Prosforo Workshop & Puzzle Activity

As we draw near to Christ, we often ask what gift can we offer to Him, especially a tangible one for our children to make. It is easy to overlook and under value the simple things that we can do with our own hands. If we are attending Church, one of the greatest offerings we can bring to Christ is the bread used to become His Holy Body. "Prosforo" literally means offering, as in offering a gift....perfect for Christmas! See the lesson below for Scripture quotes and ingredient significance.

Many of you may have held Prosforo workshops before at your parishes. Great! Do it again and again - the kids love it! Next time, arrange a few of the following activities to enhance the experience:

• NEW Lesson Plan & Puzzle activity of the Proskomidi: located here where each child cuts and glues the pieces of the Seal to understand their significance.
  
• NEW book from Potamitis Publishing "Yiayia and the Prosphoron" located here in many languages
• Book "The Woman and the Wheat" located here
• As each child presses the seal onto the loaf, ask them to repeat out loud the Jesus Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner."
• We always begin with a prayer and the children incense the whole kitchen! Some have never held charcoal in a tweezers before - it's great hands on fun!
• Before finishing, write the first names of those Orthodox Christians that the children would like to pray for to be given to the priest along with the Prosforo for commemoration.
• Lastly, don't forget that the Prosforo bread needs to arrive at the beginning of Orthros/Matins so get it there even Saturday night for the Vespers service.
 

Christ said "I am the Bread of Life and whomever eats of it shall never hunger."

The Way We Worship

Introduce to your children an activity illustrating  the way we worship and more importantly, why we worship the way we do in the Orthodox Church. Below are some talking points for the lesson, as well as a coordinating activity or craft.

1. When we enter the Church, we try to leave behind the cares of the world. School, Homework, Chores, Tomorrow, What's for dinner....etc. Beginning in the Nave (like a boat in the "Navy") we travel closer and closer to God during the service, moving towards Paradise, which is represented by the Holy Altar, ultimately receiving the Eucharist just at Paradise's doors.

2. Each week, we worship the same way and celebrate the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom from the 5th century. The word "liturgia" literally means "work of the people." By attending the Divine Liturgy, we are choosing to give back this time to God.  This is our "work." We offer our gifts to Him - our time, our attention, our prayers, our voices. and more tangibly the wine and bread, made with our own hands from the very gifts that God has given us - grapes and wheat. We become co-workers in God's activity.

3. Everyone in the "Ekklesia" is united by a common Orthdoox baptism and confession of faith. We are one created family, surrounded with the Angels and Saints in heaven. Those in the world, the Church militant or army in spiritual battle, mirror the same actions in heaven by the Church Triumphant, the Saints who have already passed the test of life on Earth! We worship God in the Orthodox Church with all of our senses in order to fully participate with our mind, body and soul.

This "ascesis" or spiritual way of life is our path to sanctification (becoming holy through His holiness)

Activity - Ask the children to correctly match the ways we worship God with our senses- if possible, they can make the drawings themselves on colored paper, or you can cut and paste from pictures

• Ears - We hear the word of God in the Gospel and Epistles readings 
• Voices - We chant the praises of the angels 
• Hands- We form the sign of the life-giving Cross 
• Nose - We smell the incense as an offering of our prayer rising to heaven 
• Body - We bow our heads, bend to the ground and kneel to worship God 
• Eyes - We see the light of Christ in every candle and focus our prayers to the windows of heaven, the icons.
• Mouth - We taste the very Body and Blood of Christ, the blessed five loaves of artoclasia, wine & oil, the blessed boiled wheat kollyva, and/or the blessed antidoro or dismissal bread, and blessed grapes at the feast of the Transfiguration.

4. Lastly, let us not forget that the Divine Liturgy is for the whole world, and through this special service, God helps and saves His creation. We not only say prayers for the weather, for our food and crops, for our protection from danger and for a faithful life, but we pray for the "peace of the whole world." Although our local Church may not offer a Divine Liturgy everyday, don't forget that in monasteries around the world, the Divine Liturgy is being offered daily, without stop, as a constant prayer to God.

"A Russian priest was speaking with a minister of another denomination one day. The later spoke at great length about all the wonderful things that his church did for the poor and the environment through service projects, soup kitchens, volunteering, and the likes. Then he asked the Russian priest what the Orthodox people do? And the Russian priest paused quietly for a moment, and simply responded, we offer the Divine Liturgy on behalf of the whole world."    

BINGO for Great Lent

Introducing a fun way to get your youth involved in service projects. On this BINGO card are listed 20 ideas for Great Lent that will enhance your spiritual journey to Pascha. Mix up the squares and distribute, or have each child draw from a bag to play. There are various ways to adjust this game, but the main idea is to establish 5 goals with your children to accomplish over the period of 40 plus days.

Here is the file posted on Scribd. If you would like the Word document to mix up the squares for different BINGO cards, just email me at eleniemarie@gmail.com.

Ask the students to complete their BINGO boards through activities outside of church, in daily life, and return their completed sheet to you for a "spiritual prize" I like to give Orthodox CD's, books, magnets, etc

Have fun, and please share other ideas for the squares by posting a comment.

Monthly Curriculum: Orthodox Girls

This year, our parish has designated separate classes for boys and girls ages 10-16.  I thought I'd share our program with you, as it seems to be well received so far. The idea of splitting the genders has  truly allowed us to concentrate on specific issues related to their challenges while also eliminating much of the chatter and drama! We do not have a text per say, but rather a structure that gives us
flexibility yet predictability.

Every month our girls follow this schedule:

• 1st Sunday: Koumboskinia/Prayer Ropes (Craft & Theology)
• 2nd Sunday: Chanting (Theology & Hymns from the Divine Liturgy or Feast)
• 3rd Sunday: Diakonima (The girls can bake, assist, serve, & clean-up at the coffee fellowship- the boys tend to the altar and candles)
• 4th Sunday: Journaling from the Lives of the Female Saints

Today, as an example, the girls were asked to walk around the church after the Divine Litrugy,
and to write the names of the female Saints that they found on the walls. Afterward, we discussed our vocation to be like these holy women who remind us weekly of virtue and our potential. Our plan is to create small journals that the girls will read a life of a female Saint in, then draw out a few inspiring details from the short story that impacted them. We will be sure to include the patron Saints of the girls in the class so that each can learn her story and share with the others.


If you have other ideas, please share~ It's truly a great blessing to walk along side these pure souls!

Here is the book I assembled at Shutterfly:
 http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BatWTZozbs3Gw