SpiritLinks

Using Seasons in Rotating Workshops


by Deborah Gline Allen and R. Kenneth Ostermiller

We’ve been asked: “Can you adapt Seasons of the Spirit resources for use in rotating workshops?” The answer is a definite, “Yes!” The churches that have tried it have some good things to share with those who want to try this style of learning.

You can find lots of ideas about how to organize rotating workshops at the website www.rotation.org, maintained by those who pioneered this style of teaching and learning. Participants study the same Bible story or theme for several weeks. Each week they participate in a hands-on, multi-dimensional workshop that involves learning by doing. Workshops are organized around cooking, drama, art, music, storytelling, video, computers, and more. Children rotate in age groups through the workshops over several weeks. This style of learning generally works best with children ages 6-12, although some churches are doing rotations including younger children and older youth.

Susan Huffman, Minister of Education at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Rapid City, South Dakota, told us, “We picked the lesson for one week out of the month and used that material for about four weeks, sometimes longer. The various activities: story, craft, drama, music, etc. were then rotated from week to week. To do this effectively, choose a week that has enough material to work with for several weeks. It works best if there is music and an art project as well as a good narrative story.”

We discovered another creative possibility for a small church that has one group of children who meet together each week. In this setting the church had several workshop rotation rooms set up and chose one activity each week which best fit one of their workshop rooms. They tried to use a different workshop room each week, but expanded the activity. This church found the Action Zones in the Multiage resource to be filled with rich and adaptable suggestions for their workshops.

More often, those doing this adapting have found it helpful to have several age-level resources and the Congregational Life resource from which to draw ideas for rotations. Nancy Marek, an education consultant in Texas, has presented workshops on how to incorporate Seasons of the Spirit into rotating workshops. She has found the process most helpful when there is access to a full set of curriculum, including Congregational Life.

At the church in Rapid City, the Department of Education decided to try using Seasons of the Spirit with rotations because they wanted to involve more adults as leaders and teachers, and to keep things fresh and new for the children. Susan Huffman added that having the senior minister use the Congregational Life materials for worship planning, along with the worship musicians, made the coordination between worship and education quite effective. Another important learning is the necessity of having people with knowledge and experience in lesson planning involved in the adaptation of the lesson materials to the rotating workshop format. As with preparing any quality education program, this process takes some work.

The First Congregational Church in Lorain, Ohio, had been using the workshop rotation model with their children for two years, but they missed the connection with worship. Judy Fischer, Director of Christian Education says, “We wanted to have all of our children, youth, and adults studying and worshipping from the same scripture, so this was a great opportunity for us to try adapting Seasons of the Spirit with this method.” Judy believes that much of their success in using Seasons of the Spirit is due to the fact that they were already very familiar with the rotation model. They use many of the Seasons of the Spirit lesson suggestions to adapt to the workshops, but also supplement these with videos, Bible computer software, and other creative suggestions from their educators where appropriate.

One problem we noted is that the lectionary, from which Seasons of the Spirit draws Bible stories, doesn’t stay with the same Bible story for several weeks. Most churches have chosen the most adaptable Seasons of the Spirit session from those available in a given month and then created workshops for the month from that week’s resources.

It is important to note that all of the churches we interviewed placed an emphasis on making an intentional connection between education and worship. By combining the educational, worship, and arts resources from Seasons of the Spirit with the focus on multiple intelligences in the use of rotating workshops, a church has the potential for building a strong program for Christian nurture.

Deborah Gline Allen is a Commissioned Minister of Christian Education in the New Hampshire Conference United Church of Christ. R. Kenneth Ostermiller is the Minister for Curriculum Development for Local Church Ministries, a Covenanted Ministry of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio.
 
 
 
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