“Behold the maidservant of the Lord" Luke 1:38
When you think of Saint Mary, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
Mother of God?
First among all women?
Pride of our race?
How about the CHAMPION of Obedience?
She was all the above, but this week's Sunday School Lesson about…
Do we trust God? Blindly? Without Questions or Hesitations? Like Saint Mary did? Most of the children already knew the story. I was trying to find a way to make them experience what it is like to trust without understanding and obey without questioning, like Saint Mary did.
Do we practice hospitality only with our friends and family members or do we practice hospitality on a daily basis? How many times have we opened our homes to complete strangers? Let me rephrase this question (I realize that safety concerns may have led you to answer my question with a resounding “Never”.)
We learn proper Church Etiquette at an early age
This week's Sunday School lesson about teaching children proper church etiquette was a delight, but it was also a topic where a delicate balance had to be achieved.
On the one hand, the children must understand the Holiness of the Church and how to…
Each child had a turn to explain how they would spend their “wealth” – we had all agreed that the money they had in their hands represented 3 million dollars.
A New Sunday School year begins
Yesterday, we celebrated the start of the Coptic New Year (The Feast of the Nayruz) which also signals the start of a new Sunday School year. While it was difficult to bid farewell to my beloved Sunday School angels, I was blessed to meet my new class and…
I must have learnt to speak even before learning to breathe; and I have not stopped speaking since. This made teaching a lesson about “controlling the tongue” hit close to home. One of those moments when you look towards heaven with a smile and whisper, “nicely played, God”.
Tower of pride!
I had the blessing of teaching a Sunday School lesson about the Tower of Babel, but I must admit, I was foolish to think that this lesson would be "simple" to prepare and deliver. I figured that most of the students in my class ( grade three) must have heard this story…
Saint Pachomios was born to pagan parents and was a soldier in the army of the Roman Empire – not a likely candidate for the future role of founder of Communal Monasticism.
The kids were amazed by the pictures and the price tags ( as I was when I was researching the topic- $24,000.00 night????)
I asked them to describe the rooms in one word.
They came up with ” amazing” , “elegant” , “incredible”.
We started our discussion with a fundamental question: why do we need commandments?
I asked them to imagine how class/school would be if there were no rules. Their answers ranged from “no learning possible” to “setting the school on fire!”.
It took 12 lemons to turn a jug of water into a bitter tasting beverage.
And it took 3 tablespoons of sugar to turn the bitter beverage into a sweet and refreshing lemonade.