Home Based RISE

Students in 7th or 8th grade may choose to be enrolled in Home-based RISE instead of in-person Rise to participate in faith formation. Home-based RISE consists of weekly videos of one of our youth ministers giving a talk (the teaching portion) on the lesson for that week.

The main difference between in-person RISE and home-based RISE is that home-based does not include the small group discussion portion that is part of attending RISE, where students are placed in a grade-specific small group led by an adult leader to discuss, share and ask questions in order to unpack the content. The teaching portion is the same for either option. There are no workbooks or physical materials supplied; it is completely online. We find that students greatly benefit from beginning with a small group in-person in 7th or 8th grade before they begin Encounter, our Confirmation preparation program. Small groups journey together from Rise to Encounter through their Confirmation. This allows for an opportunity to form relationships with their peers and leaders. The home-based option can be beneficial for families whose schedules do not allow for consistent attendance on Wednesday evenings. 

Our suggested implementation is for a parent to watch the video with their student and to use the pauses in the video where questions pop up or the time after completing the video to talk with your child about what they are learning. Our hope is that students are not doing it "on their own" in front of a computer screen, but have the ability to pray, talk and ask questions about what they are learning with someone they have a relationship with: for home-based, this would be with a parent, for in-person, this would be with their adult Core Team leader(s), high school Teen Leader(s) and peers in their small group.