What to expect upon arrival to our Main Gathering:
If this is your child's first time visiting Soma, we want he or she to feel welcomed. All of our child areas begin in the middle of our gathering after a time of worship and before the message. Children are dismissed during a time of announcements and you are more than welcome to accompany them back to the classrooms.
It is important that the same parent or guardian that dropped off the child be the same individual who comes to pick up the child. Kids Time Volunteers are instructed to only release the child with the proper recognition of the individual who brought in the child. If you and your family are regular attenders or visit often, you may authorize individual names to be added to your childs information with appropriate release privledges.
The Nursery: As you can imagine this environment offers care and watch over children from 4 months to 24 months of age. Children are handled with love and care. If you have any special concerns or requests of our nursery volunteers, please feel free to make them known. Our volunteers will do everything possible to allow you to have peace of mind during our gatherings.
Kids Time: Kids Time is an environment designed for children from 2yrs of age up till 12 yrs of age. Don't worry we don't throw them all in together. Each appropriate age group has a group with group leaders. Children gather together as one large group to hear the Bible lesson for that week and then break out into their age appropriate community groups. Each group talks about the lesson they have heard, interacts with one another, and has an exercise (craft time, or game) to better solidify that days lesson in their mind. Each child from Kids Time is sent home with information for You the parant. We believe that you actually have more influence over you child's growth than we do. We know it may not feel that way at times, so we have organized our Kids Time in such a way that provides parants greater opportunity and leverage when it comes to teaching your children. Every month your child will be learning a different theame. Each month has a memory verse and a key phrase. Every week the information your child brings home will better equip you to interact with him or her throughout the week. We need to work together to raise our children in a Godly way.
For an example of Kids Time content please click here
For questions regarding children please email Ted Rastatter: ted@discoversoma.org
What we don't do: When it comes to our Main Gatherings there are two extreme philosophies Soma tries to avoid when it comes to kids.
The first is the extreme of "just doing something with the kids". This would entail simply finding childcare or someone to watch kids while the "adults" do the Jesus thing. Children matter to God and so they matter to us. They are our families and we are charged with growing them up to look like Jesus.
The second extreme would be that of our children's ministry being THE fun zone that rival's the yearly carnival or circus and expects volunteers to be the clowns. While we want our kids to have fun and learn, we simply don't want entertainment to be our only goal.
What we do: At Soma our goal is that our kids are exposed to their parents spiritual lives enough that they see their parents living out their faith, but also have a time for themselves to learn about God with their peers.
Kids Time at our Main Gatherings is designed for the child to connect so well with the teacher that he or she would be excited about going, not to play with toys or see other friends (although that is a great thing and it will be fun), but that the child would want to go because of the relationship he or she has with that teacher. For this reason we value consistantcy in our volunteers. Think of our volunteers as your reinforcements for Biblical influence in the lives of your children. They are available to talk with you and want to get to know you better, however they are no replacement for what you can accomplish at home with your child. You the parant are the most influential individual in your childs life. We believe families and church families should work together to grow Godly kids. We exist to make you "look good" at home.
We want to provide an opportunity to explore our new space together and get a feel for what to expect week to week. For this reason we will be setting up together and participating in a trial run. We will begin regular use of the YMCA in the month of June. Please see the calendar below for gathering information. While some people have specific... continue »
