2025-03-11: Zoom Meeting All Coordinators with HE
Role and Responsibilities of the Coordinator - HE Metropolitan Youssef
All of the below are with communication and agreement with the Father the Priest
The Church with strong deacons and strong servants will be successful.
- Curriculum of the Diocese is followed and make recommendations for the Diocese Curriculum
- e.g. missing lessons (like AI)
- e.g. a lesson is too high for an age group
- Also Extracurricular Activities (e.g. Bible Study, Research, Books to Read) - General Planning for Sunday School
- Number of classes, combined classes, how many servants in each class
- 4-5 servants per class makes them rely on each other
- HE vision is that a class has maximum 2 servants - Choosing of servants and choosing of those who will enter pre-servants
Preservant Class is extra (does not replace Sunday School)
- How to pick people for preservants (2 schools of thought)
1 - Recommendation from Abouna, Servants who serve them, etc.
2 - Allow everyone interested in 9th grade to join
- So he can graduate in 2 years and serve 2 years before College
- Criteria for Choosing the Servant
- Examples
- Attendance 10%
- Consistent in Confession 10%
- Final Exam x%
- Project x%
- Setting a system of grading from the beginning avoids arguments later (esp. with parents)
- Prayer should precede selection
- Servant has four responsibilities:
- Lesson Preparation
- Attending Sunday School
- Attending Servants Meeting
- Visitations - Sets the vision for Preservants
- What are they studying? What rotations? What opportunities?
- Selection of the Coordinators (e.g. primary school, middle school, etc.) to assist him and he work with him, and he follows up with
themthem. - Summer Activities
- Follow-up and make sure that every class is participating
- HE used to have a summer activity when he was young: Library - come to church, sit and read for 2 hours
- Trips, Conventions and Retreats for all classes
- Following up with them
- Encouraging children and servants to be active in them
- Diocese Conventions, Local Conventions, Church Conventions
- Servants Meeting
- He sets the curriculum, arranges speakers, encourages servants to attend and follows-up on their attendance
- Spiritual Edification of the Servants and Coordinators
- Conventions for servants
- Spiritual days for servants
- Time for meditation, time for reading, time for discussion, liturgy, etc.
- Commitment and modeling behaviors for the servants (including visitations, attendance of church services, etc.)
- Mosab2at (Bible Contests)
- Gifts
- Kids have enough secular gifts (balls, etc.)
- Give spiritual gifts - books, crosses, icons, agpeyas, bibles, etc. to help him build a prayer corner
- Visitation for the Servants and Coordinators
- Check on their life, not just their service
- How is your school, how is your family, how is your finances - Confidential way
- Prayer Meetings
- If not weekly, then monthly at least
- Resolving issues and problems in service
- Problems between servants, between coordinators and servants, between servant and servee, etc.
- Be present and address them immediately
HE Recalls Ostaz Ezzat Fawzy (may the Lord repose his soul) who did all of these points and more. He was a role model for all of the servants, and no servant in that generation went without benefit from him. He would check on them, give them advice, visit them, teach them, take care of them as a father or a big brother.
The General Coordinator is the Servant of the Servants
Overview of the Annual General Coordinator Meeting - Fr Simon Dawood
- Emulate the meeting after the Diocese Priest Meeting
- Fellowship
- Beneficial discussions over meals and free time to learn from one another
- Provide a similar atmosphere for the General Coordinators that we be edified together and edified from one another - Four Components
- Administrative Component (Friday)
- Subject to feedback from all coordinators
- Spiritual (our own spiritual building)
- Pastoral (how do we relate and care for those we serve)
- Educational (AI, what are our children facing in schools, conditions of society, etc.) - Committee is still deciding on the main theme, but needs YOUR Feedback
- Google form will be sent by email and Signal Group
- Each of us has thoughts about what is relevant and important, and what challenges are faced by the Coordinator. The goal of the meeting is to be as relevant and beneficial for each of you as possible - best way is to receive your feedback ahead of time, and before and after the meeting
- The more feedback you can give, the better it will be for us - Stimulate Felowship
- Working meals (e.g. seated with coordinators with the same region, or other times different regions, given discussion topics, etc.)
Q&A
- George Girgis - It would be good to try and learn from each other as coordinators
- HEMY Response: Maybe George can be in charge of gathering this feedback
- HEMY Response: Maybe at the convention, we can pick a certain number of people to speak 15min about the service in their church
- Fr Simon: We can let each of them share 1-2 of the coordinators share what has worked well with them that is unique. We can do it via Zoom as well.
