graeme
for the ancient and decrepit of the church
Posted on: 10/11/2008 10:13
Way back when the world was young and I was in Sunday School at a little mission church in Montreal called Crystal Springs, i remember hearing of church groups which, I think, no longer exist.
One was the United Church Women's Year. Each member was, as I remember it, a Day. The officers of the lowest level were Weeks. Then there was a smaller number of Months. And the president was the Year. Does anybody remember this? Or what it did?
Then there was the Cradle Roll. I think this must have been the babies in the church. So I must have been a member. I have no recollection of our activities.
For Sunday school, there was a card each week with a Bible verse and a picture to illustrate it. We had to memorize the verse for the following week. I remember winning the prize for memorizing them every week for the whole year. It was a big book of Bible stories. Stanley, a muscular nine year old sitting beside me muttered, not entirely appropriately, I thought, "You lucky buggar." Stanley would later find his vocation as a thug, and something of an authority on the penal system.
Do you remember such groups? Do they still exist?
graeme
Comments
crazyheart
Posted on: 10/11/2008 10:42
Some churches still keep up the cradle roll, I think. On the week of their birth or baptism( I don't know which) they are sent a card from the church. It was a way to track children in the Church School.
crazyheart
Posted on: 10/11/2008 10:44
As we have learned that there are many different kind of learners - some learn by seeing or doing or reading. To be more inclusive of all children, I think memorization has been eliminated in many Christian Education Programs.
graeme
Posted on: 10/11/2008 15:05
and a good thing, too. i can't remember one of those verses I so laboriously memorized.
graeme
paradox3
Posted on: 10/11/2008 16:56
Graeme,
I can remember Cradle Roll, and I can remember little ones walking through a white gate when they were ready for Sunday School. (Maybe age 4 or so?)
My United Church upbringing did not include much memorization in Sunday School, although there was some of it in Explorers and CGIT.
I remember Messengers, which was pre-Explorers, and I even remember when it was called Mission Band. I kid you not.
crazyheart
Posted on: 10/11/2008 17:32
I remember that white gate too.
graeme
Posted on: 10/11/2008 19:44
Ah, CGIT, I forgot that. There was a group still in Montreal (at a Presbyterian church in Beaconsfileld as recently as five years ago.) The concept of CGIT was excellent, easily the leader of its generation of youth groups. There is an excellent article on it in Canadian Historical Review. Can't remember the year, but it must be about 1980. I taught a history of recreation course, and used CGIT as an example of what a youth group should be.
The mission band belongs to an earlier period when the churches (Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational) were heavier on termperance with children's groups that pledged never, ever to drink. I have some of the song books of the era, with hit tunes like Ontario Dry, Whoever Heard of a Drunken Cow?, and Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead. And, of course, Father, dear Father, come home with me now, the bell in the chapel strikes three...
graeme