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RE spiritual preparation webinars offered

The UUA’s Faith Development Office is launching a monthly series of free webinars in late January for religious educators, other religious professionals, and lay leaders who plan, lead, or support programs with a faith development component aspect.

The webinars will be presented by the UUA Faith Development Office, which is directed by Jessica York. The first webinar, “Why and How to Do Spiritual Preparation for Leading RE,” will be Monday, January 27 at 9 pm Eastern time and then repeated on Wednesday, January 29 at 4 pm Eastern time.

Email Faith Development Editor Susan Lawrence for call-in information. Indicate which session you wish to attend.

Lawrence says, “Many religious educators and others who lead programs with a faith development component recognize the benefit of taking even a few moments to spiritually prepare for a session, workshop, or meeting. Yet we often feel we do not have time. The UUA’s Tapestry of Faith curricula support a regular practice of spiritual preparation with unique, reflective exercise for leaders/facilitators to do before every session or workshop. The January webinar will present theory, examples, and an experiential exercise to encourage and guide participants to make spiritual preparation a practice of their own. FDO staff will also solicit suggestions for future webinar topics.”

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Building Bridges, new youth world religions curriculum

Building Bridges, a new free, online UUA curriculum for grades eight and nine, is designed to help youth understand the varied histories and expressions of many of the world’s religions. It also includes a strong sense of what our own faith offers, according to the author, Mary K. Isaacs.

The goals of Building Bridges include increasing knowledge of world religions, understanding how religion addresses basic human needs, building awareness of the diversity of followers within each faith, and empowering youth to respectfully discuss religious matters with people with whom they disagree.

Isaacs is a lifelong UU who has been director of religious education at congregations in Texas. She currently lives in Austin. Building Bridges is part of the UUA’s Tapestry of Faith curricula series. Susan Dana Lawrence, Managing Editor for the UUA’s Ministries and Faith Development staff group, says, “This is an unusually rich and deep curriculum containing solid information about many faiths and belief systems. We’d like to see congregations adopt it for individual learning as well as a resource for teaching RE groups.”

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RE program on money created

A new Tapestry of Faith adult religious education program has been created, focusing on the intersection of peoples’ financial lives with their religious, spiritual, and community lives.

Written by Patricia Hall Infante and David H. Messner, with editor Gail Forsyth-Vail, the curriculum is titled The Wisdom Path: Money, Spirit, and Life. Says Forsyth-Vail, the UUA’s Director of Adult Programs, “How can we have a relationship with earning, spending, giving, and investing that is spiritually healthy and grounded in our deepest values? While money is a pervasive part of our day-to-day existence, it often receives little attention in our religious lives.

“As religious people, we have much to gain by making money a part of an intentional, covenanted and faithful conversation together. This program helps participants understand how decisions and attitudes about money can be a more effective force for living lives of meaning and value, and for creating positive change in themselves, their congregations and groups, our society and the world.”

The Wisdom Path is available online. It consists of twelve 90-minute workshops. Each one suggests an activity that can be done outside of the workshop period.

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UUAMP supports membership professionals

When Marie Murton became responsible for membership functions at Fox Valley UU Fellowship at Appleton, Wisc., in 2005––her title is now Congregational Life Coordinator––she spent months combing the UUA website searching for membership resources. It wasn’t long before she began compiling those resources on Fox Valley’s website.

They have since been moved to UUAMP.org, the website of the UU Association of Membership Professionals. The association was founded in 2011 to help paid and volunteer membership professionals in UU congregations find the resources and other support they need.

The mission of the organization is to develop and support the ministry of membership through professional development and collaboration. Said Murton, “We want to help grow Unitarian Universalism––not only through numbers, but through spiritual depth and connection.”

The organization meets annually at General Assembly and has smaller gatherings around the country. It also brings members together through webinars, book discussions, a monthly newsletter, mentoring, and an email list. Membership in UUAMP is $40.

 

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Growth, Resources

Morning Watch, by Pescan, reissued

Skinner House has reissued Morning Watch, the book of meditations from the Rev. Barbara Pescan, first published in 1999 as a UUA meditation manual. The book has thirty-four poems and prayers on love, spirit, and the extraordinary significance of daily life, and is suitable for both personal reflection and public worship.

Morning Watch is $8 from the UUA Bookstore.

 

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New Owen-Towle book on Christmas

Longtime UU minister the Rev. Dr. Tom Owen-Towle, has written a book, Unwrapping the Inner Gifts of Christmas, to help Unitarian Universalists navigate the celebration of the holiday period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Owen-Towle writes, “Peddling Christmas as merely a holly, jolly affair diminishes the fullness of our humanity as well as the scope of the original gospel narratives. Here’s the key: When we bravely face, then embrace, the entire gamut of human emotions and experiences during December, we’re spiritually prepared to do so the rest of the year. We become whole persons whenever we willingly confront the whole of life.”

