Life Together

Questions and Answers

What is Life Together?
Life Together is a new way to approach Sunday and the rest of the week. It is a way of encountering God's word together every day. Life Together integrates worship, preaching and faith formation — or learning — in order to build strong faith communities.

What makes Life Together different from other lectionary-based curricula?
Life Together is more than a curriculum — it is an integrated family of resources that connect primary activities of congregational life around a common core. While each of the components can be used separately, they work powerfully together to create a unified experience on Sunday. Life Together is designed to weave together into a rich tapestry a variety of ministries: faith and prayer in the home, Sunday preaching and worship, and weekly educational opportunities. An integrating key idea permeates the Sunday morning faith experience, giving people a tool to build connections to the many opportunities people of faith encounter during the rest of the week.

Are the readings in the lectionary developmentally appropriate for Sunday school?
Life Together identifies for each day a driving question which gets at the Heart of the Matter. Both are related integrally to the lectionary and to daily life. In most cases, the lectionary readings for the day support the Heart of the Matter in ways that are developmentally appropriate across age levels. Occasionally, a simplified thread of text or related Old Testament text is used for the lower learner levels.

Many of the favorite Old Testament stories are not in the lectionary. Are they included in the curriculum?
Yes. Recognizing, the importance of these stories both for biblical literacy and for the powerful messages they proclaim, some links to and usage of Old Testament stories are included in the curriculum.

What translation of the Bible is used or recommended?
The New Revised Standard Version Bible (NRSV) is used as the standard translation of the Bible. The Contemporary English Version (CEV) is used for some lower ages as appropriate.

How many curriculum sessions are in a quarter? Why aren't there the same number of Sundays in each quarter?
Quarters are divided so that they intersect both with the school year and the church year. Therefore, autumn quarter begins in September and ends the third week of November with Christ the King Sunday, the end of the church year. Winter quarter begins the next week, with the beginning of Advent. Individual quarters may vary in length by a Sunday or so for this reason.

How can the same curriculum be used for three grade levels? Does this mean the children for two or three grades need to be in the same class? Will they repeat the same material next year?
The curriculum is developed for three age groupings: pre-elementary, lower elementary, and upper elementary. This grouping of grade levels allows for flexibility: smaller congregations or those who find combining children of various ages to be beneficial may choose to combine grade levels and have one or two classes per age grouping, while other congregations may want to maintain traditional grade level divisions. Care has been given in developing learner materials and leader guides that make the lessons accessible and interesting across the broader age range of the groupings. And, because the curriculum follows the three-year cycle of the lectionary, the material within an age grouping will be new for each of the three years.

Do the lessons follow a scope and sequence chart? Where can I find this?
A listing of the texts and the Heart of the Matter for each session is available — click on the link for "Planning."

How is the songbook used? How does it connect with worship?
The LifeSongs songbook includes early childhood songs, rounds, hymns, spiritual songs, and appropriate service music that can be used in Sunday school, vacation Bible school, with children's choirs, and during worship. LifeSongs is designed to build bridges to congregational singing and to lay the seeds for a lifetime of singing faith. Songs relate to both lectionary and seasonal themes and are highlighted in Living and Learning and the weekly leader guide plans.

Are any of the resources reproducible?
Yes. The learner resource Faith Life Weekly take-home handout is available in reproducible form. You have your choice of format for the learner materials: they are available either in colorful printed form or as reproducible resources on CD-ROM. The take-home resource Faith Life Weekly is available in reproducible printed form only. And pieces of Living & Learning: The Life Together Educational Planner are also reproducible.

Will I be able to use Life Together resources separately without adopting the whole program?
Yes. While the benefits of Life Together's integrated approach are strongest when the entire family of resources is used within a congregation, each resource can also stand alone. The Microsoft® Office suite of tools might be a helpful metaphor: the word processor, spreadsheet, and database can all be used separately, but the benefits of their integration form a value larger than the sum of its parts.

How is preaching supported?
New Proclamation provides theological reflection and vital pastoral applications of the text, as well as faithful exegesis and suggestions for incorporating references to contemporary culture, media, and events. Sundays & Seasons presents images for preaching that open up the texts within the context of worship.