Sunday School plays a very important role in the formation of modern Christian life. Children who attend Sunday School have a head start in a life of faith. Sunday School at the Cathedral is especially important because many children and their families are here temporarily. Other children are bilingual and binational. Attending Sunday School gives them a sense of their American roots and language along with providing a spiritual education.

Our Sunday School continues to grow, with new children registering nearly every Sunday. Our total enrollment, including children in the nursery, is 174. We have six Sunday School classes for children ranging in age from 3 to 14. Classes begin at 10:45 a.m. and children over 7 years old rejoin their parents prior to Communion during the 11 a.m. service.

Every week, our teachers — 31 parishioners in all — volunteer their time and efforts in helping children learn more about the Christian faith. As Christian educators, our teachers adapt God's message to the appropriate age level to open up the possibilities of a life lived in the spirit of Christ. They, too, are enriched and renewed as they share the Christian faith with the children.

At the youngest ages, teachers tell the stories of the Bible, drawing pictures while repeating the message. Children learn respect for each other as well. The craft the children make repeats the lesson. Each class ends in a song and a prayer.

In the older classes, children are invited to share their own experiences in circle time to help the lesson take hold. They do projects and crafts together to learn to work in groups. Children who can read do so aloud to each other. From age 8 or so they can look up passages in the Bible or the prayer book. Classes still include participation and crafts, but they are structured along the lines of the service taking place downstairs.

Children of all ages, even the youngest, are active in the Love in a Box project which prepares shoeboxes full of gifts for underprivileged children to be offered at Christmas time. Recently our children participated in a Heifer International project, filling small arks with coins which were used to purchase animals for poor communities.

One of the highlights of the Cathedral's year is the Christmas pageant. Directed by volunteers, teachers and parents, the Pageant is a colorful, moving and spiritual event with children of all ages participating. Special activities for children at Halloween, All Saints, Christmas and Holy Week/Easter are supported by the wider Cathedral community, with special support coming from the Saint Anne's Guild.