The Norwich Congregational Church, UCC offers educational opportunities for all ages.
Nursery care is offered for infants and toddlers for the entire Sunday worship service. Children may remain in worship through the Children's Message, after which they are dismissed to Sunday School.
Our Sunday School year began on September 11 with a new curriculum called Godly Play. This is a creative and imaginative approach to Christian nurture that values process, openness and discovery. The teacher invites the children into stories and provides the opportunity for them to connect the stories with their personal experience.
Our Sunday School Coordinator, Danielle Taylor, teaches each Sunday with the help of volunteer teachers and youth. Several rooms on the upper level of our parish hall wing are used for the program. On the second Sunday in June, the Sunday School leads worship with a play or presentation of their own.
Eighth graders are invited to join a confirmation class. In addition to classroom discussions, the young people take part in leading worship, visiting other churches, and service projects.
High School students are invited to join the annual Youth Work Trip. For that past 12 years, the spring school vacation week has been used to travel to the South to rebuild churches destroyed or damaged by arson or weather. The youth engage in fund raising activities during the year to make this possible.
Our adult education program includes a weekly Bible Study, classes on Sundays - either in the hour after worship or in the evening - and occasional guest speakers. Recent classes have included a look at the story of Jonah through Jewish, Christian and Muslim interpretation and a book study of Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. We are blessed with a number of church members with the learning and expertise for teaching.
In the Fall of 2011, we began with a book study of Karen Armstrong's Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life on Sunday evenings at 7.
