Parent Meeting – Cliff Notes

Thank you to all of the parents who came out last night to our Parent Meeting. For those of you who were not able to join us and those who might want a refresher, we thought we would utilize this new communication space to share some quick notes.

• Sunday Morning Changes
  • Family Worship Sundays will take place on any fifth Sunday that occurs during the year. This means that approximately once a quarter, your children PreK and older [think those who have class in the lower level] will join you for the entirety of service. These Sundays are an opportunity for just about our entire church body to come together and worship our amazing God together. Family Worship Sundays are also an excellent training ground for children as they learn how be a part of a worship service. It helps to ease the transition they face as fifth graders bit by bit they can spend time watching and modeling you and others in the congregation.
  • Every Sunday children PreK and older will be joining their parents in the sanctuary for worship through music, prayer and scripture reading. This means that after Sunday School you will need to go to your child’s classroom to pick them up and bring them to the sanctuary with you. Pastor Stephen will dismiss the children from the sanctuary at the end of the final song. At this point, one of our dedicated CloughKids leaders will walk them down to CloughKids worship where they will continue learning.

• Wednesday Evening Changes
  • Starting 9/1/21 at least one parent must remain on campus during our Wednesday evening services / AWANA. This is a safety measure that we are taking to protect your children.
  • This year during AWANA we will be offering elective classes following handbook and object lesson time. These electives will run in four, eight week sessions during the year. At the beginning of each session, each child kindergarten and older will choose their elective for the entirety of the session. Elective classes are a way for us to create multi-generational relationships which are a key factor in helping our children feel as though they belong within our church family. We are still in need of some elective teachers. If you have an interest or a hobby that you could teach to children for thirty minutes each Wednesday evening for eight weeks, we’d love to have you join us. We know that many of you have interests, talents and hobbies such as sewing, gardening, music, science, cooking and an incredible variety beyond what we can name. Let’s share these with the children in our church.
  • This year the church is going to gift each of your children a handbook to take home. We ask that your children bring these books with them to club every week. By sending the books home, it should be easier for families to spend a little bit of time during the week to work on memorizing scripture and maybe even completing some of the Bible study sections.

• Family Worship
  • Sunday morning and Wednesday night should not be the only moments of scripture reading and discussion families experience each week. Deuteronomy 6 makes it clear that God has called families and more specifically dads to lead their families in regular reading and discussion of scripture. We encourage you to be having these scheduled and intentional conversations regularly.
  • Family Worship kits similar to those from last Christmas and Easter will now become a part of the regular rhythm here at Clough. We plan to create three or four one month kits for your family each year. Though these kits will come with some regularity, they are not to be the only times of leading your family in worship together.
  • If you are looking for support as you lead your family, please know that the staff at Clough would love to talk with you. We may know of someone who is doing what you would like to do with your family or someone who has dealt with a similar situation. We also may have a resource such as a book, blog or podcast that we can recommend.

• Communication
  • CloughKids is looking to streamline our communication efforts. We will now primarily use the following methods:
    • CloughKids Blog – If you are anything like me [Kandis] texts and emails quickly get buried and you don’t get to read, respond and act on them as you would like; so, to aid you in finding all things CloughKids I [and possibly some of the rest of the leaders] will be posting here for you. Each week we will be posting the topic/title of the lesson from Sunday as well as the key text, some follow up questions, and occasionally some prayer starters, songs or activities you could use as a family. From time to time, we also hope to add some other content to support you as you lead your family. I’m planning to bookmark the site for easy access. You can find the front page of the blog here. We hope you find this helpful.
    • CloughKids Remind – Remind is our text messaging system. CloughKids plans to utilize this service each week to share the topic from Sunday School, point you to the blog for family discussion questions and to announce some of our events and activities. If you do not receive a text message each Sunday afternoon at about 2pm, you are not a part of our system. Sign up for free by clicking here.
    • CloughKids Quarterly – Our quarterly newsletter will continue in both print and digital form. It is our hope that this newsletter helps your family as you plan each season.
    • CloughKids Facebook Page – The content on our Facebook page is going to change a bit but we will still use it for pointing to the blog, pointing to the new blog and sharing new resources!

Whew! I think that is the short version of the meeting. If you have any questions or would like to talk about what this looks like for your family, please reach out. I love spending time talking with the families at Clough.

-Kandis