CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES

Check out all our Children, Youth, and Family Formation Videos on our YouTube Channel

Children
Children are a vital part of our faith and community. We strive to make services and offerings family-friendly. When we are in the building, we encourage families with young children to sit toward the front where it is easier to see and hear. Some Sundays we ask the children present to come up for Children's Homilies or to see some part of the service. We encourage them to sing hymns, pray, and join their voices to congregational responses in worship. We expect that children will wiggle and run around, maybe sometimes even fuss a bit. That is expected and even welcomed. If you need to get up and move around because your child is restless, we won't mind or be distracted, but we will be hoping that you feel comfortable coming back after the chaos has passed. We want to be in a community where children feel deeply, consistently, and reflexively that they are loved and welcome. This is among the most important ways we can live out our faith in Jesus.

A Note About Children and Youth Formation
​​Many parents have children in more than one age group. In the world before Covid, basically everything happened simultaneously on Sunday mornings. That was easy for anyone available on Sunday mornings. We didn’t worry about online anything, social distancing, or even figuring out what building we’d be in (most things were in Zabriskie). The pandemic has brought about many changes. We’ve dramatically diversified what Children, Youth, and Families offerings we have. We’ve tried to meet as many needs as possible.

The offerings for different age groups are meant to support you and not burden you with more stuff to do. We're going to continue to make sure whatever we do on Sunday will be appropriate for a much broader age range than we have in the past. We’ll livestream as much as we can. We’ll make accommodations for any parent who wants to continue to mask and socially distance their children—always respecting your decisions about your child’s health. 

We also don't want to add to your stress. The balance between offering enough to be helpful without overwhelming/overburdening everyone continues to take some trial and error. If you end up with questions, comments, concerns, or just have feedback about any of this please reach out to Fr Randy at ralexander@icoh.net or 703-370-6555.

Sermons for Children
​​Most first Sundays of the month we offer a children’s homily during announcements at the 10:30 service. This is a lovely way to invite and encourage children and families to come to a service more oriented to their specific worship needs. It is never in conflict with Godly Play or Sunday School. Children need to know that our worship spaces are for them. We regularly make sure they know we’re thinking about what their experience of worship is like.
We also have a "Children's Chapel" especially for children and families; it is a time of prayer and learning about the regular worship service that follows. It’s a delightful why we worship this way for the whole family. Come check it out!

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Nursery
​The nursery is fully staffed during the Forum Hour and 10:30 Worship services—with dedicated nursery rooms for both Zabriskie and Immanuel Chapels.  Supervised by Gilma Balcarcel, a parishioner and paid staff member with over 15 years of experience, we provide each clean, safe and nurturing environments for children. 
We can also make the nursery available during the 8am service by request. During the pandemic, even when we’ve had the nursery it has not been used at all during this time, so we have moved to a week-by-week basis. But we are thrilled to offer it to anyone who asks, with no hesitation or reservation. (We do know Rite I Eucharist isn’t every nursery-aged child’s favorite service.)

3-7 Year Olds
​​ Our formation offering for 3-7 year olds is the renowned Godly Play curriculum (https://www.godlyplayfoundation.org/). Children have an innate sense of the presence of God, and we help them explore their faith through story. They gain religious language and enhance their spiritual experience though wonder and play. This liturgy of storytelling, prayer, and reflection is normally offered as a children's alternative to the first half of the 9 am service at Zabriskie Chapel. During this program year we will offer it weekly online with supplemental materials, so that your family can pray and talk about some of your beliefs at your own pace. The format might be because of the pandemic, but also we believe that your children learn more about God and what it means to be a loving, compassionate, forgiving person from YOU than they ever will at church. So we want you to have tools to prompt those conversations and wonderings.

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Preschool-5th Grade
Children between preschool and 5th Grade are normally invited to participate in Sunday School. But we haven’t had in-person Sunday School in two years. We’ve had videos most weeks, Godly Play has stretched their age requirements, and we’ve introduced the Joy Mass family service which is amazing for the whole family—but mostly designed as a Sunday School alternative.

​We would love to hear from you about what Children’s formation and fellowship you’d like and be willing to bring your child to! ​

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Middle School and High School
The Episcopal Youth Community (EYC) is our formation program for all teenagers. There can be some splitting up into different age groups within the context of EYC when the teenagers we have warrant it. Some conversations are very different at twelve than they are at eighteen. 
But our primary mode is Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers together, learning from one another, and forming friendships and bonds that sometimes outlast their identification with Immanuel as “home.” 
During the program year the EYC meets regularly on Sundays. There is an ordinary format that walks the line between formation and fellowship most Sundays. We have, at times, paused EYC entirely to focus on—for instance—our first Confirmation class in three years due to Covid. But we’ve made time for fellowship, and that’s most of what summertime is.
Clergy and the EYC Leaders communicate with everyone primarily through eBlasts and announcements. If you’d like to receive texts directly about EYC events, please email Fr. Randy at ralexander@ icoh.net.

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Pre-YC
When there is a critical mass of children in this age-group we’ll definitely have formation and fellowship just for them. For the time being, we would love to invite anyone in this age group to come to the Children's Chapel and even participate in leading worship at any service as an acolyte! 

CONTACTS

Questions on Godly Play?  Email Sarah Glassco at glasscos@gmail.com

Questions on Sunday School?  Contact Fr. Randy at ralexander@icoh.net 

For questions on EYC, contact  Carrie Cuddy at carriecuddy@verizon.net . 

For questions on PreYC, contact Rob Johnson at rajohnson3@gmail.com.

For questions on overall Children, Youth and Family programs, contact Rector Rev. Randy Alexander at ralexander@icoh.net or 703-370-6555.
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PYM:  Parish Youth Ministries

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