and the church's Music Director. In addition, there is an Artist-in-Residence, Media Production Support Team and Technical Support Team. We are blessed to have so many adult members of the congregation who offer to support the children.
Some of the annual highlights of Sunday School include: Intergeneration blanket-tying project for homeless shelters, the Christmas musical, the Junkyard Praise Band, the Seder Meal for all families, the Ukrainian Easter Egg project and the Pentecost Kite-Flying project, honoring the winds of the Holy Spirit.
Sunday School begins promptly at 9 a.m. and ends at 10:15 a.m. There is so much to learn, so much to do that we can hardly cover our curriculum in that time!
Please plan to join us in September. We promise an exciting, educational and comfortable environment for your children.
Judy Grauer, Sunday School Coordinator
Sunday School Kite Flying on Vimeo.
Youth Ministry-VIBE VIBE is an acronym meaning Value, Invest, Build, and Equip youth.
VIBE congregations collaborate in confirmation and youth activities.
Founded by St. Paul-Reformation and a few other congregations, VIBE Urban Youth Ministries began in the fall of 2000 when several local youth leaders in St. Paul believed that urban congregations and their youth and families could do more together than apart.
With the partnership of the Saint Paul Area Synod and their pastors, VIBE offers activities for all ages including high school youth meetings, family activities, and summer camps. Youth ministry in the city of St. Paul was changed for good!
VIBE Website: www.vibeyouth.org
Confirmation
The Lutheran church offers a process for young persons, usually in junior high, to meet with pastors and lay teachers to learn more in depth about their Christian faith. St. Paul-Reformation provides this opportunity in two ways. First, youth in 7th and 8th grades gather at the church every Sunday morning during the education hour for a session of discussion and learning. Second, through the VIBE program, on the first Sunday afternoon each month youth in 6th to 8th grades meet together with youth from other urban Lutheran churches in St. Paul to do service projects, have thematic learning sessions, worship together and get to know youth from a variety of cultural and racial backgrounds. This program is organized by the pastors and staff of eight Lutheran congregations in the urban core of Saint Paul, in a collaboration with VIBE Youth Ministries. At the end of these two years of instruction, the young persons participate in a liturgy of Confirmation and an Affirmation of Baptism during a Sunday morning service.
Basic Objectives of the Confirmation Program:
- To assist youth in their spiritual journey in relationship to God, other people and other creatures and all created things.
- To provide basic understandings of Christian faith as a basis for decision-making and the living of life in a responsible and enjoyable way.
- To encourage commitment to one's faith and life and the deepening of a young person's identity with the Body of Christ as we know it particularly in the Lutheran church.
- To encourage and provide opportunity for participation in the life of the congregation and to experience ways of giving service and justice to people in the community and organizations which serve persons with special needs, locally and beyond.
- To give youth familiarity with and practical use of the Bible, the Small Catechism of Martin Luther and the Lutheran Book of Worship.
- To offer opportunity for youth to make a personal affirmation of faith through the Rite of Confirmation.
Contact: Pastor Anita Hill at (651) 224-3371