"God and Family"

[jamist649 10]

Today, we awarded 10 of our Webelos I and IIs with the "God and Family" Religious Emblem and knot. It is an indepth and comprehensive program, but one that my son, the Pack, and I enjoyed. We met at a local Church (Pastor has 2 boys in the Pack) and did 2 of the "sessions" per week. We did this for 3 weekends in a row as there are 6 "sessions" in the program. Our meetings ran abour 2 hours each, plus the boys had a little bit of work to do at home. I was unsure when I saw the complexity of the program, but we did it and it went off very well. We also invivted Scouts from neighboring (smaller) Packs to join and we had six (6) takers. We awarded the emblems today at Scout Sunday. What a blessing and proud moment. If anybody would like to ask about running the program with your unit, I'd be willing to share my (limited) knowledge. I love to see this spread to other units, it's worth the effort. pack29@suddenlink.net(This message has been edited by jamist649)

[UCEagle72 10]

Excellent! Congratulations to your young men. Maybe this will encourage them to work on the additional religious awards as they progress in Scouting.

[John-in-KC 311]

Since I counsel the PRAY program, both in my own parish and in the District I serve, let me ask one question:

 

God and Family is about how the boy interacts with the Lord within the family! Can you honestly tell me that what the Cub does in creating his pizza box allows him time to interact with his family in 2 sessions a week?

 

That to me is a pretty huge dropaway.

[jamist649 10]

John: Excellent question. Let me expand on what I said. What we did was basically "introduce" the boys to the program during the sessions. We reviewed the scripture, talked about the families in the Bible, and gave them assignements to do until the following session/meeting. THIS was the time with his family. I didn't intend for his time in meetings to be the only time he interacted with his family. The workbooks went home with assignments for him, Mom, and Dad. My son and I (personally) spent several hours together working on the "pizza", going over the Bible verses, and reviwing the workbook OUTSIDE of the 6 hours in meetings. It was difficult enough to get the parents to block out time for 3 weeks of meetings, much less any more. The goal was to get these boys into Church (alot of them had only been to special events, Sunday School, etc). Our boys fulfilled the requirements, authority of the Pastor of the Church. We didn't "fudge", we did'nt give it away, and we didn't sell them short. The first thing I said when we opened the program was that "Incomplete work would not be awarded"...we didn't, praise be to God, have to worry about that in the end however.