The Church of Ceylon Board of Christian Education organized a Sunday School Teachers National Conference from the 15th of January to the 17th of January 2016, at the Cathedral Premises. This Conference was the brainchild of the Bishop of Colombo , who shared with the Planning Committee that the Lord had laid in his heart a passion to gather the Sunday School Teachers of the entire diocese, to share our expectations with them to what God calls us to accomplish, pray , lay hands and send them out in faith, to feed the lambs in their care.
The planning of this conference began as far back as January 2015. The Bishop felt that there was a need to invest faith in the hearts of children, while they were still young. Thus the Board of Christian Education began organizing this National Conference with the aim of empowering each Teacher to fulfil His/Her role as a Shepherd in Christ.
The Chairman of the Board of Christian Education Rev. Melvin de Silva gave leadership to take this event forward and the full time Board Staff consisting of Ms Sudeni Perera-Coordinator, Mr S.M. Lekamge – Treasurer, Chalani Mirando, Nisansala Denagamage and Nirmala Nitheyanantan went way beyond their call of duty and gave of their utmost to make this event a success.
When the planning began there was no looking back and so many committed people from parishes situated far and wide, came forward to offer their services voluntarily to make this mammoth event a success. Finally there were 950 Participants, almost 35 Resource Persons and over 50 Voluntary helpers. The Conference had a very appropriate theme namely “Feed and take care of my Lambs”. There were numerous duties to attend to such as Travel and Transport of participants, Accommodation for them, Programme Logistics such as Time-tables, Multi- media equipment, Different venues to be arranged for the talks, Music Teams, Facilitators and Worship leaders in all 3 languages and such like which required so much planning and preparation. The financial Commitment was massive but the Lord Bishop stated with great faith that God would provide our needs in time, and so everything fell into place. The CEO of the Diocese Mr Arun Gamalatge made sure that all the arrangements were taken care of.
Rev. Balasunderam took on the responsibility of the Logistic Coordination which was a huge task. Simultaneous translations of the main plenary sessions were done extremely skilfully by Rev. Balasunderam and Mr Elmo de Mel. Coordination of the Resource Persons was done by Rev. Balasunderam.
A very Comprehensive and Educative Programme was drawn up over a period of two and a half days, where sessions began at 8 am and concluded and 7.30 pm. There were four Plenary Sessions Conducted by 4 eminent Speakers. The first Introductory Session was conducted by The Lord Bishop himself, and the 2nd Session which was on the Biblical Basis and Practical values of Sunday School Ministry was conducted by Mr Napolean Pathmanathan. The 3rd Topic was The Multiple Role of a Sunday School Teacher Conducted by President/Bishop Asiri Perera of the Methodist Church and the 4th Session was on the Leadership qualities of a Sunday School Teacher conducted by Mr Ivor Poobalan. In addition to these Plenary sessions there were other speakers who conducted Seminars on the following Topics namely: 1) Holistic Child Development 2) Challenges to Childhood in the World 3) Curriculum as a Key to Excellence 4) Planning the Sunday School Lesson & Presenting it Creatively 5) Conducting a Meaningful Worship for Children 6) Cyber Culture and Child Protection. In addition there were two Practical Sessions namely 1) Teaching the word of God to children through Sports and 2) New Action Songs for Sunday School Ministry.
It was the combined effort of so many talented and committed people that helped towards this event being a great step forward in the Christian Ministry. An event of this magnitude was truly a great Vision of Bishop Dhilo. The Teachers from Parishes all over the Island went back greatly blessed after a beautiful Service of Dedication that was held in the Cathedral on Sunday Morning.
