SIGNS OF OUR FAITH
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 3: OUR FAITH IS A JOURNEY
BY JESSICA YORK
© Copyright 2013 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/8/2014 12:28:34 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
What is religion, you might ask. It's a technology of living. — Toni Cade Bambara, 20th-century African American author and activist
This session invites children into a lifelong process of building a Unitarian Universalist faith. Children learn that a covenant for being together is a sign of our faith. They make a covenant together, look for signs of covenanting in congregational life, and discover additional ways UUs support one another to build a faith that will give their lives meaning and purpose.
Activity 3, Big Questions, invites children to write questions on blank puzzle pieces which form the basis of an activity in Session 4. You will need to obtain a blank jigsaw puzzle in advance. After Activity 3, store the completed puzzle pieces for use in Session 4.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 2 |
Activity 1: What I Love about Being UU | 20 |
Activity 2: Story — Journey of a Snowflake | 10 |
Activity 3: Big Questions | 10 |
Activity 4: Ritual of Covenanting | 15 |
Faith in Action: Covenant Search | |
Closing | 3 |
Alternate Activity 1: Leadership in Action — Providing an Opportunity to Be in Community | |
Alternate Activity 2: Leadership in Action — Providing a Learning Opportunity | |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
What do you love about your Unitarian Universalist faith? What activities or relationships that happen at your congregation embody what you love about being UU? Some love to be active in congregational governance. Others love the relationships formed in a small group ministry, study, or social group. Some will immediately respond that they love the hymns the congregation sings together, or to hear the choir sing. Have you ever thought about the aspects of being UU that you love as ways your faith community supports your personal faith journey? Bring your sense of feeling supported in your UU faith journey to today's session.
SESSION PLAN
OPENING (2 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
If the children wear stoles for Opening and Closing, distribute stoles. Invite the children to put on their stoles. Offer any visitors a stole and explain that they may wear it during the Opening time and the Closing time if they wish. Remind the children their stoles are a sign that everyone in the group is a worship leader.
Welcome all participants. Gather everyone in a circle around the chalice table. Ring the centering chime. Ask a volunteer to light the chalice. Lead the group to say these Opening words:
We gather together as Unitarian Universalists and members of the Signs of Our Faith community.
Together, we celebrate what we love about our UU faith.
ACTIVITY 1: WHAT I LOVE ABOUT BEING UU (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants identify something they love or like about being UU or coming to the congregation.
Indicate the newsprint and say, in your own words:
Each of you has your own reasons why you like to be a UU here at our congregation or why you like to visit our UU congregation. You can pick which sentence you want to complete, and think of your own answer.
Read the two phrases aloud. Then say:
Let me give you some ideas. You can finish either phrase with something UUs believe. For example, "I like being Unitarian Universalist at our congregation because... UUs try to respect all people."
You can finish either phrase with an activity UUs do at our congregation. For example, "I like being Unitarian Universalist at our congregation because... we collect food for the hungry."
You can finish a phrase with something you have learned to do in RE or in worship services at our congregation. For example, "I like being Unitarian Universalist at our congregation because... we learn hymns here and singing together makes me feel good."
If you are new or visiting, even if you are only here for today, you can say a reason you like to visit. For example, because you get to see friends here or make new friends, or because you think the building or something about it is pretty. Or maybe you've noticed one thing you really like, such as our chalice for worshipping together, or the recycling bins that mean UUs try to take care of the earth.
Distribute drawing paper and set out markers and crayons. Invite children to write their ending to one of the sentences on their paper, and draw a picture to show what they love or like. Help children think of an answer and write it on their paper, as needed. Use clarifying questions to help participants identify what they love about their UU experiences. For example, if a child says they love coming to RE, ask which parts of RE they love: seeing friends, doing art work, hearing stories? Is there a particular story they especially liked?
Allow 10 minutes for children to draw. Give a two-minute warning, then gather the large group and invite volunteers to share. Say it is okay if they do not want to share and okay if they do want to share.
Affirm that there are many different reasons people come to the congregation. People love different things about Unitarian Universalism and that is okay, too, because everyone is on their own, unique faith journey.
Optional: After the session, you may wish to display the children's drawings. Include the phrase "I love being UU at our congregation because... " in the display.
ACTIVITY 2: STORY — JOURNEY OF A SNOWFLAKE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Child hear and discuss a story about a journey and relate it to taking a faith journey.
Tell or read the story.
Ask participants, "How are snowflakes like people?" Affirm that people are unique like snowflakes and our lives are journeys, too.
Invite the children to act out the story.
