Lifespan Religious Education

Adult Religious Education

Join us for our 2008 adult winter program! Download the PDF brochure here.

Please print and post our new flyer. <View flyer>

Class and Discussion Meeting Times

Grades Kindergarten thru 6th
Children’s Chapel: 11am Sundays (Worship and Workshop)
Children’s chapel is a new offering at the Unitarian Church. Three weeks out of the month, this group will meet downstairs in the new Children’s Chapel and have a worship service dedicated to them. After the service, the children will move into the workshop area which will be focused on activities related to our Judaic-Christian heritage. Activities will include: singing, sculpting, painting, pottery, drama, games and much, much more! The final Sunday of the month, the group will participate in an intergenerational service in the Great Hall and share what they have been doing in the previous weeks! Good times for all involved!!
Jr. High (7th & 8th grades)
R.O.P.E. Rite of Passage Experience. 10am Sundays (please note the time change)
This group will also be participating in OWL education from November 6th – December 18th and also from February 26th – April 9th. Our Whole Lives (OWL) is sexuality education designed specifically for this age group. Parental/Guardian permission is required. More information will be provided soon.
High School (9th – 12th grades) 10am Sundays
This group meets weekly to discuss important issues and to participate in a service designed for and by the HS group.

Sunday 10:00 AM - Sunday Forum - Adult-level Presentations

Wednesday 5:45 PM - Wonderful Wednesdays (A Simple Supper, Vespers, and Adult Level Classes)

Five Essential Practices for Spiritual Progressives

For the last few years I've been refining my response to the "Five Great Motivators" used by advertisers to get people to buy items that they don't really need. Here's what Herschell Gordon Lewis, author of The Art of Writing Copy, has to say about them: “Anyone who might be moved by food, clothing and shelter is not worth your promotional dollars. Gourmet food? Yes. Designer clothing? Yes. Status-laden shelter? Yes. But it's the qualifier words that give us the motivators, not the bald requirements of life.” It seems to me that religion, spirituality, and faith are, indeed, about the bald requirements of life, such as the need for belonging and attachment with others or the need to feel at home in the universe. So how do we respond to the "Five Great Motivators" advertisers use to make us feel so insecure that we'll never be satisfied and always want more?

I believe that Robert Wuthnow's notion of "practice-oriented spirituality" may be helpful for those who are interested in living a truly fulfilling life (be they people of faith or people who prefer to think of themselves as "spiritual, but not religious"). Wuthnow suggests that this kind of spirituality "emphasiz[es] the need to reflect and to deliberate on the ultimate sources of one’s moral commitments," which is the exact opposite of what Madison Avenue wants us to believe we need. So in response to the "Five Great Motivators" of Fear, Exclusivity, Guilt, Greed, and Ego Gratification, I suggest we develop some practices that help us reflect and deliberate on what really matters most in life.

As I said earlier, I've been refining these responses for a few years now, and I think I've come up with what I would call the Five Essential Practices for Spiritual Progressives, practices that help us resist the shrill and unceasing clamor of the market-driven media while putting us in touch with "the ultimate sources of [our] moral commitments." And thanks to Fredric and Mary Ann Brussat of www.SpiritualityandPractice.com, we can find ways to start putting these practices into, er, practice right away. They are: Hope rather than Fear, Hospitality rather than Exclusivity, Forgiveness rather than Guilt, Gratitude rather than Greed, and Compassion rather than Ego Gratification.

Wuthnow believes that "practice-oriented spirituality can best be nurtured by practice-oriented religious organizations—that is, by churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other places of worship that define their primary mission as one of strengthening the spiritual discipline of their members." But "they must also be performed individually if they are to be personally meaningful and enriching." I believe that our congregations need to be actively promoting practices like these to help individuals and families face the ubiquitous presence of advertising in their daily lives. Unfortunately, not every congregation has as its mission "strengthening the spiritual discipline of their members." The good news is even if your community of faith isn't promoting these practices, or if you're not part of a community of faith, you can still develop these practices on your own.

Religious education is a political activity with pilgrims in time that deliberately and intentionally attends with people to our present, to the past heritage it embodies, and to the future possibility it holds for the total person and community. -Thomas Groome

Welcome from Rev. Roger Butts

We are, all of us, religious educators.

Picture of Rev. Roger Butts. Everything that happens at the Unitarian Church - musical concerts, Sunday morning worship, small group Connection Circles, Sunday School—all of it provides an understanding of what and who we are as a people called Unitarian Universalists. We claim to be people who live the questions, who love diversity, who seek justice and peace. Our children learn about that through how we are together! The task before us—to walk with our children and others as they develop spiritually—is a huge and energizing task. When it comes to faith development and religious education for our children and young people, we have a terrific heritage. John Murray, early Universalist minister, reminds us that our mission is to give people hope, to give them courage, to share with them the everlasting love of God. Sophia Lyon Fahs, a giant of the 20th century, described religious education this way: Instead of helping children on Sunday to think about religious things, we need to learn how to help children to think about ordinary things until insights and feelings are found which have a religious quality...the religious way is the deep way, the way with a growing perspective and an expanding view.. .the way that dips into the heart of things.. .that touches universal relationships.

While all of us are involved in the life of religious education, some have been called to teach in the Sunday morning classroom, or in the Wednesday evening classroom. Those teachers are wonderful volunteers attempting to teach, not just from curriculum, but from the heart.

Our Lifespan Religious Education program is a centerpiece of our community. It may be the most important thing we do as a community. Our church is a laboratory for what it means to be human and to develop into a religious human being. The opportunities to come and be a part of the learning is before you.

Jump in. Enjoy and grow!

Rev. Roger Butts

Teen Helplines Recommended by Our Director of Religious Education