S.F. Pine Innovations Lead to Some Growth

San Francisco -- April 4, 2006

Pine UMC in San Francisco this year has two innovations that are reversing what what it had regarded as a downtick in attendance for several years. One innovation is in worship and another in Sunday School. Both have had positive results.

Pine launched a contemporary worship service, called CityLight Fellowship, at 11 a.m. on Sundays and has been having 40 to 50 people. The Rev. Jeannie Kim, an ordained Presbyterian, leads. For the praise musicians, Pine member Stan Kamiya built a new stage for $4,500, and the church installed multimedia with the help of a grant from the National Japanese American Caucus.

Pine is getting about 15 kindergarteners to 6th graders in Sunday School this year (compared to five or less last year) from starting a Discovery Zone -- its own term, but based on a national model that has a track record for reviving Sunday School in the U.S. A different Bible topic each month is covered in four ways in a rotation of workshops.

In January, Discovery Zone looked at "Creation," using an animated video of the first two chapters of Genesis. Pine rotated students among crafts, mobiles, and clay creations. In February it introduced the children to Psalm 23 -- with rotating classes featuring gel candles, fill-in-the-blank worksheets, and foam art. In March it illustrated Noah's Ark with animal pudding, cooking chicken soup. In April it is emphasizing the Easter story with puzzles and workbooks. Topics for the remaining months of the year are Moses, the Ten Commandments, David & Goliath, the miracles of Jesus, Jonah, the Lord's Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Christ is Born.

Shellin Young, the education director, said the repetition of a theme "helps kids really know the story/character. I set up the curriculum by pulling together internet recipes, crafts and reproducible worksheets." Teachers sign up for a month and commit to three or four Sundays in a row. The teachers stay in place as the kids rotate to a different station. The children start in the 11 a.m. praise service, hear a children's message, and then they head off to their stations.

Pine still has traditional worship at 10 a.m. At 9 a.m. it has a Japanese-language service. Bishop Shamana intends to appoint the Rev. Atsuko Fujinami as the new Japanese-language pastor this summer. She is from the United Church of Christ of Japan -- the church to which the Rev. Atsushi Nishimura, the Japanese-language pastor since 1999, returned in February.