RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
The mission of the religious education department at Methodist Children's Home is to participate in the work of God's healing love by sharing vulnerability, building relationships, and developing trust within the context of a loving community.
Staff members serve residents by offering a spiritual life program that meets their individual needs and encourages them in developing a deep relationship with God. Staff members begin by building relationships and understanding what spiritual needs exist, and then move forward by engaging residents in worship, community fellowship, play, and study. This happens throughout the week, as staff members lead Sunday morning services, eat meals with and take walks around campus with residents for one-on-one visits, and facilitate small groups during the evenings.
Worship
Sunday mornings engage the body, heart, mind, and spirit as residents join together for a time of worship and education. Worship is ecumenical, seeking to include all people regardless of where they are along their faith journey. Worship involves singing, preaching, scripture, Holy Communion, and often a celebration of Baptism. Students participate in Sunday worship, with a group helping to plan services, acolytes lighting candles, and students reading scripture aloud and running audio/visual equipment and the sound board.
Building Relationships
There are many avenues through which staff members build relationships with students and encourage their faith. The religious education music program offers a choir, a band called EverWonder that assists in leading worship, and individual music lessons for guitar, piano, and voice. Monday through Thursday nights, youth meet in small groups, called Revolution Groups, led by staff or volunteers from Baylor University. Revolution Groups combine Bible study with therapeutic recreation and activities to involve the students in exploring relevant issues.
One of the Home's student organizations, R.E.S.C.U.E., provides the religious education staff with insight into addressing community issues, as well as providing an important fellowship time once a month called FM 1930, a coffeehouse and open mike experience.
Camps and Mission Trips
Summer camps and mission trips provide eligible residents opportunities to travel around the state to serve and grow in their faith. Students can apply to participate in the annual U.M. Army mission trip, which brings together Methodist youth to serve others through manual labor. Seventh and eighth graders go to an annual junior high summer camp, and all students attend summer day church camps.
MCH partners with Perkins School of Theology at SMU to participate in their Perkins Youth School of Theology, a program that introduces high school juniors to community service paired with theological education.
Sharing in the "ups and downs" of life offers staff a unique opportunity to experience God's love in community. It is the prayer of religious education staff that God's love is made visible and tangible to each resident and family member, staff, and visitor of the Methodist Children's Home through the living out of Christian community.
