June Unitarian Universalist Thread - All Welcome

[Adele_Mommy]

Welcome to the June support, community, information, conversation, and fun thread for UUs and UU curious.

Here is the link to the previous May Thread.

Come on in and say "Hi", ask a question, tell a story, or feel free to just lurk for awhile.

Summer is coming! The school year is winding down or already over for most of us and the church year is winding down as well. At my church, our annual meeting was yesterday. Next Sunday is our Flower Communion. I'm looking forward to vacation, family time, warm weather, and church picnics. What are you looking forward to?

I don't really have a quote specifically for June, but Einstein is a reliable source of favorite quotes for me, so here is my current desktop quote:

Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe. ~ Albert Einstein

Wishing you all a month of peace, joy, love, and sunshine!

:

Adele

[siobhang]

subbing

[Adele_Mommy]

artgoddess - you had asked a couple questions on the May thread.

Regarding summer RE, last year we had all-ages RE during the one weekly service we have in the summer. Adults just volunteer for one service. I did one that consisted almost entirely of outdoor group games. The kids also made shapes out of ready-made bread dough and they baked while we played, then we had the bread shapes for a snack. Our DRE provided activities for each session. I think the one I led was really fun. I'm not sure what the plan is for this summer, but I'm sure it will be something similar with fun sessions designed for multiple ages.

I don't think our church has made a statement about Prop 8, but I could be unaware. For the most part we have been focused on the law change in Iowa. Our minister has performed 11 weddings since the court ruling in April!

[siobhang]

Summer RE - excellent question.

we do our RE after the service, not during, so we still have during service child options (they are called childrens worship during the service and tend to be more multigenerational and more generic than RE).

Our preschool/toddler schedule is pretty basic.

10-10:15 - upstairs with the rest of the congretation until the reflection for all ages, and the kids get sung out.

10:15 - 10:30 - circle time, where we sing songs, do our "we are unitarian universalist" hand motion thing, covenant box (we created a class covenant, stuff like "we keep our hands and feet to ourselves, we listen to each other and our teachers, etc") and we share joys and sorrows (with a felt chalice and flames), and talk about the theme of the day.

10:30-10:45 we have a craft of some sort related to the theme

10:45- 11am snack and a story related to the theme

11am - 11:15 either indoor free play or outdoor play, as it is usually the end of the period (service ends between 11 and 11:15.

[artgoddess]

Great news about your minister!

This is one of those times I wish we had a building. We rent a space in the senior center on Sundays. No kitchen no outdoor play area. I think our congregation should use this summer to revamp our RE dept. Get more of a commitment from the congregation to teach over the next year etc. Another question...

our congregation makes it a requirement of membership that you volunteer to teach RE two times through out the year. (our membership being 54, and we have two RE classes a Sunday this would work out to filling our teachers needed) Do other congregations require that each member teach RE classes? do you have trouble finding teachers for your RE program?

[Teenytoona]

Hello all! I keep popping into this thread about as reliably as I go to church. Ugh. Which is frustrating as I'd like to get better acquainted with folks there, but sometimes feel extra shy and barely say anything but smile. It's easier in some ways when DD comes along, because I feel comfortable with the woman who runs the nursery and often times people come up and chat to me because DD's so cute.

I found myself feeling a little frustrated this weekend. I really liked the topic and wanted to further discuss it (gender and church), but don't know anyone there yet well enough to really hash out a conversation like that. I probably need to join some committee or maybe the choir once summer's over and just spend some time in small groups to get to know people. I'm so not comfortable at just striking up a conversation with someone I barely know about a topic I'm passionate about.

[Adele_Mommy]

Teeny!

I totally sympathize with not being comfortable discussing "heavy" topics with relative strangers. And then I find "small talk" frustrating and boring, so at first I ended up just skipping out after a lot of services. You might check whether your congregation has a membership coordinator or the equivalent who could direct you to events designed to give visitors and new members the chance to get to know some longer term members. Our church has two or three casual receptions or dinners like this each year. And if not, just stick with it! My church, at least is full of people, including myself, who love nothing better than a passionate discussion!

Good luck!

