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Many of us like to point out our UU connections with well-loved Christmas music and rituals. Charles Follen introduced the first Christmas tree in the United States. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women sacrifice their own Christmas presents for impoverished neighbor children. Charles Dickens’ A...
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | December 3, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Christianity, UU History -
[Editor's note: World AIDS Day is December 1.] This painting was a gift from a man I barely knew, but the beauty of the real gift he gave me cannot be captured with a photograph....
By Jessica York | November 26, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Death, Kindness -
I grew up in a family which honored my father’s overseas military service. He had taken part in the occupation of Germany after World War II. Memorial Day parades and Veterans’ Day observances were a regular part of my childhood. I was proud to have memorized the lyrics to songs representing...
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | November 9, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Military Chaplaincy, Veterans Day -
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By Pat Kahn | November 5, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Families & Faith Development, Parents -
What makes a fire burn? Mark Hicks, Angus MacLean Professor of Religious Education at Meadville Lombard Theological School, reminds us that it is the spaces between the logs. If you pile the wood too densely, it will not burn. For most religious educators, autumn is a dense time....
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | October 23, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Beliefs & Principles, Faith Development, Professional Development for Religious Educators -
Looking for opportunities for professional development or continuing education? Check out the UUA’s Renaissance program! ...
By Pat Kahn | October 14, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Credentialing for Religious Educators, Faith Development, Professional Development for Religious Educators -
I am not anxious to be the loudest voice or the most popular. But I would like to think that at a crucial moment, I was an effective voice of the voiceless, an effective hope of the hopeless. —Whitney Young by Kathleen Carpenter During the summer, I was one of the almost one thousand people who...
October 1, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Civil Rights & Religious Liberty, Social Justice -
by Sally Patton See me beautiful each and every day. Could you take a chance? Could you find a way to see me shining through In every thing I do, And see me beautiful. —lyrics by Red Grammer, from the “Teaching Peace” CD When I started the Involve Project over 14 years ago, I was hoping to...
September 23, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Families & Faith Development, Parents, Leadership Development -
That is what my big brother said to me more than a decade ago. The occasion? I was hired as the Director of Religious Education at my local UU church. My brother knows something about ministry. He is a minister and bishop in the Missionary Baptist Church, married to a preacher’s kid, with whom he...
By Jessica York | September 18, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Professional Development for Religious Educators -
September 11 cannot pass without notice. Perhaps it never will. Even though our personal memories may lose sharpness, each year the story of U.S. vulnerability to terrorist attack returns like a haunt in our media and sometimes inside of us....
By Susan Lawrence | September 3, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Islam, Interfaith Family Programs -
In her 2013 Minns lecture, Sticking with Stories: Unitarianism and the Creation of Children’s Literature, Rev. Andrea Greenwood described the emergence of books for children as a genre separate from mainstream literature. One unintended consequence of this separation, which I find intriguing, is...
By Pat Kahn | August 29, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: UU History, Faith Development -
It was an August night at Ferry Beach, a UU camp in Maine, and many had already gone to bed. Those of us on the youth crew lingered on the beach enjoying the rhythmic sound of the ocean, the feel of the sand, and the gentle night breeze....
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | August 21, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Beliefs & Principles -
His name was John. He was a Nigerian immigrant about my parents’ age. I was a suburban 18-year-old, living in Boston with college friends the summer after my freshman year. John and I rode the MBTA together after our shifts as dishwashers in a fancy Harvard Square restaurant. I don’t know how...
By Susan Lawrence | August 12, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Economic Justice -
Many UUs, if not most, are familiar with William Ellery Channing and what he said about “the great end in religious instruction” because they are familiar with the responsive reading of that name, Reading 652 in the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition. The...
By Pat Kahn | July 29, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: UU History, Faith Development -
I was a Girl Scout leader for many years, at one point leading a troop that ranged in age from nine to fourteen. They loved to go camping. Together they planned the trip, including food, equipment, and the shared labor of set-up, cooking, clean-up, and breaking camp. Wonderful, insightful...
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | July 20, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Beliefs & Principles, Spirituality -
At the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) 2013 General Assembly (GA) in Louisville, KY last month, the Resource Development Office (RDO) kicked off our programming with a workshop, Journey to Commitment, on how congregations put the UUA’s Tapestry of Faith programs into action. Judith...
