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Mission
Statement
Our goal as a church is to help equip parents to be the primary
spiritual influence in the lives of their children.
We
are a family friendly church where you are welcome to keep
your children in with you for the entire worship service,
or allow them to participate in some of our children's activities
during the service in separate rooms.
If parents choose to keep their children in the worship service
with them, the children can either sit with the parents in
the chairs, or use the carpet area in the back of the room,
allowing the little ones to crawl around if needed.
Our desire is to create a place where people of all ages are
invited to participate in the full life of our faith community.
This includes children. We will make it possible for the full
involvement of children in our spiritual formation. As a result,
we will create age appropriate opportunities for children's
involvement in the life of Coastlands Church.
Overview
For
those children who participate in our children's activities
during the worship service we offer:
Babies, ages birth - 18 months
We
offer a room where mothers can take their babies and either
sit in with them or leave them with our helpers. We also don't
mind hearing a crying baby in the service once in a while.
It reminds us that new life has been born and that even babies
are an important part of our faith community.
Toddlers,
ages 19 months - 2years
It is
our desire to create an atmosphere of spiritual formation
for all people at Coastlands Church including toddlers. While
we recognize the unique challenges of this effort and believe
that this role is best fulfilled through the home, we believe
that the responsibility of our community is to support families
by creating opportunities of spiritual formation at church
and at home.
During
our Sunday Morning Worship Gatherings: We
encourage toddlers to join in the singing allowing them to
move and dance around. Our children are then invited
to come up front for a children's sermon.
During
the regular sermon toddlers are invited to either sit with
their parents or into an age appropriate room involving dance,
art, story and music.
Elementary,
ages 3-10.
During
the Sunday Worship Gatherings our Elementary age participants
are encouraged to participate fully. They are expected to
participate with their parents during most of the service
including singing, prayer, communion and all that goes on.
During the sermon time they are invited to either sit in church
with their parents or join in a children's area to work on
stories and crafts.
Elementary,
ages 10-15
We
encourage these older children to worship with their families
throughout the entire service. We also recognize that
some families are not used to this or are at least interested
in moving in that direction. Many of our older children choose
to help with elementary kids as well as toddlers and babies
during the worship gatherings.
It is
our belief that middle and junior high schoolers are at an
ideal age to receive great benefit from having the involvement
of older role models who love them and help them live a life
of God's dreams. We recognize that spiritual formation
happens best for all of us in community and we want the same
for our children of all ages.
Each
month middle schoolers are invited to participate in service
opportunities, often with the entire community of Coastlands
Church. There are also occasional activities, retreats, and
trips for middle schoolers.
Each
of these areas has a leader and an assistant.
Contact:
Terri Babin at 858-488-3706.
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