Religious Education
Welcome to Religious Education at First Unitarian Church. Our goal is to be a warm and welcoming faith development community for all children, infants through senior high. Also, we offer a variety of Adult Education classes.
Our program is committed to the values of liberal religion as expressed through Unitarian
Universalism. Our children are nurtured in a faith that recognizes the inherent worth of all life and strives for a world of empathy and justice.
Our children and youth classes provide a background in the history and wisdom of many traditions and a strong knowledge and connection with our own UU identity. Classes are a combination of active and reflective learning opportunities. As the children progress through the program, subjects are looked at with deepening intellectual sophistication in recognition of their cognitive development. Children are guided to appreciate the wisdom and knowledge in these areas as they go deeper into understanding religion and developing their own religious values.
Nursery
Young Children (Birth to 5 years)
Babies and young children can be brought to the Nursery down the hall from the sanctuary starting at 9:45am on Sunday mornings. Our staff member Anna Drendel provides loving care during the 10am service. A religious education volunteer facilitates activities for children over three.
Elementary Age Children & Middle School Age Youth
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME: BUILDING UU IDENTITY BRICK BY BRICK
A LEGO®- assisted Experiential Curriculum on UU Values
This curriculum is intended for a “one-room classroom” for the entire religious education year. The topics of each lesson are adaptable to a variety of age ranges (largely early elementary to middle school), as well as learning styles.
Several peer-reviewed education papers point to the effectiveness of using LEGO for active learning in students of all ages, so we have chosen LEGO to be the throughline for an exploration of our UU values centered on Love. Each value will be the topic for three Sundays, with the first Sunday being the Introduction to the Value, the second Sunday featuring a Unitarian, Universalist, or Unitarian Universalist ancestor who embodied that value. Each ancestor will
have a corresponding LEGO personalized figurine that will go in the diorama for the final lesson. In the second week, we also encourage the children to use LEGO freeform to make something that represents that value to them. Weeks 1 and 2 prepare for Week 3 with questions and action plans. This will work for those who attend regularly in terms of planning it, but will also be okay for occasional participants, whether they participate in week 2 and not 3, or just 3 and not 2. The third week will be an “action” week, where there will be something the class will actively do related to the value highlighted, which may have a “field trip” component.
To fill out the Sundays when there is no intergenerational worship or a seasonal party (Halloween and Valentine’s dance), we use the “Deeper Joy” curriculum, developed by Jennica Davis-Hockett at the UUA as the centerpiece of a children’s chapel model.
Our Whole Lives: Lifespan Sexuality Education
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) for our middle school youth. The program is generally offered every other year. Watch for details. You can learn more about the program here. (text from UUA.org - adapted)
High School Youth Group
Our High School Youth meet weekly and plan the direction of the group. They choose topics of interest to explore, Social Justice activities in which to participate, and, of course, have fun. Once a month, the group makes sack lunches that are delivered to the Gateway 180 Shelter for women and children. They often help with the Trinity Hot Lunch, a lunch program run by Trinity Episcopal which is supported by local religious institutions. They also participate in worship services on a regular basis.
Adult Religious Education
The Adult Education program strives to provide opportunities for members and friends to
deepen their connections with other members, explore the theology and history of Unitarian Universalism, to understand our connection to other faith traditions, develop leadership skills, and discover our connection and responsibility to the world around us.
The program features book clubs, classes, Covenant Groups, guest speakers from community orgazinations.
Click here to see current Adult Education offerings.
You can also check out the Enews or the Current News and Calendar on the home page for the latest programming.
John Learned Library (Currently Closed for Renovations)
The John Learned Library seeks to support the spiritual quest, religious education, and other church-related activities of members and friends of First Unitarian Church by providing materials on Unitarian Universalism specifically, religious matters generally, and appropriate related areas.
The Library is open on Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
We invite you to come into the library to browse the collection, to search the catalog on the library’s computer, to check out books that hold a special interest for you, or simply to sit and enjoy the peace and quiet.