[artgoddess]

Our church is going to start a "talk back"soon. I've been to ones at other congregations. Basically it's a group that meets to discuss the sermon with one another. The minister is invited as well. I've been when my dad was a guest preacher at a congregation and we went tot he talk back it was great.

[Teenytoona]

Originally Posted by Adele_Mommy

Teeny!

I totally sympathize with not being comfortable discussing "heavy" topics with relative strangers. And then I find "small talk" frustrating and boring, so at first I ended up just skipping out after a lot of services. You might check whether your congregation has a membership coordinator or the equivalent who could direct you to events designed to give visitors and new members the chance to get to know some longer term members. Our church has two or three casual receptions or dinners like this each year. And if not, just stick with it! My church, at least is full of people, including myself, who love nothing better than a passionate discussion!

Good luck!

Yeap, exactly how I am! It's just a matter of warming up to folks. I'll get there, but I am frustrated along the way!

Originally Posted by artgoddess

Our church is going to start a "talk back"soon. I've been to ones at other congregations. Basically it's a group that meets to discuss the sermon with one another. The minister is invited as well. I've been when my dad was a guest preacher at a congregation and we went tot he talk back it was great.

Oh such a good idea!

[Callimom]

Originally Posted by artgoddess

Our church is going to start a "talk back"soon. I've been to ones at other congregations. Basically it's a group that meets to discuss the sermon with one another. The minister is invited as well. I've been when my dad was a guest preacher at a congregation and we went tot he talk back it was great.

Our church has a group discussion following the service with whoever was the presenter that day. We had the most amazing service for Gay Pride week. The young man who came to speak began life as an anglican female and is now essentially a Jewish male in a same sex/transgendered/transexual legal marriage (love being Canadian - lol). His story was fascinating.

anyway - sorry slight tangent. So after the service there is a break for coffee and many people - particularly those with kids tend to leave at that point but all are welcome to stay and go back into the congregation hall for a discussion/Q&A on the topic of the presentation. Most presenters stay. It's lovely.

We have our kids pagent coming up (which my kids are very excited about) and our end of year picnic/canoe trip at the end of the month. There is one service a month in July and August.

[Adele_Mommy]

Originally Posted by artgoddess

our congregation makes it a requirement of membership that you volunteer to teach RE two times through out the year. (our membership being 54, and we have two RE classes a Sunday this would work out to filling our teachers needed) Do other congregations require that each member teach RE classes? do you have trouble finding teachers for your RE program?

Our church does not require every member to volunteer to teach RE. We expect members to contribute their time in some fashion, but teaching isn't for everyone. Of course, with almost 400 members we have the luxury of being flexible. Even so, there have been times when we had difficulty getting enough teachers. I believe last year they worked out a system where there were teams of teachers for each class and the teams rotated being the lead teacher and being the assistant. I believe they tried to get teams large enough so each person only had to do each job every 4-6 weeks. Then the teams also met as a whole group several times during the year for support and to make sure the class had a cohesive vision. This seemed to work really well (at least based on my observations as a parent and talking to the teachers). In addition to having a large member pool to draw on, I think having multiple services each week makes it easier to get and keep volunteers because the volunteers can teach during one service and attend a different service so they don't miss out.

The DRE tries to provide a lot of support and assistance as well as really detailed curricula to make teaching as easy and painless as possible for the volunteers. I know there are some people at our church who think all parents should be required to teach at least some. I myself, do not teach in the regular RE program. I feel guilty about that, but, well, I'm just not a very good teacher. I don't enjoy it and I don't feel like I would give the kids the RE experience they deserve. I do try help out the children's RE program in other ways by volunteering to lead one (or more) of the less structured summer classes, and I supervised a game night 4 times last Fall as a Wednesday night children's activity.

If our church could not have RE without my teaching, then I would do it of course, but I think I can better serve the church in other areas. I am also extremely grateful and admiring of those members of our church who do teach RE.

[artgoddess]

Adele what you describe is much more like what I grew up with, larger congregations, having your own building all facilitate that. Thank you.


Our church is having a real issue with a floundering RE program. Demographically for our suburb we should be growing, not shrinking. And our membership is growing, but in the direction of childless people. Our families are leaving because the RE program is falling apart. So expect me this year to come here with a ton off questions for everyone and help in getting out RE program back on track. So much of this is hard because w don't have a space, or much of a budget.