Then, say, in these words or your own:
As Unitarian Universalists, we are on a faith journey. Our journey is similar to the snowflakes in the story. UUs are as diverse as snowflake. No two of us are alike. We have different genders and different skin colors. We know how to speak different languages, and we are different ages. But we are all on a journey. On our journey we figure out what we believe and decide what kind of people we want to be in the world. Snowflakes become different because of their environment. People do, too. Growing up UU, we might end up with many different beliefs. For example, some UUs believe there is a God, some believe there is not, and some believe it is not important to know that answer. However, we share many beliefs, like the importance of loving each other.
Ask: "What other beliefs do UUs share?" Affirm answers. You may wish to make note of our UU Principles. Then say:
When snowflakes fall from the clouds, they are taking a journey. They do not know where the journey will take them. This is like our lifelong faith journey. However, there is a big difference: in our religion, we can support each other's faith journeys. Even when my journey of beliefs takes me in a different direction from where your journey takes you [insert one or more children's names here], we can still journey together. I will stay with you and share being leaders together, and learning together, and worship, and companionship—all the things we do as signs of our UU faith. That's what UUs do in our congregation, and that's what we do here in our Signs of Our Faith group.
Including All Participants
You may wish to make fidget objects available to children who find it difficult to sit still while listening or can focus better with sensory stimulation. For a full description and guidance, see Session 1, Leader Resource 2.
Consider using rug squares in the storytelling area. Place them in a semi-circle with the rule "One person per square." This can be very helpful for controlling active bodies.
ACTIVITY 3: BIG QUESTIONS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children experience how UUism supports us to articulate big theological questions. They create puzzle pieces which they will work with again in Session 4, Activity 1, Religious Explorers.
Say, in these words or your own:
No one is too young to start a faith journey and everyone here is definitely old enough! Let's support one another to take some steps in our UU faith journeys now.
Along a UU faith journey, we get to ask any question we want about life and what it means. Questions like these are called "theological" questions. Theology means religion. These are questions that our religion—Unitarian Universalism—supports us to try and answer.
Invite the children to think of big, theological questions—questions they wonder about life and what it means. Write their questions on newsprint. Prompt, as needed:
Write the children's questions clearly on newsprint. If two questions are similar, work with the group to combine them. Gather 7 to 12 questions.
Assign participants to write the questions, one question per large puzzle piece. While they write, say that Unitarian Universalism helps us look for answers to big questions like these. Say that as Unitarian Universalists, we help one another look for answers in many different places: Sometimes we find answers in science. Sometimes we find answers in the wisdom of people from all cultures and religions who came before us and who share the Earth with us. Sometimes we find answers inside ourselves.
Collect the puzzle pieces and set them aside for use in Session 4.
ACTIVITY 4: RITUAL OF COVENANTING (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children create a group covenant.
Ask the group to name activities during which they interact with the other age groups in the congregation. These might include worship, Our Whole Lives workshops, parties, potlucks, camps, or retreats.
Say, in your own words:
Unitarian Universalists all over the world come together in community. Part of a UU faith journey is to gather for fun and friendship along the way. In a way, we are like the snow pile when the snowflakes come together. Every time we have fun together, we also have the chance to show signs of our faith—signs that we agree about healthy, respectful, loving ways to be together in a group. One of these signs is called a covenant—a written-down promise.
It's a promise we make each other in a UU group, like our Signs group, and like our congregation. We promise to act in ways that show our UU Principles.
Let's remember some of our UU Principles. They will help us make a covenant for our Signs group—these are promises we will keep when we are together, to show we share our Principles and our UU faith.
Distribute Handout 1. Read the Principles aloud, one at a time—or invite volunteers to read. Ask the children to think of promises they can make to show each Principle. Write their ideas on newsprint.
Say:
This is a good beginning for a covenant of promises.
Ask:
Prompt to ensure the covenant is complete. Children's covenants often include:
Make sure everyone understands and agrees to each promise. If someone disagrees, help the group refine the item to everyone's comfort, or do not add it.
Tell the group that everyone in the Signs community is responsible to hold themselves and one another to the promises of the covenant.
Ask the group what they think should happen if someone breaks the covenant? Who should confront the covenant-breaker? How will the group bring the person back into the covenant?
Point out that keeping the covenant is a sign of UU faith in many different ways. It is a sign that we agree with UU Principles such as respecting one another, working for fairness, and honoring the earth and all the life that shares it. It is a sign that we support each other on the faith journeys we each will take.
Now or after the session, re-write the finished covenant on a fresh sheet of newsprint. Post it where it can remain for the duration of the program.
