From 3 to 93...

Earlier this week I most definitely ventured beyond the comfort of my training room. Every few months I take a turn leading the local Sunday school and this week I was it...

I decided the Diamond Jubilee would be a good day to choose and had a few ideas that I was confident would work with the kids. Talking to the minister about how we could make the Jubilee Sunday special for the children, she suggested it would be nice to hold the session as part of the main service – effectively I would now be doing the sermon slot!

I decided to call in back up and get my husband to help out – two heads being better than one-and we spent about a week discussing how it would look. One of the challenges was making our content relevant to a huge age range. This is tricky enough in a normal Sunday school session – the littlest kids are 3 and the oldest are 11 so we often have to have more than one activity available to keep them all interested. However, we now had to factor in a congregation of about 80 people, most of whom are retired!

We played to our strengths, with me taking on the interactive sections with the kids and hubbie devising a factual section that would interest the older ones. It went really well! We had to use a handheld microphone which felt daunting to begin with but it was the only way to make sure everyone could hear. Once I got used to the way that sounded it was actually really useful because I felt that I could move around and ask people questions rather than standing still behind the lectern. 

The kids were great – luckily they had been learning about the Jubilee at school and were ready to answer questions about the Queen.  I interviewed a couple of members of the congregation about how it felt to do the same job for a long time- we found a teacher of 40 years and a farmer of 60 years. Hubbie’s section about the Queen’s day and her huge support of the Commonwealth was really interesting and he’d researched some of the overseas visits the Royal family have made this year.  We then tried to draw conclusions about being a Christian and that being part of God’s family was similar to being part of the Commonwealth family.

We got some great feedback from the congregation – they enjoyed seeing the kids in church and doing something a little different with different faces. For me it was great to work in a different environment with different age groups from the ones I see at work. Using a microphone was odd but very useful – I’d like to try it again to see if I can improve my delivery. It was also good to work as a team with hubbie – it took away some of the pressure from me and meant that the congregation had a different voice to listen to.

Overall a positive experience, we’ll see if we get asked back!