My name is Annie Scott, I serve the Pacific 
Western Region on the Congregational Life Staff.  

I've been a religious educator for almost 30 
years and have served five congregations in  

various parts of the country. And what I would 
like to do this evening is to speak on behalf of  

religious educators. Now that's not to say that 
they would all agree with what I'm going to say.  

Nonetheless we have we have spoken to many many 
over the over the last year and in these times  

when we're approaching another change. So I 
just want to name that this year has been so  

incredibly difficult for all of us. In particular 
it's been extremely difficult for families,  

so difficult for families. 
Parents who are juggling work,  

some people had to resign so they 
could care for their children at home,  

some people are trying to do two full-time 
jobs while they care for their children,  

while they educate their children, while 
they're tutors or primary educators,  

trying to convince their children to stay on 
Zoom one more hour. Then there's all the loss.

There's all the loss. And so one of the 
things we've heard from religious educators,  

many of them is that as congregations, 
as leadership has has been thinking about  

how we return, how we return to in person, they, 
religious educators have been excluded from the  

conversation. They have simply been told here's 
what we're doing and here's when we're doing it.  

Now I just want to remind you that your religious 
educator from for the most, in most congregations  

is the person primarily responsible to children, 
youth, parents and families. They are the person  

that is most connected to them, most in touch with 
their needs, often does pastoral care for them.  

And if your religious educator is at the 
decision-making table then they can be the voice  

for the needs and the trials of the families, 
children, youth, and parents in your congregation.  

So it's critical that they be a part 
of this decision-making process.  

The other thing I want to say is that for many 
religious educators who are parents themselves,  

they have had to do all all that I was just 
talking about, while they're trying to serve  

their congregations. And for many it's been such 
a year of deep disappointment and frustration  

that, we often count numbers, we often know we're 
doing a good job because so many people show up.  

And so this year has been so challenging because 
so many families could not do one more hour on  

Zoom, couldn't do 10 more minutes on Zoom. And 
so religious educators have struggled to feel  

successful. They were like they were doing good 
good job and often had to justify to their to  

their leadership and their congregations that 
they continue in their jobs even though what  

is happening has been devastating to them as well 
as as the the families. So as we return to hybrid  

or in-person or whatever will be will be our 
future together, we want you to remember that  

religious educators, when we're do what. If 
we move to hybrid then we're asking them to  

basically do two jobs. We're asking them to 
create programming, invite and recruit teachers  

for in person, as well as for online. And that's 
not that is not a simple job and especially for so  

many religious educators. They're part-time. And 
so I want you to think about the job that you're  

asking them to do and be gentle and kind and 
thoughtful and encouraging and patient and also  

try to help them only do the the amount of hours 
that that they're paid for. And we want you to  

have an attitude that the programming that we're 
going to be doing and and Wren will talk about  

this a little more later, but the programming that 
you're doing, how church will look like will be  

emerging. We cannot know what our communities are 
going to look like in a month, in three months,  

in six months. We cannot know. Children are 
being impacted by the variants of COVID 19  

in ways that are unpredictable and are dangerous. 
One of our congregations in the Pacific Northwest  

has said that in the early part of the pandemic 
it was our elders who were most uh who were  

most vulnerable, they were vulnerable to death 
and families stayed home to help protect them.  

And now that our elders are becoming 
more and more fully vaccinated  

it's time for them to step back, stay 
at home to help our families be safe.  

It's time for all of us all of us to 
remember who are the new vulnerable people.

So I will just close by saying that 
we have developed a saying among our  

little team here that we invite you 
to go holy holy slowly which of course  

reminded me of my favorite song as 
as a growing up as a Methodist kid  

um so a little revision uh holy 
holy slowly, please take it slowly.