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Religious Education for Children and Youth
Senior Youth Religious Education Class The Senior Youth (Grades 9, 10, 11 & 12) are engaged in the Coming of Age program and Leadership Development. Junior Youth The Junior High Youth Class (Grades 7 & 8) alternate between Neighboring Faiths and Traditions with a Wink. Neighboring Faiths is a study of different religions. While there is a lot of different religions, such as Jewish, Catholic, Protestant (Methodist, Luther, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc), Islam, Quakers, Earth-Centered Religions, Hinduism and Buddhism and others. Often that is more than we can fit into a year and make it meaningful to our youth. Dorothy Emery will be planning with the youth to get their input on which of these religions they will explore. Families who have experience in one of these religions will be asked to lead a unit and plan the field trip to a local synagogue, mosque, temple or church. The parents of youth in this class will be needed to help with this activity by organizing and driving. (Visiting other houses of worship is treat many parents enjoy.) Junior Youth Activities Junior Youth Activities are a part of our overall programming for our Junior Youth. We feel strongly that the activities, which include social and social action help our youth develop deep relationships within their own junior youth community and learn to reach outside the community doing projects that help this church community, the Greenville community and the World community. TWEENS: 5th & 6th Graders
Jesus and His Kingdom of Equals introduces the Tweens to an historical Jesus. This curriculum is based on the Jesus Seminar research, which has been a modern day research of the life of Jesus not as a founder of the Christian religion but as he really lived out his own Jewish Faith. Jesus was a Jewish reformer who saw through the hypocrisy and elitism that existed in that first century Roman Palestine. Jesus liberated those Galileans from what some would call oppression and introduced them to a God of love that was already inside their hearts. Living the Promise is a rich curriculum that explores the Hebrew scriptures. It is a curriculum about covenant. The Hebrews had a covenant with God. As Unitarian Universalists, we covenant with each other. One question that comes up: Are we our brother's keeper? As members of the human race, we are related to one another. The first step in that relationship (covenant) is that we should not harm each other, and more -- that we have responsibility for each other. Yes! We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers! Social Activities are also planned with the children. 5th & 6th graders will be invited to become Junior Worship Associates. Their duties will include helping the ushers hand out programs and passing the baskets for the offertory and helping to count the money from the offertory. Classes will be held for Junior Worship Associates during the second hour activities and will be announced. Children's Chapel (for ages K3 - 6th grade) Each RE Sunday (see schedule for No RE Sundays or Intergenerational Sundays), there will be a Children's Chapel. This will meet in the RE Common Area. Parents are welcome to drop off children and attend adult classes or discussions, as well as Spirit Play work groups, which are groups of parents creating new materials for a Spirit Play story. Also, attending the Chapel with children is always an option. What Is Children's Chapel? And this Chapel will be a fun time with lots of movement and activity, so that the children can get their wiggles out before sitting for about an hour-and-a-half of programming (which also has some movement, but much more structured than this laid-back Chapel time.) Children will be invited to help participate as Worship Leaders. We will celebrate birthdays and other important events in our children's lives, as time permits. Spirit Play Spirit Play is a child-centered education program based on the Montessori philosophy. After an initial story, children are encouraged to choose their own work for the class period. Spirit Play is based on Jerome Berryman's Godly Play, which is a proven educational method whose values support Unitarian Universalism. Some of the tenets of the program include encouraging independent thinking through wondering questions; giving children real choices within the structures of the morning; creating community life with the children in the classroom of mixed ages; developing an underlying sense of the spiritual and the mystery of life; supporting congregational polity through choice of lesson; and supporting value as part of the program and as part of their own spiritual path. While it is difficult to build a religious education program that is both free and responsible, Spirit Play does just that by making a commitment to freedom in spiritual exploration and responsibility in conducting that search. Other programs and models do not allow this level of freedom, which is so ingrained in the Montessori Method. Spirit Play at Greenville UU Spirit Play can touch their souls in ways other stories and other venues do not. It is heart-warming to see our K3-K5 class being intentionally quiet to walk a labyrinth and appreciate meditation or actively participating in Yoga. Spirit Play
Seeing our children work is an amazing and spiritual event. All the children quietly working on art or doing a story does make the heart sing. Their questions are often deep questions. In Spirit Play, we don't often give children concrete answers, instead we wonder with them. For example, "Miss Kirsten, does God sit on the clouds?" The response might be, "I wonder. Do you think the cloud could hold him? Could God live on the clouds or on the moon?" This gives the child the opportunity to think for himself or herself. It is not an evasive issue. We try to challenge the children to learn on their own, think for themselves and enjoy the awe that they find. Spirituality is not something as tangible as math or history. It is an experienced feeling of having one's soul touched and stretched and sometimes acknowledged. Nursery Our nursery at Greenville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is staffed with capable, caring adults. Our Childcare Coordinator, Lana Gilbert, is a mom of three children. As a mother herself, she understands your concerns of safety and security. Lana is responsible for staffing the nursery for Sunday Mornings and all other church events. Our nursery has a warm and caring environment, which allows our youngest members to play in a safe space. To keep everyone safe, we ask that you stand in the hall and get our childcare giver's attention before entering the nursery to prevent one of our young ones from escaping. Since some of our children in the nursery have life-threatening allergies to nuts, we ask