CLOSING (3 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute stoles and invite participants to put them on.
Distribute Taking It Home. Tell participants that at the end of every session, they will receive this guide to fun activities they can do with family or friends. Read it aloud to give participants an idea of activities suggested.
Gather everyone in a circle around the chalice table. Lead the group to say:
We end as we began: together.
May we remember to be UU not just when we are together here, but every day and in every way.
Invite each child turn to the child to the right of them and say "Thank you for being in covenant with me."
Ask all participants to blow out the chalice together. Have them store their stoles in the place you have designated. Stoles should stay at the congregation and not go home with children.
FAITH IN ACTION: COVENANT SEARCH
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children look for signs of a covenant in the congregation. Or, the children search for signs that people in the congregation have agreed to share the UU Principles as a guide for supporting one another's UU faith journeys.
Ask the children: What do you think it looks like when a group of people follow a covenant—promises they have made to be together in ways that show our UU faith? (Or: What do you think it looks like when a group of people agree on UU Principles as a guide for how to take a faith journey together?) Feed the group phrases from the congregational covenant (or, the UU Principles from Handout 1) and encourage them to think of signs that these promises, or Principles, are being honored.
Now say:
Let's use our congregation's covenant (or, the UU Principles we share) as a map, and take a tour of our congregation. Let's find out what these promises (or Principles) look like when a UU group is keeping them.
Optional: Distribute copies of the congregational covenant (or Handout 1).
Lead the tour. Take care to articulate how each stop on the tour expresses a specific promise (or Principle). Make space for children to come up with their own interpretations of how an item or room shows adherence to a promise (or Principle). Their observations may surprise you.
Sample "tour stops," with language from Handout 1, The UU Principles:
Including All Participants
Plan a tour that is accessible to all participants. Include a child with limited vision by describing spaces or items they cannot see.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
What went well in this session? What are some lessons for next time? Did everyone participate in the covenanting process? Make a plan to revisit the covenant in future sessions to remind children of how they agreed to be together.
Does the covenant cover promises you feel you, as leaders, need to make to each other? If RE co-leaders do not already have a covenant, consider creating one.
Assign preparation needed for the next session.
TAKING IT HOME
What is religion, you might ask. It's a technology of living. — Toni Cade Bambara, 20th-century African American author and activist
IN TODAY'S SESSION... we said that, as UUs, we are in a lifelong process of building our faith. We talked about learning together, asking big questions together, and sharing companionship as ways our life in a UU community supports the faith journeys of every member. The children learned that a UU group covenant consists of promises we make each other, based in UU Principles, and that a group covenant is both a tool and a grounding for supporting one another's faith journeys.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about... How aware are family members of ways Unitarian Universalism supports their faith-building efforts? Go around the group. Ask each person to name an activity or a relationship they have enjoyed at your congregation or in their Unitarian Universalist practice. Then, help one another articulate how that activity or the relationship has supported the individual to pursue their own journey in UU faith.
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER: Try... creating a covenant for family meetings or family decision-making. Ask your child to suggest promises that the Signs of Our Faith group included in its covenant. Can these promises be part of your family covenant? Talk about how making a promise to act respectfully toward one another is a step in a UU faith journey.
Family Game. In this session, the children generated a list of big, theological questions. They learned that Unitarian Universalism supports them to keep on asking, to share their questions with others, and to use a variety of Sources including science, the wisdom of the ages, and their own experiences to forge a path toward their own answers. See how many big questions you can generate together about life, its meaning, and how to live it.
Family Discovery. Explore the world of snowflakes by taking this Snowflake Safari (at www.sciencefriday.com/video/12/31/2009/snowflake-safari.html). Don't have enough snow to go looking for snowflake designs? Create your own online at A Kid's Heart (at akidsheart.com/holidays/winter/snowflake.htm), a Christian game site.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: LEADERSHIP IN ACTION — PROVIDING AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE IN COMMUNITY
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Children host a community opportunity.
Leadership in Action (LIA) activities provide opportunities for children to take the lead in an activity that engages with the congregation. Through these activities, young people begin to see themselves as leaders of their faith.
Does your congregation need more opportunities for children to be in friendship and community? Challenge the group to create one. It can be an ice cream social, pizza party or just a play date in a nearby park. Guide the children to choose an activity, a venue, and the age group(s) they wish to engage—for example, families with children, elders, older youth, or the entire congregation. Work with congregational leaders to choose a date. Engage the children's parents and caregivers to provide food and/or financial support.