He acknowledges that emotions during the holiday period run the gamut from sadness to joy. The book has twenty chapters devoted to different perspectives about the holidays. It is $15 from the UUA Bookstore.

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Mental health recommendations made

The mental health caucus of EqUUal Access, a group of UU volunteers who support equality and access for UUs with disabilities, has created a resource called “Mental Health Issues and Recommendations,” for use by congregations.

The 30-page document, available free of charge online, was created to guide congregations in relating to people with mental disorders, including understanding their abilities, welcoming them into congregations, and advocating on their behalf.

The document was created following the shooting deaths at Newtown, Conn. in December 2012. EqUUal Access wanted to raise awareness, according to the document, “of the stigma placed on people who live with mental illness, the roles the UUA and UU ministers can play to confront the discrimination, the need for ministers to provide comfort and acceptance to those being marginalized, and the importance of the language UUs use about mental illness and those who live with it.”

The document is useful for adult education courses, sermon preparation, membership and hospitality committees, and discernment about inclusion.

More information on EqUUal Access’s mental health caucus is here.

 

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Congregational resources profiled on uuworld.org

The following articles, which appeared on uuworld.org in recent months, contain information useful to congregational leaders.

Long Strange Trip, a new video history of Unitarian Universalist history has been created by Ron Cordes, UU history buff from Bedford, Mass. The six DVDs of one hour each are available individually or as a boxed set from the UUA Bookstore. The set has high production values and Cordes presents much of the dialogue from the locations in Europe and elsewhere where significant events in our history occurred. The DVD set will be useful for new-member sessions and for adult education courses. The six hours can easily be divided into half-hour segments followed by discussion. As yet there is no study guide. The full uuworld.org article is here.

An article detailing how several congregations are pursuing social justice initiatives related to the Doctrine of Discovery, appeared on October 14. Delegates at General Assembly 2012 voted to repudiate the doctrine, a centuries-old principle of international law that sanctions and promotes the conquest and exploitation of non-Christian territories and peoples.

An article describing how a Florida UU congregation welcomed Boy Scout troops that had been turned out by a Baptist church after the Boy Scouts of America decided to permit gay youth to join troops, appeared on Sept. 16.

The work of the UU Funding Program, which accepts applications from congregations and others for social justice and other projects, was also highlighted Sept. 16. In 2012 the program gave out more than $1 million in grants ranging from $300 for a voter registration volunteer training, to $20,000 to help organize interfaith support for homeless people in California. Grants Administrator Susan Adams noted that many UUs she meets are still “astonished” that money might be available to support their dreams.

The UUA’s Leap of Faith congregational mentoring program was profiled Sept. 2. Now in its third year, the program brings together congregations that want to learn from each other.

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Reaching out to the nones

The Rev. Renee Ruchotzke has a three-part essay titled “Could the Nones Become Unitarian Universalists?” on the UUA blog Growing Vital Leaders. She notes, “Young adult ministry has been a challenge for congregations of all liberal protestant denominations for decades but the game is changing in ways we couldn’t have imagined back in the post WWII church-building boom.”

Many young adults find conservative churches too restrictive, she says in Part 1. And liberal ones have not articulated a compelling theology. In Part 2 she ticks off reasons why young adults leave churches. The reasons include not developing a close friendship with anyone, and not getting help with discovering their own mission in the world.

In Part 3 she highlights congregations like First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY which have created small group programs that lead to deeper engagement and spiritual development.

Growing Vital Leaders is a good blog for congregational leaders to bookmark. Other recent topics have been on cohesive leadership and making members and the larger community aware of your congregation’s outreach ministries.

Ruchotzke is Leadership Development Consultant for the Central East Regional Group (CERG), of the UUA.

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Book encourages writing as a spiritual practice

Unitarian Universalist minister the Rev. Karen Hering has written a book, Writing to Wake the Soul, to inspire and encourage the act of writing as a spiritual practice. The book would appear to be useful for adult education courses and for writing and reflecting on sermons.

Hering is consulting minister of literacy, a title she created, at Unity-Unitarian Church in St. Paul, Minn., where she offers guided writing sessions that correspond to monthly worship themes. She says the book can stimulate “contemplative correspondence.”

In the introduction she writes, “At its essence, whether practiced in groups or alone, contemplative correspondence focuses on theological themes or words, and involves personal writing that is informed and inspired by religious teachings, poetry, stories, visual images, physical objects, memory, imagination, science, history, and wordplay.

Part I of the book offers a reflection on writing, metaphor, and spiritual practice, plus a practical guide to contemplative correspondence. Part Two explores ten theological themes which people can use as writing prompts or simply read as daily meditations.

Hering calls contemplative correspondence “a spiritual practice of writing rooted in theology and story; drawn to the surface by questions, prompts, and ellipses; and most fully experienced when its words are accepted as invitations into conversations and relationships with others. . .”

Writing to Wake the Soul is $19.20 from the publisher Beyond Words.

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