Music, games, prayer and story-telling. These were the four elements that made up an evening for Sunday School leaders held in Holy Trinity Church, Rathmines, Dublin. Fifty-five leaders attended the training evening on 17th October run jointly by the Sunday School Society and the Methodist Children’s Department. Rev. Anne Taylor, Children’s Ministry Officer with the Church of Ireland Sunday School Society and Judith Rainey, Children’s Ministry Co-ordinator with the Methodist Church shared the evening.The evening began with activity as the leaders were taught songs that they could use with their groups. They were encouraged to use music as there are now many excellent CD’s available – from Tots Praise for the younger children to Come On Let’s Celebrate by John Hardwick for the older children.Games are a great way of helping the children to relax, get to know each other as well as a great means for introducing the theme of the session. The leaders were introduced to a selection of games that need little equipment and could be adapted to the space and time that each group has available.Rev. Anne Taylor spoke on the area of prayer and explained that children are ‘naturals’ when it comes to prayer. She went on to say that often it is our own inhibitions and not the children’s that stop us from really helping the children to pray. Leaders can be self-conscious about prayer because they have never been encouraged in their own prayer life and feel the need to use lots of words in prayer. Rather we should be helping children explore prayer through their own words, thoughts and experiences. Anne went onto to give some examples of how prayer life within the children’s groups could be enriched through some simple exercises, for example, using pictures, wool and prayer boxes.Judith Rainey rounded up the evening giving some advice on how to teach the bible story. She advised that it was good to look at the different translations – Good News Bible is often easier to teach memory verses from – and also to make the story come alive we should think about using our imaginations and senses more e.g. “even the winds and waves obeyed him”. Judith finished by talking about using modern stories to teach the bible message.The leaders had time to browse in the Sunday School Society Bookshop and we thank Olive and Janette for their time. We also thank the Rector and Parish of Holy Trinity for being so helpful in letting us use their premises.
