This unit is intended to accomplish the following:
- To introduce a very basic, thematic history of the Church in North America.
- To strengthen the participants’ sense of their Orthodox identity as part of the Church that has existed continuously from the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles to the present day.
- To place the basic message of the Church into an active context: i.e., to show how the Good News delivered by Jesus Christ has been proclaimed by the Church to this very day.
- To make students aware of the spread of the Church in times past, and the growth of the Church today.
- To foster an appreciation for the history of the student’s parish and to allow them to place that history into the broader framework of the Church’s experience.
- To enable adult parishioners to serve as resources for the children and to allow faithful of all ages to interact.
Understanding that Vacation Church Schools, Camps and many small Church Schools have participants ranging in age from early elementary to high school, each session contains several options from which the teacher can choose to best serve his or her students. These options include objectives as well as ideas for discussion, reflection and action. Ideas are organized in the following sections: “A” is for younger participants ages approximately 7-9; “B” is for ages 10-12(13); and “C” is for teenagers.