Preschool & Kindergarten Update

Welcome to Weekday Worship with Abiding Hope Preschool and Kindergarten By: Erin Fisher

We have implemented some exciting changes in our preschool chapel structure this year! We are always striving to ensure that our focus is not only to educate but also to maintain a strong missional focus. To help us in this endeavor, we hired Emily Karlson as our Director for Early Childhood Ministries. Emily works part-time in a preschool classroom and parttime as church staff. She has been an integral part in helping to foster intentional relationships between our preschool families and the church.

We want the experiences we are providing to benefit not only our preschool families but the church and the greater community. Through conversations with current and prospective families, a recurring theme was that they are afraid to attend church with small children for fear of being disruptive. Another concern was the timeframe and trying to have their children be still and quiet for an hour or more. Although we assure families that we have solutions for this such as the nursery, children’s church, and very patient and understanding pastors and congregation members, the concern remains.

Traditionally, we have had chapel twice a week during preschool. Each Tuesday and Wednesday the whole school would gather at 9:30 AM in the worship center to sing, listen to bible stories, and pray. After a little brainstorming we decided to move our Tuesday chapel time to coincide with drop off at 9 AM. Families and friends who bring children to school now drop them off directly in the worship center and are invited to stay and worship with their little people. This chapel time is now led by Pastor Jay and is a very energetic and heartfelt time!

It also serves to introduce young families to the Abiding Hope mission and vision, as well as engage them in authentic worship experiences. The power of the spirit is alive in these 30 minutes of children singing and engaging in authentic worship with their loved ones at school. We also have a fellowship and coffee time the first Tuesday of every month; people feel valued and appreciate that time spent making drinks they can grab and go to start their busy day.

So far, quite a few grownups stay to worship with our preschoolers. Our hope is that the weekday worship crowd continues to grow. We’d also like congregation members to know that if they will not be able to make it to church on Sunday, they can attend a short, energetic, and intentional worship on Tuesday morning. We feel very blessed to have the support and encouragement of the greater Abiding Hope community. We could not ask for better people to walk beside us on this journey. Please come and get to know us some Tuesday morning, 9 AM, at our Weekday Worship!