Cornerstone Church of God
Arcadia, Nova Scotia, Canada
Children's ministries are near to Cornerstone's heart, and a variety of programs have been established to reach the children of our church and communities.
Our Sunday School is open year-round. Classes are available for ages pre-school to teen. The morning starts with children's songs and the morning worship service. Halfway through the worship service the children are dismissed to Children's Church which consists of singing, short lessons and games. After the adult worship service teachers are dismissed downstairs to meet the children for Sunday School while the remaining adults listen to the morning sermon.
10 minutes before the close of Sunday School classes the Cornerstone Corner Store and the Cornerstone Children's Library open. Read more about these incentive programs below.
The children & teens periodically put on skits for the congregation, and a Christmas Concert is held in December.
Puppets could really be
considered an adult ministry too since the adults love to hear them
interact and sing as much as the children do!
We have a movable puppet stage and a large cast of professional grade puppets to entertain audiences from time to time (that's "Skip" in the photo)! Skip's friends include Pricilla, Herman, Herb, Mr. Krimper, and Bernard (the Saint Bernard dog!).
The puppets like to make their acts personal, often inserting names of people in the congregation into their conversations for a laugh.
Everyone loves the puppets!
Pioneer Clubs is currently in a transition year, but should resume in
2011.
Pioneer clubs runs from September to June for children in grades primary to six, on Tuesday nights at 6:30pm.
At Pioneer Clubs children have an exciting evening filled with a variety of activities, while learning, developing skills, and building character at the same time! Every Tuesday brings different fun activities but generally there are crafts, games, stories, a Bible lesson and yummy snacks.
Each lesson ties in a story or passage from the Bible to help convey it's message, and lessons cover a wide variety of topics that are important to a growing child. These include such things as making decisions, obeying your parents, succeeding in school, and being a good friend as well as general topics such as health, exercise and nutrition. These topics are approached in ways that make learning fun, and the craft and game generally follow the same theme.
Youth Group for pre-teens and teens in grades 7-12 runs at the same time. It is split into Junior (grades 7-9) & Senior (grades 10-12) Youth Group. It's material source is also from Pioneer Clubs, with great lessons, outings, and larger scale 'craft' opportunities (i.e. wood-working, candle-making, etc.).
To learn more about this ministry, please click HERE.
The Cornerstone Corner Store was added in Spring 2005. It is an incentive program where children can spend 'Cornerstone Bucks' just like real money, or chose to save it in the 'Cornerstone First National Bank'!
There are many opportunities in Pioneer Clubs and Sunday School to earn Cornerstone bucks such as for attendance, bringing their Bible, learning memory verses, Birthday gift certificates, etc.
The
store is stocked with items like Lego, Barbies, jewelry, school
supplies, books and candy. Prices range from inexpensive stickers that
can be purchased instantly, to more expensive items like a CD player
that they would have to save up for. To learn more about the store,
please visit the Pioneer Clubs' website
HERE.
The
Children's Christian Library was added in Spring 2006. It contains
Christian chapter books, picture books, comic books, CDs, videos and
DVDs.
A child may sign out 1-2 items out at a time for 3 weeks. For every item signed out, the child's name goes into the monthly "Awesome Readers Contest" for 100 Cornerstone Bucks as an incentive to use the library. There are also optional 'Book Reports' that allow the children to earn Cornerstone Bucks, while reflecting on what they just read or listened to.
These Christian books and materials give children the opportunity to learn new Bible stories and read other examples of Christian living throughout the week. They may even share them with siblings, parents and friends, therefore spreading the message further.