Hopegateway kids

We’re excited about our interactive children’s ministry, coordinated by our Children and Family ministries coordinator, Erica Lovejoy, along with an enthusiastic team of kid-loving members of the HopeGateWay community. 


HopeGateWay Kids New Series - The Beatitudes

Sundays at 9:30am on Zoom

We are excited to start a new series with our young friends, age 3 through 5th grade! Our study of the Beatitudes will include movement, crafts, games, story books and discussion. Together we will be exploring how Jesus turned expectations and traditional beliefs about being blessed upside down, and imagining ways to fill the world with more love and justice.Some activities will also be posted in the HGW Kids facebook group, for families to do at home. Contact Erica for more information! HGW Kids Zoom Link


What’s the age group for HopeGateWay Kids?

All kids grades K-5 are invited!

We also have a group for Middle Schoolers!


What happens on a typical Sunday morning? 

(currently we are fully virtual, due to Covid, see HGW Kids Zoom series above)

Between the 9 am & 11 am worship gatherings, at 10:15 am, kids gather for an engaging, multi-sensory, interactive time exploring the Bible and concepts of faith through story-telling, music, and movement.


How’s it different from a typical Sunday School?

We hope we’ll capture all the best things of a typical Sunday School: loving relationships with caring adults, opportunities to explore new ideas and grow in faith, and plenty of fun. Our approach may be different in some ways, too. HopeGateWay Kids is not intended to be curriculum-directed, but kid-directed and kid-centered. We believe that children already have a deep understanding of God, and we believe that Bible stories can form and inform that understanding. We call our approach “engaged story telling.” Because kids learn through repetition, and enjoy repetition, we’ll spend three weeks on each story, approaching the stories in multiple ways, with the goal of introducing all the major stories of the Bible over the course of a six-year rotation. Every fourth week, we’ll engage in a service project, meant to instill in our children an understanding of the importance of putting faith into action to help others.  


Where does all of this happen?

HopeGateWay Kids meets in our children's rooms at our 509 Forest Avenue site, just steps from the worship space.  


Do you have any program for younger children?

We offer loving childcare for preschool-age children during both the 9 am and 11 am worship gatherings in our onsite nursery room.

YOUTH GROUP

In collaboration with four partnering congregations — Woodfords Congregational Church, State Street UCC, St. Luke's Episcopal Cathedral and Williston Immanuel United Church — we offer a dynamic Youth Group for youth grades 7-12. 


Gathering twice a month, we spend our time in formation, fellowship, and service to both the local and global community. Youth contribute to planning, making this a Youth Group that is deeply influenced by its current participants.


Interested in learning more about Youth Group or getting connected? 

Contact Hannah Smith-Erb, Youth Group Coordinator.


Beyond the two meeting times per month for the whole 7-12th grade group, Hannah is leading separate Zoom meetings for middle schoolers and high schoolers once a month, as well as a Games group and an Art group.


Find out What's Happening!


In both the sacred and secular communities, there are few meaningful “rites of passage” in today’s world, and American culture in particular. One of the few opportunities we still honor that celebrates the “evolving” self is the Confirmation journey. 

 

Every other year, young people in 7th grade and above from Woodfords Congregational Church and HopeGateWay are invited to participate in a Confirmation Journey that takes place September – June. 

 

The Confirmation journey typically includes two weekend retreats, Sunday meetings roughly once (sometimes twice) a month, a trip to Boston to see a performance of The Black Nativity, several opportunities to attend other worship services and/or meet with people from different faith traditions to discover the similarities and differences of our faith journeys, opportunities to meet with a mentor including the completion of a service or mission project, attendance at Sunday morning worship. All youth are confirmed together during a joint worship celebration, usually in late May or early June.


To learn more, download this year's Confirmation packet here.