[Callimom]

Originally Posted by artgoddess

our congregation makes it a requirement of membership that you volunteer to teach RE two times through out the year. (our membership being 54, and we have two RE classes a Sunday this would work out to filling our teachers needed) Do other congregations require that each member teach RE classes? do you have trouble finding teachers for your RE program?

I just attended our RE planning/discussion night and I think that if we continue to have steady numbers in our 9-12 group the parents/members will be asked to volunteer and do a 1 - 3 week unit. The younger group is run by a woman who has been hired to do RE for the kids and as numbers have increased there, they have asked for a regular parent volunteer in that program as well - just for support and herding the kids.

hth
Karen

[artgoddess]

Do your congregations have rules about more than one adult with the kids? We have safety rules, so that we must have two adults in with the classes. Also in order to teach RE you must be a member with regular attendance for a minimum of 6 months.

[Callimom]

Originally Posted by artgoddess

Do your congregations have rules about more than one adult with the kids? We have safety rules, so that we must have two adults in with the classes. Also in order to teach RE you must be a member with regular attendance for a minimum of 6 months.

Not that I know of - although it makes sense. We often will have just the main RE person but because of the layout of the space it gets passed by often in the course of a service and there are people in and out of the room regularly.

[siobhang]

my biggest frustration about the RE program is that the volunteers are only parents, especially in the preschool class. Seriously, we have five teachers (two only assist) and they all have kids in the classes we are teaching. It gets really frustrating b/c it is hard to teach your own kids, AND it feels like I go to church to teach RE, ya know? with only three teachers, I end up teaching about two sundays a month.

our congregation is growing, especially with parents of young children, so we often have 9-12 kids in the preschool class (age 2-5). It is HARD to teach this group when the ages and developmental abilities are so broad.

The other interesting fact is that our church has a very high % of special needs kids - 25% of our kids have an identified special need, ranging from ADHD, Apspergers/Autism (a couple of very low functioning austistic kids) and CP. This does not include the kids with undiagnosed special needs, of which we suspect a couple. I think our church has developed a reputation for being very open and supportive of special needs kids- which I absolutely love and want to flourish. BUT as teachers, it makes our jobs that much harder.

we have been talking together about how to address these issues, and I personally would like to see more of a formalized training program for all RE teachers - appropriate and inappropriate discipline, core values, standard safety rules, what to do in an emergency, how to handle special needs, etc.

of course, we have the standard problem that when anyone makes a suggestion for improvement, they are then tasked with implementing it. And I am already redesigning/implementing the new website, plus my full time business, teaching RE, on the board of the preschool, taking care of my family, etc etc etc etc.

sorry for the vent. just feeling the pain at the moment.

[artgoddess]

sing it sista!

[FoxintheSnow]

Hi all. Just joining you for the first time!

I was going to the presbyterian church for a few month because ds loved their sunday school. The only problem was, I felt bored to tears during the service and not spiritually fullfilled. On a whim I took the whole family to the UU church. It's a little furthur drive, but it's in a beautiful part of town.

After my first service I had that "where has this been all my life" feeling. It was like coming home. Everyone was so nice and welcoming and I connected with everything being said. We have been going for a few weeks now and plan to keep going. My dh is an agnostic so it's so nice to find a place that is welcoming of him and doesn't try to change him iykwim.

I just have a silly question right now. I've noticed instead of clapping, a lot of people in the congregation wave their fingers (like the way cheerleaders do) Is that a UU thing? or just a think in this church?

Oh also our congregation doesn't have a Summer RE program. In fact yesterday was their last day for the season. Over the summer, the children go up to the front 15 minutes in, hear a story, ask questions, sing a song and then a woman takes them to the playground where they garden, play and eat watermelon.

[Adele_Mommy]

Jokerama!

That is great that you found a church where you feel at home!

Regarding the finger waving, I don't think that is a UU thing. I have never heard of it. At my church we clap. Anyone else have more insight?

[FoxintheSnow]

Finger waving sounds weird right? I think cheerleaders call it spirit fingers if that makes any sense lol