From Nancy Exline, Faith Presbyterian, Cape Coral Florida

I have been using the Workshop Rotation Model for 15 years, - 8 years here at Faith and 7 years at Cypress Lake Presbyterian in Ft. Myers. Why?  Because it works!!! It really “came alive” once we built out new Family Life Center and I had rooms that we could custom design.

Since we had a new space and needed some new things, we put together a soft cost brochure for the rooms so people could donate money to actually purchase specific items (theatre seats, computers, chair, etc.)  Some people even donated what was needed for an entire classroom.

The murals are make our space come alive. Had our hallway been wider, we would have added more dimension to each "stop" along Faith Avenue, --with actual bus stop benches coming out of the wall, tree branches coming out and across the ceiling.

Some Program Details:

We have over 100  children registered in our program.

Some of the workshops have 2 teachers each.  Every grade level has a “Guide”.  This person meets the children, once they are dismissed from worship, and takes them to their Sunday School classroom.  They stay in the class to take attendance and offering, help where needed and then they dismiss the children to their parents.  So the ratio of teachers/ Guides to children is 2 adults to an average of 15 children per classroom per week. Our teachers teach the 4 weeks then take a break – they don’t have to teach the entire year. . . unless they want to.

Before I came here to Faith Presbyterian, they were using a curriculum that covered the entire Bible in 3 years.  Sounds great but the kids weren’t retaining anything – it was a different Bible story every week.  With the WORM you are spending 4 weeks on one unit (Bible Story), they are learning it in different ways and by the end of the 4 weeks they remember it!  It’s much easier to get teachers also.

http://www.fpcfl.org