Faith Formation Gathering February 13-17, 2003 Please click on the image for follow-up materials and findings from the National Church.   Jim Kelsey, Ellen Jensen, Kristen Zerbst and Mat Metor attended the conference. From Jim Kelsey "Keeping the Faith of a Child, Keeping the Faith of our Children," Jim Kelsey, Church in Hiawathaland, April 2003 From Kristen Zerbst, Trinity Houghton "Will our faith have children?" Was the title of the conference I attended February 13th through the 17th, In Oak Brook, Illinois. I went along with Bishop Kelsey, Ellen Jensen, and Matt Metor. The conference focused on faith formation in the church and the changing context of our lives through: teaching our faith: what are the Basics? Christian Formation in the home: What do our households need? Leadership Development as formation. Christian Formation through worship and tradition, Stewardship and evangelism. The conference was atttended by over 600 Episcopalians from all over the world. Including the Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.There were four keynote speakers in attendance. The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Dr. Robert Kegan, Dr. Parker Palmer, and Dr. Victoria L. Garvey. After listening to a keynote speaker we would return to our groups, mine being Faith Formation and teachers of children. My group had 20 people. We discussed many topics along with what the keynote speaker talked about for that day. Some of our topics were Teachers own development and nurtuing. How to empower the parents. How to motivate children and parents to come to church. The teachers commitment to teaching. These are just a few of the many topics we talked about.It was very interesting to see that many of the larger churches also face some of the difficulties in teaching the children. Just because they have large Sunday School classes, they still struggle to draw the children to church. The one the thing that I did learn from my group is that support from other Sunday School teachers, was very important, being recognized for their talents from their clergy was sought by all of us. One of the keynote speakers Parker Palmer challenged us to go deeper then "Will our faith have children?" When he pointed out that there is a question that must precede that one-"Will our faith have adults?"Not adults sitting in the pews as observers but adults engaged in their own faith story and journey. For our faith to have children we must first have adults who can can tell their faith story, who can pass on these stories. When adults don't know their faith story then what is being passed on? Adults often seem unsure of their own faith story. There are many that feel inadequate in passing on their faith story.We seem to be adults who operate out of scarcity rather than God's abundance. We can provide them tools and a language to express their faith journey but they must discover their own story and how it connects to the community's story and to God's story. I learned many things from this conference, but adapting them to our small parish may prove to be very difficult. So I ask for support from my clergy, my diocese, and all of the Sunday school teachers in our diocese. I would like to try to get a network of the diocese Sunday School teachers and to correspond through Phone calls or E-mail. To exchange ideas and support one another in our struggles. If any one is interested please E-mail me at kzerbst@hotmail.com . Editor's Note: Coming soon: "U.P. Children's Ministry" List-serve on Ecunet.