This Spotlight issue is Part I of a two-part story about how the United Parish of Lunenburg, UCC meets the unique needs of its youth. This story is reprinted in the June/July issue of the Mass. Conference edition of the UCC Newspaper. For a free subscription to the bi-monthly printed paper, you can call 800-363-0575 or subscribe online at
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Like most every church within the United Church of Christ, the members of the United Parish of Lunenburg, UCC, have had several discussions on the topic of hospitality. They have addressed Open and Affirming concerns as well as developed ways to be more welcoming to visitors. But the Lunenburg Church members have taken that concept a step further and asked themselves how they can be more welcoming to the new children attending Church School, especially those who have learning or developmental issues.

“We were hospitable before,” says Ruth Ann White, Education Coordinator. “But the God is Still Speaking campaign helped make it a topic of discussion within the church so we could really crystallize our thoughts and develop concrete ways to be more welcoming. We discussed what it means to be welcoming, including toward children. We asked ourselves, ‘what can we do to make the new kid more comfortable?’ Then we asked our children that question and they offered ways they could help someone new to feel welcome and included.”

White attended a seminar sponsored by the Massachusetts Conference, which offered direction for developing a religious education curriculum and introduced the widely-used Workshop Rotation Model. The model, which explicitly takes into account that there are multiple kinds of intelligences and learning styles, promotes the teaching of major Bible stories and concepts through child-friendly multimedia workshops. Each story is taught over a 4-5 week cycle in an effort to develop lasting memory and understanding of the concepts.

Since the teachers agreed that children generally learn better with repetition and in a creative learning environment, they adopted the program for their own church. Participatory discussions were added, as well as workshops exploring a variety of media such as computers, dance, art, drama, song, games, storytelling, and crafts. Instead of going to the same classroom each week and discussing one particular Bible story, the children are now ushered to their assigned workshop and experience the same lesson four different ways in four weeks. There are adults, who act as ‘shepherds’ guiding them to the workshop and giving the children a sense of consistency and security.

“Children learn in their own special ways,” explains White, “and we think this method has a bigger impact in their learning and remembering of the lessons that are taught than when they were just being lectured.”

Editor’s Note: Read the next SPOTLIGHT issue to see how the United Parish of Lunenburg, UCC, took the Rotation Model a step further, recognizing its potential for work with children with special needs.

More information about the Workshop Rotation Model can be found at: http://www.rotation.org

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