Gather 'Round chosen as name for new curriculum.

Gather 'Round: Hearing and Sharing God's Good News, was chosen as the name for a new Brethren and Mennonite Sunday school curriculum by an advisory group that met April 14-17 in Elgin, Ill. The group discussed goals for the curriculum as well as theological and educational foundations, a theme scripture, Bible outlines, print pieces, printing technology, electronic media, and marketing.

The name implies "wholeness and heart," said Gwen Gustafson-Zook, a representative of Mennonite Church USA. The group envisioned the name as a call to Christians to gather around the Word, around the table of the Lord, at church and at home, and around the world in service and evangelism. The name also calls up images of Jesus gathering children to him.

The curriculum is a cooperative venture of the Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Church Canada, and Mennonite Church USA through Brethren Press and Mennonite Publishing Network (MPN). Plans call for Gather 'Round to be available in the fall 2006 as a successor to the highly successful curriculum Jubilee: God's Good News. The last quarter of Jubilee will be available in the summer 2006.

Anna Speicher, project director, emphasized that Gather 'Round will not simply be a reworking of Jubilee but will build on Jubilee's strong points. Foundational to both curricula is "respect for children as people already in relationship with God," Speicher said. The new curriculum will build on Jubilee's strengths of familiarizing children with basic Bible stories and making Sunday school a "time for learning the habits of worship, including ritual, silence, and prayer," she added.

New elements will include strengthening the partnership between church and home, embedding more teacher training in lesson plans, and increasing the serviceability of the curriculum. Also new is the way in which Bible texts are used, with the age groups all studying the same scriptures each week. This creates the opportunity for a significant new feature of Gather 'Round: a class for parents and others who care for children. The class, which may be offered for Sunday school, Bible study, or as a support group, will provide tips for talking about faith and scripture with children and opportunities for parents to grow spiritually. To her knowledge no other publisher is producing such a complete resource for parents, Speicher said.

Adults who care for children are one of six age groups to be served by the curriculum. The others are early childhood, primary, middler, junior high, and a multi-age group that could include children of all ages and adults. Multi-age lessons "will help small congregations who don't have capacity for different age groupings" as well as respond to increasing interest in intergenerational learning opportunities, Speicher said.

Another feature of the new curriculum will be its sensitivity to busy volunteer teachers who often do not have time to attend trainings or go to outside sources for lesson preparation. Lesson plans will include teacher training such as tips for dealing with age-specific issues.

Speicher is recruiting Brethren and Mennonite scholars to write biblical backgrounds for the lessons. She reports that Old Testament scholar and former Church of the Brethren general secretary Robert W. Neff has agreed to write the Bible backgrounds for the first quarter on the book of Genesis. "We will also be asking our lesson writers to emphasize Brethren and Mennonite values of peace and justice, discipleship, community, and simple living," she said, adding that the publishers expect to be able to sell the curriculum to other like-minded churches with similar values. To make the curriculum more responsive to user feedback and changing needs, lesson plans will be written new every year rather in a three-year cycle that is repeated.

The 15-member advisory group included Wendy McFadden and Jewel McNary of Brethren Press; Julie Hostetter and Del Keeney of the General Board's Congregational Life Ministries, Association of Brethren Caregivers executive director Kathy Reid, and Pam Reist, pastor of Christian nurture at Lititz Church of the Brethren, Mount Joy, Pa. For more information contact Anna Speicher at 800-323-8039 or e-mail aspeicher_gb@brethren.org.

Source: Newsline 4/30/2004 top