Young people are
welcome at all parish activities here at Trinity.
We also offer a variety of
programs especially for young people throughout the year. Virtually every
Sunday morning of the year we provide an activity especially tailored for them,
and many Sundays there are multiple functions.
New opportunities
keep emerging as well. Here are a few of the opportunities we
offer our Trinity young people at present:
Our young people frequently participate throughout the year
in activities of
the Outreach Committee. For example,
the kids have enthustiastically taken over our annual Backpack Drive --
where we collect backpacks and school supplies for area kids who
otherwise would not be able to afford the necessities to go to school.
(Some of the middle schoolers did a short video
about this project, and you can watch it here.
Their video report to the Outreach Committee is on the
Outreach page.)
You will be glad to
know that Trinity is compliant
with the
Safe Church policies of the Diocese of Connecticut.
Please click on any activity listed above for more information, or just
scroll down this page.
We designate one Sunday per month
all year long as Young People's Sundays.
Our children and teens are the
ushers, acolytes, readers, and intercessors at the 10:30 AM Holy
Eucharist on each Sunday that is so designated. If you have children over the age of 7 and have
not yet spoken to Pastor Heidi or to our Sunday School Director, Terri
Brennan, about their participation, please contact
either of them as soon as possible to see how we can include them -- if
not this time, then the next time!! Often time is devoted during
Sunday morning activitiesl to preparation for these
Sundays.
(Often the young people help out even when it
isn't Young People's Sunday -- here's one young man helping the ushers
out with the offering).
Serving
as an acolyte is a tradition of long standing at Trinity.
Most of our young people participate as
acolytes at some time while they're with us.
Whether we have acolytes serving any particular Sunday depends on what
other activities are planned, and on the interest level of our current
crop of kids. We have a page about this program; please
CLICK HERE to see our Acolyte page.
Trinity's Christmas
Pageant was born during the dark days of World War II and has been a
tradition ever since.
Virtually all of our young people participate in it. For some our
young people,
it's been an annual activity for a decade or more, beginning as little angels,
serving as a member of the Holy Family,
and graduating as reader or Gospeller. Because it is such an
important tradition at Trinity, we have many pages devoted to it, one
for every year in this millennium, in fact!
CLICK HERE to start, and be prepared to be
involved for several minutes.
2013 is the tenth year of our Sports program for the community.
This takes the place of other Sunday morning activities for young people during the summer months and is
open to the entire community, not just those with a Trinity affiliation. During
the colder months, our sports activities supplement our usual schedule. We're
continually adding to this program -- we bowled one February morning,
participated in the Bishop's 5-K for Kids, we do
the CROP Walk each year, we skated this winter on Sunday afternoons at
Hotchkiss, and we went skiing at Otis Ridge, for example.
There are lots of pictures and more information on our
Sports page.
Not surprisingly,
most of our young people are also involved in sports outside of Trinity, in
soccer, hockey, ski jumping, downhill skiing, swimming, riding, basketball, softball, baseball, volleyball,
canoeing, crew -- well, if it's a sport that's played where there's a
young person from Trinity, the chances are that a young person from Trinity is playing it, and we as a
parish make every effort to support them in it!
Trinity's
Sunday morning
activities for young people meet most Sunday
mornings during the school year in our classrooms, but it
starts at 10:15 AM at the side altar in church.
More information is on our Sunday morning activities page.
You'll also see photos of
many of our other activities for young people there.
Trinity's
tradition of young people making music goes back more than a century to
the days when the parish actually had its own boy choir!
Today at
Trinity we
encourage the musical development and expression of our young people by highlighting
their talents in the
Christmas Pageant,
occasional other presentations by the Trinity Kids, and
on special occasions as a youth choir, as well as performing with the
adult choir. CLICK HERE
for a whole page about how our young people
make music
We're still a fairly small parish, so we don't
have a confirmation class every year.
When we do have one, we usually
incorporate students from nearby
Indian
Mountain School and
Hotchkiss.
In 2010 we we sent our three confirmands to join with five teens gathered
from four
other parishes in our area -- the first time we have undertaken
a group effort in this regard.
See a page
about our
most recent
confirmation class. Or,
read some additional information about
Confirmation for Young
People at Trinity Lime Rock.