- Sherry: The description of the Signal Group has a link to our resources folder
- Sam W - Trying to build opening service
- HE: Agpeya should be part of Sunday School. HE, himself, learned the Agpeya from Sunday School. HE agrees that we need reform in our songs that match the ears of our children. Maybe we can make a committee in the diocese for songs and song curriculum (committee with good taste in lyrics and music, and well established in Orthodoxy). Committee needs to keep the curriculum updated. It should include hymns from the church. HE when he was young learned some hymns like Apenchois Pimairomi from Sunday School.
- Mark (Archangel Michael, Phoenix) - Can HE discuss two servants per class without overburdening the servants
- HE: To be committed to Sunday School will never overburden the servant... to attend Sunday School, Servants Meeting, Visitations, Prepare the Lesson... if you are not willing to prepare the lessons or do visitations or attend servants meeting or attend Sunday School, then why do you want to be a SS Servant?
- Release of the Spirit HHPS: We perceive ourselves as servants BEFORE teacher/accountant/lawyer/engineer/physician
- Service takes the #1 priority in their life. That's why that generation (students of first SS Movement) came out in one generation? HHPS, Anba Youannis Gharbeya, Fr Pishoy Kamel, Fr Tadros, Anba, etc. They are the fruits of Sunday School because they were serious.
- Raafat Said - Commitment and Seriousness: In smaller churches, who you choose from is limited. Sometimes we have candidates that have best of both worlds (skill, knowledge, personality, commitment) but some candidates are doing good in skills and knowledge, but not good in commitment or spirit of servant, and some vice versa. If we have only two candidates and each one is the opposite, which is better to choose?
- HE: The committed one will be committed to learn. But the opposite one will not be committed
- Mark (Archangel Michael, Phoenix) - Are churches doing background checks and requesting recommendations from fathers of confessions or church fathers before alloiwng someone to serve?
- HE: Yes, we ask FoC, but why do a background check on someone who grew up in the church, was served by us, we watched him grow, etc. If I have doubts or considering to do a background check, I shouldn't choose him... I need to know him first and I will know if I need it. Not everyone who doesn't have a criminal record is fit for service.
- Raafat Said - Preservants candidates need to have recommendation from Abouna, SS Servants, etc. This is not what happens in our case. We open for everyone, but not everyone who finishes the program will be servant. Is this okay?
- HE: No, I said there are two ways (see notes).
- O. Ezzat would put the Sunday School list on the altar for a month before the selection of servants, so that the servant selection would really be from God. Prayer should precede selection (as the Lord did)
- Nader Ameen (St John the Beloved, Smyrna TN) - We typically say the most important service in church is visitation. Service of visitation for the servants is a difficult challenge to push on them. Some servants push back and say "a phone call is enough" What is YE's advice?
- HE: Visitation is important and phone call is not visitation; it is a reminder to attend SS. Visitation should be in person, in the house. Modeling the behavior is very important. Growing up, every Thursday HE's SS Servant would come and visit him (SS was on Friday) even though HE attended regularly. And that was the case for everyone. HE loves to do visitation now because growing up he saw his SS Servants and Priests were visiting him. He learned from the modelled behavior. General Coordinator and Subcoordinator needs to visit the servants regularly for them to learn the behavior.
- If servants are slacking, the Coordinator can take them and go visit together. And show them that it is possible, and how much of an impact it makes
- Thomas (Dallas) - Preservants: They transitioned to a system of grading and scales with quarterly reviews (shared with parents) and it was very successful.
- Thomas (Dallas) - There is a lack of commitment and seriousness by servants to the love of service (including visitation, etc.). How can we build that?
- HE: We need to choose committed servants.
- Even make it 40% of the grade
- A committed person can learn
- HE: We need to be role models
- During one meeting in Priest Meeting, many priests didn't come so HE told them "I don't want anyone to complain about the commitment of the servants when you aren't attending!"
- How can you expect the servant to visit someone when he has never been visited?
- How can you expect a servant to attend liturgy from beginning when the coordinator comes at the end?
- Isis Hanna (Ft Myers) - How flexible should we be in all the things we discussed regarding the servants? If they have young kids, jobs, schools, etc.
- A youth in HS or College has more time than a married person with children, family, work, commitments
- Most of the service was picked up by youth
- Preservants should start from 9th grade so he can start serving early - you make an army of young servants.
- The more flexible we are, the more people will not be committed. The more strict, the more people will be committed. Strict with understanding.
- Fr Mikhail Aziz - I have preservants that if I gave grades like YE is saying and one has 90% but my experience with that person is not committed at all, or I know things with him that I cannot reveal... how do I handle it?
- If your grading system is based only on tests and attendance, you'll have that problem
- If your grading system has FoC feedback, behavior, etc. with a high percentage, you won't have that problem
- If I find out someone has a girlfriend, I need to tell him clearly - you cannot be a servant and have a girlfriend. If I'm his FoC then I have to follow-up with him, and if I'm not, maybe his FoC should. Someone should confront him for his salvation.