SUNDAY SCHOOL
2005-2006
As we begin the new School Year, we extend to all parents, teachers and children of our Parish a warm welcome with best wishes and blessing for the new ecclesiastical and academic year 2005-2006.
Christ our Lord commanded His disciples to teach the faith to all nations “Go therefore, and make disciples…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you (Matt.28:19-20)”.With these words of our Lord we have prepared and set our observes as follows, which we hope they will receive the full cooperation of all concerned.
Our children must grow in the Orthodox Faith which expresses authentically the fullness of the Christian Gospel as taught by Christ and preached unchanged by our Orthodox Church throughout the centuries. We hope that through their participation in the Divine Liturgy, the Religious Education and the Religious atmosphere and the constant support of the Home, the above objectives will be accomplished.
We believe that these presuppositions must work together in order to be able to give a total picture of Christ and His Church. Certainly no home can do the job without the Church or the Church without the Home. Without the home religious education becomes mere knowledge without true meaning.
The home is the place where it all begins. The children inherit their characteristics they develop habits, likes and dislikes, their love and faith in Christ Jesus. At home they learn what is right and wrong as well as what brings them to Christ. The Church is the blessed ground. It is the environment in which our children learn about God. Learn to speak with God and learn to leave with God. The Divine Liturgy and Scriptures play the most important role in their lives, because through the Scriptures God speaks to them while with the Divine Liturgy they can experience the ultimate union with Him.
The Religious Education on the other hand offers them the knowledge to come to know God’s will and what is required to fulfill that will. Religious Education offers the knowledge that can help our children learn from the past, build on the present and hope for the future.
Through Religious Education the young student will learn of God’s plan for mankind, how our forefathers fell away from God, how God continued to love them and why. He came to us through Christ Jesus to offer us salvation. How the Apostles laid the foundation of the Church. Finally religious education will equip our children with the tools to take the Scriptures, Prayer, knowledge and Liturgical Life and fuse them into their personal life.