Learning
What We Offer Through the Lifespan.
We provide children, youth, young adults, and adults an opportunity to explore, reflect, and learn in a nurturing spiritual community. Unitarian Universalist religious education programs offer all ages, inspiring:
Religious education programs include more than classes. On a Sunday you might find the preschoolers singing songs about kindness, the 2nd graders engaging with a story about loss and bereavement, the 5th graders talking with a Muslim couple about Islam, the 7th graders learning about responsibility in a lesson from our progressive sexuality education program, and the high-school youth raising money for the local homeless shelter. Many programs incorporate social justice activities, worship opportunities, service trips, fellowship, and fun.
Our religious educator and minister lead many of our congregations’ lifespan programs. Parents and other members of the congregation often lead them, too. Teaching can be a very fulfilling way to deepen one’s own faith.
Children’s religious education programs are typically offered on Sunday mornings, and high school youth and adult programs are usually offered on afternoons or evenings.
We invite you to explore these pages and contact our Executive Director of Congregational Life to get connected.
Nursery-Preschool.
Our nursery is open from 10:15-12;15 and is staffed with qualified, caring, members of our community. We offer lessons as appropriate from the Tapestry of Faith curricula “Wonderful Welcome.” In this program, children identify intangible gifts central to Unitarian Universalism such as friendship, hospitality and fairness, and share these gifts with others.
Elementary School.
K-7th grade One Room Schoolhouse
Coming from a place of wanting to meet the needs of all our young people and the desire to create connections across age groups this year we are trying out a new model of religious education. Rather than splitting our elementary age children into classes by age, we are doing all our programming as one multi-age group. There are many benefits to learning in a multi-age community including opportunities for children to teach and learn from each other.
We will be using theme based ministry as the basis for our time together. Each month we will focus on a church wide theme with the adults upstairs listening to sermons and readings on the themes and the children downstairs exploring those same themes through art, story, movement, discussion and more.
Lessons are pulled from a variety of sources and we do our best to adapt our curriculum to the needs of the children attending class.
Middle School.
Coming of Age 7th-8th
Coming of Age is a program in which our youth are encouraged and supported as they clarify their own beliefs. The youth are introduced to many faith traditions and supported in their journey of developing awareness of their personal beliefs and encouraged to put those beliefs into action with service to others.
An important part of the program is the development of a personal faith statement. At the end of the year the youth participate in the Teenz service where they present their faith statements to the congregation.
Our Whole Lives comprehensive sexuality education program
Honest, accurate information about sexuality changes lives. It dismantles stereotypes and assumptions, builds self-acceptance and self-esteem, fosters healthy relationships, improves decision making, and has the potential to save lives. For these reasons and more, we are proud to offer Our Whole Lives (OWL), a comprehensive, lifespan sexuality education curricula for use in both secular settings and faith communities.
Interactive workshops and lessons engage participants, while step-by-step instructions for program planners and facilitators help ensure success.
High School.
The Teenz; A Collaborative Youth Group Experience
Our youth group is for Sr. High students aged 14-19. The youth are largely self-directed but are supported by the loving guidance of trained adult Youth Advisors. This group of teens from both First UU and May Memorial meet weekly to discuss issues that are of concern to Unitarian Universalist youth, such as UU identity, social justice issues, and service projects. They also occasionally travel to youth conferences where they connect with other youth across the region and take peer-led workshops that promote development of their UU faith. In addition, they spend a fair amount of time just having fun in community with one another.
For those of you who have never experienced a youth CON here’s a little excerpt from one of our former youth, Elena Karpoff:
“I was not emotionally prepared to go back and experience the “real world” today. I mean, how do I even explain how I feel about cons to someone who has never been to one before? By the youth who felt they never had friends until they came into this community? By the youth who was bullied their entire life and finally felt hope after attending a con? By the youth who was brave enough to perform a beautiful song at coffeehouse at their first con ever and brought nearly the entire sanctuary to tears?
These were just a couple of anecdotes from this wonderful weekend, and I can remember so many more from the previous 19 cons I attended. Twenty-something other seniors experienced a roller coaster of emotions, facing the reality that it’s time for us to move on and make room for someone else.
As I heard someone say in the Angel Walk (an emotional trust activity with the opportunity to give affirmations held Saturday night at the last con of each year), they felt as though a part of their soul was being taken away from them. If you are reading this and have never been to a con before, I hope there’s some god-given place in this universe where you feel you can be your authentic self. For me, during high school, it was cons.”
THIS is why we do the work we do.
