Christian Education

Christian Education at Ascension – Learning, Growing, Serving

Whatever your age, you can learn and grow and serve through Ascension’s Christian education programs.

Let’s say you are 3 or 4 years old. You like stories and songs and colored paper. The stories you hear and songs you learn will spring from scripture. One of your activities, young as you are, will be to make holiday cards and get-well greetings for elderly members of the parish.

Or perhaps you are in elementary school. Now you are older and can learn more directly from the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible. You still like stories – who doesn’t? – and you will hear lively ones at Children’s Chapel. You will learn songs there, and sometimes during a service you will sing them for the congregation. The congregation will applaud. That is a promise.

Or maybe the time has come for junior high school, then senior high. You have grown in faith. Your teachers will welcome your questions, such as this from one young man: “Will you teach us how to meditate?” As you prepare for Confirmation, you will have an adult mentor. You will like your mentor. That is a promise. Your youth group will reflect on Christ’s message of compassion and inclusion and will act upon it. You may embark on a 30-hour fast to spark a food drive. You may pack meals to go to a disaster area. For six weeks in the summer, you may spend your mornings picking up trash, volunteering at a food shelf, or helping elderly or disabled people to wash their windows, paint their walls or dig their gardens.

If you’re in Elementary or High School, check out Music Camp. It’s a wonderful experience for you to learn and share your gifts of music with others! Ask the CE Director or the Office Staff for more information.

Or the day dawns when you wake up and aha! you are an adult. Your spiritual journey will go on, as you discover more about what it means to be a Christian and an Episcopalian. You may choose to join others for a quiet day or a retreat. Sometimes, you may meet in the evening for a simple supper before Bible study. Other times, you may gather in the parish hall on a Sunday morning, coffee cup in hand, to be inspired by those who send books to Africa, or who help women “Dress for Success” as they prepare to search for a job. And you? You will see many ways to keep on serving others in Jesus’ name, both within the church and far beyond its walls.

You will be one in a company of believers – learning, growing, serving.