Faith Curriculum Library: Tapestry of Faith: Families: A Jr. High School Youth Program that Explores the Diversity, Commonality, and Meaning of Families

Faith In Action: Making Memories

Part of Families

Activity time: 90 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Photo albums or scrapbooks
  • Photo sleeves (optional)
  • Pens

Preparation for Activity

  • Contact your congregation's religious educator and ask whether this would be a useful activity (see Description of Activity). Invite her/him to assist with the project.
  • Decide if you will use photo albums or scrapbooks, and determine how many you will need.
  • If using a scrapbook, purchase sleeves for the photographs (optional).

Description of Activity

The photo-documentary project is a testament to the power of photography. Why not give your congregation another photographic gift by creating photo albums or scrapbooks? Many congregations have dozens of photographs, but they might not be attractively arranged in albums. Ask your religious educator if she/he would like help organizing regarding photographs, or ask the congregational historian if he/she needs such help. You could arrange photographs in albums or scrapbooks. A scrapbook allows for written descriptions in addition to presenting the photographs. You may need help from someone who has been in the congregation a long time or someone who knows most of the congregants.

If all the congregations' photographs are in order, ask if the historian has any other recordkeeping the participants can organize. If not, another possibility is inviting the historian to bring congregational photo albums to a session and spend time going through them with the youth. Participants might especially enjoy seeing older photos of their own families or the families that were involved in the project.