that all parents not feed nut products to their children before entering the nursery. We also ask that all snack items you pack be screened for nut products. Should your child come down with one of the many childhood diseases, please contact Lana so that we can notify other parents that their children have been exposed. Naturally, if your child is running a fever or is otherwise ill, it is best to keep him/her at home to keep from exposing other children. Children should come to our nursery in comfortable clothing. Jackets or sweaters should be provided, in case our childcare workers take the children to the playground, which is located on the left-hand side of the church in a fenced area. We share this playground with the UU World of Children, our on-site Montessori preschool. Elementary (K3-6) Program's Information to come. Parents are encouraged to attend Adult Education Programs from 9:45 -10:45 a.m. There are ongoing Discussion Groups and at least one Adult Class provided. We also have a drop-in group, which meets in the Fellowship Hall to help create the manipulatives used in the Spirit Play lessons. I teach to see the "Aha" moment. It is one of my greatest joys. It doesn't always come during the lesson, but sometimes happens during their work or the feast, or when I hear them talking to each other in Fellowship Hall. I just love to see the delight and sparkle in their eyes when they "get it." I teach for my children, so they understand what it is to be a UU and can respond to the people of other faiths in their school. My older daughter Katie has two classmates who stopped talking to her when they found out she's a UU, except for telling her that she's going to hell. Instead of getting angry or upset, as I would probably do, she shrugs and says, "That's not what I believe." My favorite religious story comes from my younger daughter Robyn, who in first grade was going to an assembly that was held at the Baptist church down the street from us. She asked me why we can't go to that church because it's closer, and I told her we couldn't because it's a Baptist church. She asked, "What's a Baptist church?" and before I could frame an answer, Katie answered, "You have to sing real loud, and pray and shout your feelings real loud, and you have to believe in God." Robyn, ever the independent, said, "You have to? They make you?" Well, she was aghast at that, and there ended the discussion -- thankfully, because by that time we were approaching the steps to enter the church. I love to teach preschool and K5 students, because they still love to sing with all their hearts. Because they love everyone in the room and treat them all equally without hesitation. Because they are excited about everything we do whether it is a story, feast, chalice lighting, working, singing or talking about the rules. Because they show an innate drive to find out what is right and wrong, so they can do what is right. They help others clean up their work without being asked and love to be picked to help out by an adult. They respond faster to indirect compliments of others than direct negative reprimands. Because they hug me every week so hard I close my eyes. Because they wonder about things like why the felt underlay is blue and what picture a neighbor has drawn. They still want to please adults and make friends with everyone. I could go on and on...I love those little friends:) Can there be a better way to serve our community and our planet than raising our children well? Is there anything we do that has the same permanence as raising another generation who will uphold our deepest values? Is there anything that can feel better than the earned trust of a child that is not even yours? Anything more challenging than the piercingly direct questions of young folks who will not cloak their thoughts under a mask of sophistication or walk away for fear of offending? Is there anything better than allowing kids to teach you about computers, fashion and their vision of the future? Is there anyone better to help us learn not look back or too far forward and to force us to be mindful of the here and now? To see a UU child reach out to another in need, to laugh out loud, to play a fine instrument, to question -this is why I work for RE at GUUF. I know that we have made a real difference in the spiritual lives of children and their parents. I know some children have found greater acceptance and others have found that they were challenged to be accepting. We are not perfect-far from it--and that too is a lesson that we can teach our kids by our own work in RE. The RE Program feeds our kids in a spiritual way which is often a hunger as deep as the desire for love or food. Would you walk away from a child who needs food? Why then, would we refuse to help our children even when the going is tough, the resources are scarce but we know the rewards are huge? This is why I personally have to commit to RE, even when I am tired and wish just for one day to stay in bed and refuse to be grown up. I believe in loving and mentoring our children so they in turn can pass it on. And with some luck, some of it might pass right back to me. We dedicate our minds and hearts to the spirit of this child. While other Faiths have traditions of christening, naming, male circumcision, or initiation (older children), the Unitarian Universalist tradition is "dedication." Some ministers and churches do this only when the child is very young or newly adopted; in others the tradition is done at any time. At Greenville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the tradition is to dedicate babies or very young children. If you would like to have this ceremony, performed for your child, please speak to our minister. This ceremony is done as a part of our regular church service, but is flexible enough to include all the people for whom you would like to stand with you, such as parents and mentors/godparents. Our belief that we are all part of the interconnected web of life extends into the community as part of the fabric that holds all humanity. Our lives are woven into the cultures of our childhood, as well as the culture of our adult choosing. The Greenville UU Fellowship welcomes the opportunity to formally welcome your child into the loving, human community that is our Fellowship. Our UU faith motivates us to create a world filled with love, freedom and truth. Whether your family is made of a mother and a child; a child and a dad; two moms and a child; two dads and a child; a mom, a dad and a child; two grandparents and a child or some other combination of child(ren) and parenting figure, we accept you and your child and honor the individual life that is the miracle, wonder and mystery of the human experience on this planet. Blessed be! Our Religious Education Leaders
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 Greenville UU Fellowship • Greenville, SC 29609 |
