Youth:
We would ask all parents of teenagers to keep them involved in the worship service. We encourage all teenagers to actively participate in the Sunday morning service. Our young people are important in our worship service. Following are some of the places they can fill:
- Greeters (they should arrive 10 minutes before the service starts, so that they can greet people and hand out the Order of Service, as well as Visitor Forms to new visitors)
- Lay leaders (assisting with the prayers for the people and other parts of the service)
- Readers (we love it when they participate in reading the Bible readings during the service)
- Musicians (any budding musicians should contact our Worship & Ministry leaders – Beth Gray – to get involved in the music on Sunday mornings)
- Ushers (they can assist Alberto and Colombino to collect the offering)
- Acolytes (bringing in the light of Christ at the beginning of the service and at the end of the service assisting in putting out all candles – this usually involves overseeing the younger children in doing this, making sure they don’t accidentally light any fires).
Children:
We encourage all children to participate in our Sunday service as Acolytes, helping to light the candles at the beginning of the service.
Balboa Union Church has an active Sunday school program for our children between the ages of 4 to 12. This is run each week by two volunteers. Children will be invited up the front during “Children’s time” in the Sunday service (about 15-20 minutes into the service), and then will leave to the Sunday school room with the volunteer teachers during the sermon. The Children’s time is delightful and the kids participate joyfully. They are usually downstairs for the rest of the service, and should be picked up from the Sunday School room immediately after church (before Fellowship). We encourage all children to participate in Communion under their parents’ supervision, on the last Sunday of each month. Parents should organise to pick up their children for this moment (grapes are also available for those children that still do not understand the significance of Communion).
At this time we don’t have a daycare service, but are considering the necessity as our congregation grows with young families.