News Alert

The Sentinel, 08/04/2005: Vacation Bible schools are usually pretty staid affairs, but St. John’s Episcopal Church in Carlisle [PA] is tapping into popular culture this year by inviting “Harry Potter” to help teach lessons behind the scriptures.

“The way I look at it, you have to reach...people where they are,” says the Rev. Robyn Szoke, associate rector at St. John’s. “[Harry Potter] gives us a real avenue to journey alongside them and helps them reflect on God.”

The program—called “Wizards and Wonders”...focuses “on the heroes in our lives and on making good choices and Harry will be using a Bible as his guide....Really, the links to scripture are  amazingly easy to make in Harry Potter’s world,” she says.

But the children attending “Wizards and Wonders” will probably be most excited by the chance to meet both Harry Potter and his sidekick, Hermione. They’ll even get a chance to play a good game of quidditch, though the flying broomsticks used by players in the books might be hard to find.

“We’re also going to use this series as a way for the children to explore some of the Celtic roots of their own church tradition when we let them walk the Labyrinth — a traditional form of meditation and prayer,” she adds.

“Wizards and Wonders” has proven popular so far.   [TBC: See Proverbs:14:12There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
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