By Pat Kahn | July 10, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: UU Identity, Faith Development, General Assembly -
Edward Wemytewa is a storyteller, and so am I. We worked together with several others this spring to plan the religion/spirituality track for the International Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Conference, hosted in Phoenix, AZ by Tonatierra, one of the UUA’s 2012 Justice General Assembly...
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | June 11, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Multiculturalism, Interfaith Family Programs -
One of my favorite quotes, one that guides my religious and spiritual life, comes from Universalist religious educator and minister Angus H. MacLean (1892-1969). A Presbyterian Canadian farm boy of Scottish heritage from Nova Scotia, MacLean grew up to be a beloved professor and dean at the...
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | June 1, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Faith Development -
In the desultory days of summer, it’s common for faith communities to abandon the structure of the congregational year. Worship attendance may slide. Religious professionals may take vacation from their usual duties. Yet many of us have the energy and need to stay connected. What kind of faith...
By Susan Lawrence | June 1, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Faith Development -
May 21 is the World Day for Cultural Diversity Dialogue & Development, established by the United Nations to support the 2001 http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13179&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&… Declaration of Cultural Diversity. The day gives an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the...
By Jessica York | May 21, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Multiculturalism -
I was the religious educator at a historically Universalist church. Fifteen years earlier, I had left the Christian faith of my childhood to embrace a Unitarian Universalism that had no room for the traditions and beliefs of my growing up years....
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | May 17, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Christianity, UU Identity -
[This post appears by courtesy of the 2013 Mama's Day Our Way campaign of http://www.reproductivejusticeblog.org/2013/05/my-daughter-not-my-self… Families, a national initiative for policy and culture change in support of all families, for which the post was originally written. -- Editor] In...
By Jessica York | May 12, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Families & Faith Development, Mother's Day, Multiculturalism -
Spring is here. Life may be blooming all around you, or perhaps just starting to bud. In Alabama, spring brings the dread of tornadoes, but I also have something to look forward to: the pear tree in my backyard....
By Jessica York | May 1, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Multiculturalism -
The Faith Development Office in the Ministry and Faith Development staff group of the Unitarian Universalist Association maintains this blog site....
By Susan Lawrence | April 30, 2013 | From Call and Response -
I remember reading that Natalia Averett would be representing the Joseph Priestly district on the UUA Board of Trustees. I first met Natalia at the UUA’s Multicul… Leadership School in 2010. Recently, I worked with Sana Saeed, a co-author of Building Beloved Community, a program on...
By Jessica York | April 25, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: High School-Aged Youth Faith Development, Young Adult Faith Development (ages 18-35), Racial Justice & Multicultural Ministries, Multiculturalism -
A colleague reminded me about a campaign to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in 2010. It included practicing one environmental, earth-friendly personal action every day from Earth Day until May 27th, the birthday of Rachel Carson. ...
By Pat Kahn | April 19, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Children's Faith Development, Nature -
[The day before our blog was set to launch, explosions at the 2013 Boston Marathon finish line killed three people and injured at least 100. Our scheduled first post, on awakening our environmental stewardship on Earth Day, will appear later this week. —Editors] My son Owen, who lives in Atlanta...
By Gail Forsyth-Vail | April 16, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: Parents, Faith Development -
Faith development happens all the time. From a young age and continuing over a lifetime, our moral, ethical, spiritual, and religious self is shaped by encounters we experience, and our own responses. Religious education, however, is something different. It is intentional faith development....
By Susan Lawrence | April 16, 2013 | From Call and ResponseTagged as: UU Identity, Faith Development -
This blog is for people connected with or interested in Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalist faith development, or religious education programming in a liberal faith context. We welcome comments that foster learning and exchange among people who share these interests....
By Susan Lawrence | April 3, 2013 | From Call and Response -
In 2007, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations launched Tapestry of Faith, a new set of Unitarian Universalist, lifespan faith development resources for the 21st century, provided online at no charge....
By Susan Lawrence | March 25, 2013 | From Call and Response -
The Call and Response blog site is offered by the Faith Development Office of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) to promote dialogue and reflection on Unitarian Universalist faith development in our 21st century religious communities and lives....
By Susan Lawrence | March 15, 2013 | From Call and Response