Growing Together In Faith

by Keith Ham

Handout to families interested in GIFT

GIFT IS....

Growing Together In Faith and is a family-building approach to learning the “big picture” of the Bible in 32 weeks of Sunday “story-celebrations” and simple family devotionals. We believe that parents and guardians are the most effective faith teachers. We believe children’s faith ought to be developed together with their families and congregation, and it ought to be fun and memorable.

The age of the children should be no younger than 5, and no older than 5th grade. This also becomes the Sunday school for the parents of the children participating.

Typical GIFT Schedule

5 minutes
Entering Ritual: Sing “Lamp” song and circle the “campfire”
Prayer of illumination
Pick a child to “light” the fire

10 minutes
Tell bible story
This often involves the children
pantomiming the Bible characters
often in costume and with props.

15 minutes
Craft activity related to the story of the week

20 minutes
Parent time: parents discuss story and how it applies to their family and ways to integrate it. This is a time for parents and caregivers to listen to one another, learn from one another, support one another, and pray together. Ideas are shared for family devotional time and parents receive weekly at-home readings and discuss issues of Christian parenting.
Toddlers go to toddler room for snacks
Remaining children go to snacks and play physical games

GIFT Roles

Because GIFT is based on the parent or caregiver being the primary faith teacher, and because parents know best how their children learn, , all parents have an active role in our story celebrations each week.