new church life: september/october 2016
• I worked with older women who were nurturing of me as a young
mother. I could bring my baby with me.
• I loved receiving letters from my students.
• One of the biggest benefits was feeling connected.
Impact of Lessons on Families
Religion Lessons had an impact on the parents of the children receiving them
in three important ways.
Contact between leaders, teachers and parents nurtured adult friendships.
Lessons reminded parents to give their children religious instruction, and
also educated parents, increasing their confidence to teach.
Lessons provided a springboard for family worship and church.
Parents said:
• We loved the time spent together.
• My children enjoyed reading and discussing the stories.
• Our children learned stories of the Word through parent-child activities.
• Lessons gave us support to instruct our children.
Lessons gave us a framework to work with.
Above all, lessons nurtured parents, giving them the feeling of being cradled
in the arms of the General Church, a church which cared for them, which
cared about them even when they felt far away. As one parent said: “Receiving
the envelope in the mail encouraged me to do a Word-based activity. I don’t
think we would have done so much based on the Word had it not been for the
structure of receiving all we needed in that envelope.”
One measure sociologists use to predict whether people will remain in a
church as adults is the distance they live from their church of origin. People
living within 5-10 miles often join as adults. Those further afield tend to
disaffiliate. Theta Alpha defied all odds by connecting with people living an
average of 219 miles from a church, and in some cases more than 1,000 miles
away. This was a remarkable feat! As one parent said, “It reminded me in a very
isolated situation that there was a church out there that cared about me and
my family. I decided to become an official member of the General Church at
this time in my life.”
Impact on Adults Who Completed Lessons as Children
Religion lessons had a threefold impact on children. They occasioned
religious conversations with parents and teachers, connected them with
church members outside their families, and played an important role in their
developing religious identity during childhood. As children grew older and
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