Mustard Seed Ministry
Mina Mejia, who with husband Sonny Mejia, currently heads the CTK Children’s Ministry a.k.a. ‘Mustard Seed’, gave a short background on the ministry. ‘The Ministry has been teaching the children of the 9 am Sunday mass goers since August of 2015. Through fun and engaging activities, the children have learned more about the Gospel and our Catholic traditions. Believe it or not, some of the children are now serving as readers in the monthly Children’s Mass and some have joined the CTK Altar Servers.’
The Mustard Seed Ministry never seems to run out of ideas on how to make every Sunday unique for the children. For example, during the Feast of the Sto. Niño last January 21, with the help of the youth volunteers, the Mustard Seed Ministry set up a booth and gave out sweets and stampitas to the young parishioners of the morning masses. Mass goers were also greeted by the musically-talented Nicky Maza with her violin renditions of worship songs. Inside the activity room, the children did an artwork of pasting shapes to form the Sto. Niño image which they later paraded during the 9 am mass.
The ministry continues to grow, Mina Mejia points out. With the desire to implement the program in the other masses, Mustard Seed has been conducting sign-ups for ‘teacher volunteers’ who are willing to spend at least one hour a month in forming the future of our Parish. It was fortunate that last year, in line with 2017 being the Year of the Parish, a number of catholic schools required their students to be more involved in their parish activities. Students of St. Paul Pasig came to volunteer, conducting arts and crafts activities with the children, and making lesson plans based on the assigned Sunday Gospel. Last year’s volunteers were a big help during last October’s Kingdom of Heaven fair that was jointly organized by the Family & Life, Mustard Seed, and the Youth Ministries. With their vocal and musical talents, the volunteers also added vibrancy to the Coffee after Church program when Mustard Seed and the Catechetical Ministries were the assigned sponsoring groups.
With the positive experience of engaging volunteers from the religious schools, Mina hopes that schools would run these volunteer program on a more regular basis. Mustard Seed had been blessed to have Youth volunteers from St. Paul and Poveda who are fruits of these parish involvement requirements. Now that the school year is about to end, the ministry leaders hope that these girls will come back next year to play a more active role in Christ the King!
Parents, if you have pre-communicants from three to seven years old and you haven’t signed them up yet for Mustard Seed, please do so at the soonest possible time. If you have musically-inclined children who might be able to join the CTK Children’s Choir, please inquire about the choir’s regular practice times.
But most importantly, if your older children or teenagers might be interested in signing up as Teacher Volunteers, please don’t hesitate to have them contact the parish office.