Once a plan is made, have the children write and send out paper invitations and/or an E-vite. Assign other host duties. Hold the event and have fun.
After the event, ask the group what they enjoyed most. Ask: How is spending time with other UUs helpful in building each of our faith? How did you feel when you saw everyone enjoying the activity that had been your idea and your responsibility? What does it feel like to be a leader in our faith community who helps bring people together?
Including All Participants
Plan an event that is accessible to everyone. If the event will be off-site, determine accessibility before making a commitment on behalf of the congregation.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: LEADERSHIP IN ACTION — PROVIDING A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children provide a multigenerational learning opportunity.
Leadership in Action (LIA) activities provide opportunities for children to take the lead in an activity that engages with the congregation. Through these activities, young people begin to see themselves as leaders of their faith.
Encourage and lead the group to create skits that showcase UU Principles in action. Make skits easy for all ages to understand. Possible plots:
You might enact a skit that first demonstrates a situation where a UU Principle is not applied, then shows what happens when the Principle is applied.
Children might introduce the skits by saying something like:
We are learning different ways Unitarian Universalism supports each of us to go on our UU faith journey. We have learned that when we act on our UU Principles, we are part of UUs supporting one another in our faith journeys.
After the skits, discuss the experience. What did the participants learn from performing the skits?
SIGNS OF OUR FAITH: SESSION 3:
STORY: JOURNEY OF A SNOWFLAKE
The existence of a snowflake is a journey — like your life, which is a journey, too.
It starts in a cloud. Clouds carry drops of water vapor. Clouds also contain tiny particles of dust. Drops of the water vapor cling to the dust particles. When conditions are cold enough, the water freezes into crystals and a snowflake is born. Crystals can attach in many different ways to make infinite patterns — "infinite" means more numbers than anyone could ever count. The temperature, what the cloud is like and other factors influence how the snowflake grows. So it is probably true that no two snowflakes are alike. Each one is unique — like you are unique from everyone else who has ever lived. Each snowflake has a journey ahead of it: some parts of the journey are common to all snowflakes, some parts are unique.
The next part of the journey is the same for every snowflake: it falls to the earth. But where it falls can vary. The snowflake may fall on a warm sidewalk and melt into water right away. It may fall on cooler grass and stick. I like it when a snowflake falls gently on my eyelashes. Do you? The snowflake may even fall on top of other snowflakes, making piles of snow you can use to build snow kids.
Eventually, though, all snowflakes take the same journey of melting into water. Some water is soaked into the ground and nourishes plants, flowers and even vegetables, like tomatoes. Some water runs in gullies to rivers, which meet the oceans, the biggest gatherings of ex-snowflakes on the planet!
Water from the oceans and plants and other sources evaporates when it gets warm and turn into water vapor. Where does the water vapor go? Back up into the clouds! Our snowflake has returned from where it began.
SIGNS OF OUR FAITH: SESSION 3:
HANDOUT 1: THE UU PRINCIPLES
1. We believe that each and every person is important.
2. We believe that all people should be treated fairly and kindly.
3. We believe that we should accept one another and keep on learning together.
4. We believe that each person must be free to search for what is true and right in life.
5. We believe that all persons should have a vote about the things that concern them.
6. We believe in working for a peaceful, fair, and free world.
7. We believe in caring for our planet Earth, the home we share with all living things.
FIND OUT MORE
Enlighten (at www.enlightengamesinc.com/spirit-game-1024.html) is a board game that takes the player on a spiritual journey through different religions of the world. Its purpose is to build religious tolerance by teaching about different faiths.
Many have written about their faith journeys. Near the end of his life, the Reverend Forrest Church wrote Love & Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow (at www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1099) (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008). You might read My Spiritual Journey by the Dalai Lama (New York: HarperCollins, 2011). Elizabeth Andrew's Writing the Sacred Journey (at www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=629) (Skinner House, 2004) and The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World (at www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1618) (2012), by Brenda Miller and Holly Hughes, are available from the UUA Bookstore. Christian writer Dan Phillips offers Spiritual Journaling: God's Whispers in Daily Living (at www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Journaling-Whispers-Daily-Living/dp/1846947049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309917193&sr=8-1). In Workshop 1 of the Tapestry of Faith program Spirit of Life, find a handout that guides you to map your own spiritual journey (at www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/life/workshop1/workshopplan/handouts/159104.shtml).
Interested to know more about snowflakes and their uniqueness? Read a blog post at GrokEarth (at grokearth.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-snowflakes-journey.html). Or, start on the National Geographic website (at news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070213-snowflake_2.html).