Our Young People tackle projects for the community with
imagination and enthusiasm
This is a major interest of our young people at the present time.
Recently they took over the parish Backpack Project, where we
collect backpacks for needy area kids to take back to school.
They did a great job -- here's a short video in which two delegates from
the Sunday School presented a report of their results to our Outreach
Committee.
...what we do
Trinity Lime Rock is a
relatively small parish, but we are a community that is (and has always been) particularly welcoming
to young people.
Young people at
Trinity have a series of opportunities for experiences at church in
many contexts in addition to the traditional
Sunday School
classroom.
Through our efforts to involve our young people in all aspects of
our church life, we try to make
many of our activities for young people a "teaching moment"
-- This applies whether it's
Sunday morning activities, rehearsing for the
Christmas Pageant,
participating in
Summer Sports or
Winter Sports (a new addition), getting involved in an
community service project, or singing with the Junior
Choir or serving as an
acolyte or a youth usher or a reader on Sunday mornings.
Work, school, travel,
extracurricular activities, sports,
music lessons,
Scouts,
riding lessons, all
can combine to make family life hectic and disconnected. For most of us, in
fact, Sunday
is the only day of the week we have an opportunity to be a real family.
Church is a wonderful place to be part both of our own families and the
larger Trinity family at the same time.
It's for this reason
that we make a real effort to combine our week-to-week
Sunday School curriculum --
as well as the special events and
activities mentioned above -- with our worship.
Many of our older young
people are involved in specific
worship roles. Our Sunday School joins the main worship service
for the Holy Eucharist each Sunday (and leads much of the worship on one Sunday of each month
during the school year), and, on other special Sundays, we encourage our young
people to sit with their families or with their classmates and friends during worship.
People ask whether
it's realistic to expect young people to "sit through" church, even on
major Sundays of the church year, like Easter. Yes, we recognize
that young people are not likely to have the same focus on
the spoken word as adults do, nor the same attention span. In some
churches this would be a problem. However, as Episcopalians, our
church is a liturgical church -- which means there is constant,
predictable activity, with little chance for children to become bored. If
you have ever been a part of the celebration and pageantry of an
Episcopal service, you will recognize this aspect of our worship.
We also provide our young people who are participating in the worship
service
with materials related to the service that appeals to their interests and
is appropriate for their
developmental stages. And, we are are always very much open to
suggestions for improvement.
But, most
important, we are always glad to
welcome young people of all ages at Trinity. We know that many of our young people are not in the area every weekend,
and our innovating Sunday School program in which we create a video each
term helps us welcome
newcomers, visitors, and those who cannot regularly be here without disrupting
the rigid lesson plan you might find in a traditional
Sunday School class. Yet, as flexible as we are, our
Sunday morning activities
still impart the basics of Christian education -- and the young people have a
great time in the process!
Of course, Trinity's
facility provides us with unrivaled
flexibility for a parish our size, both indoorsand out. And young people have
plenty of opportunity to be with -- and have fun with -- their peers
in Sunday morning activities, after the service, during
hospitality hour, and when
involved in our youth activities. By the way, Trinity is compliant
with the
Safe Church policies of the Diocese of Connecticut.
So,
even if you are "just looking," or only in the area for a
short time, or not sure that church really is something you want to make
a commitment to -- or, like many of our families, simply unable to make the time commitment regular Sunday
morning Sunday School attendance entails -- we encourage you to visit us at Trinity any Sunday.
As a small parish, every young person here is an individual, and their interests and
their preferences are always considered whenever we plan programs for
young people.
By the way, we
welcome WEEKENDERS!!
We're very happy to welcome
young people to Trinity and our programs even
if you don't live here full-time and can't attend regularly. Lots of our
young people
come "to the country" only irregularly or occasionally -- and the largest
parts of their lives are spent elsewhere. And we
understand that family and other obligations can make it impossible to
always attend even when families are here for a weekend.
People sometimes wonder if they (and
their children) will be
accepted if they don't live here or don't attend every Sunday. Will you feel like
you're REALLY welcome? The answer is "yes, definitely".
Take a look around!
“Let the children come to me and do not stop them,
because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Offering
Companionship Along the Way
