Welcome to the inaugural post of the GPC Parents blog dedicated to all things related to you – our GPC parents.
As this is the first one, and as there may be people new to GPC or perhaps even church shopping I’d like to take a minute to tell you about our philosophy:
We believe children should be seen, heard and deeply involved in church as active members. We have a prayground for our youngest members so they can stay in church with their parents, as well as a Nursery (open from 9-12 every Sunday) for those 3 and under if that works better for your family.
We believe that children should be in church, so every Sunday everyone begins together in worship. On Communion Sundays and any holiday weekend everyone stays together for the worship service. The other Sundays just before the Sermon the children and youth are excused to Sunday School and Youth Group where they talk through a sermon topic.
We believe that children and youth should act as lay leaders regularly and they do usually twice a month.
So we offer supplemental classes in addition to Sunday School, like Children and Communion, Second Grade Bible workshop, Two-Year-Old Bible workshop, and Young Theologians.
And we believe that children who have the chance to really get to know the other kids in their Sunday School classes are more likely to genuinely want to come to church on Sundays…and maybe even others days too.
So we have Family Fun nights!
We also have GPC Friday Night at the Movies every first Friday of every month, all child friendly movies. We have quarterly pot-lucks or picincs. And finally, have a Vacation Bible School every summer and a all-church Retreat regularly.
GPC also has a Pre-school and Kindergarten as a ministry of the church, GPP&K, the oldest pre-school and kindergarten in the area with a longstanding stellar reputation.
Covid was a tough time for GPP&K, but we envision coming back better and stronger than ever Fall of 2022. We will be open and offering 3 and 4-year-old classes Monday through Friday 9-3 as well as a fully accredited kindergarten which unlike the public schools has a 20 child cap and two teachers!
Here is a link to that website: www.gppk.com
Love, Carolyn
