A group of more than seventy-five Sunday Club leaders from sixteen parishes around the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross gathered on Saturday, 8th February at St Luke’s Home Education Centre, Northridge House, Cork for a Training Day. The day was organised by the Cork branch of the Children’s Ministry Network led by the Reverend Anne Skuse.

More than 75 Sunday Club leaders at the Cork, Cloyne and Ross Training Day organised by the local Children’s Ministry Group

The  theme for the day was  ‘A roadmap through Lent’.  The day opened with an introduction on this theme  of journeying. Then through  a series of lead workshops on Creative Prayer, Craft, Music, Drama, Puppetry, and Messy Church,  participants were given practical ideas and ways of helping  children to make the journey through each Sunday in Lent and then on to Easter.   Using what they had learned in the workshops, participants were then divided into groups and invited to come up with lesson plans for the six Sundays in Lent. These lesson plans will be used as a shared resource for all parishes.

This overaching theme of ‘journeying’ was picked up again in the closing liturgy entitled ‘Companions on the Journey’, which reminded us that as we travel in faith God travels with us. Our task therefore is to remember that as we accompany our children in faith, they too accompany us.

Participants were joined for the day by the Church of Ireland’s Children’s Ministry Development Officer Ms. Lydia Monds.