Looking for opportunities for professional development or continuing education? Check out the UUA’s Renaissance program!
The Renaissance program has a distinguished tradition of on-site training for religious educators, musicians, lay leaders, seminarians, and parish ministers. It is also a major component of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Religious Education (RE) Credentialing program.
Each 15-hour module provides standardized basic training in a topic area useful in religious education leadership. The modules may be used in any order:
- Administration as Leadership
- Adult Faith Development and Programming
- Curriculum Planning
- Ministry with Youth
- Multicultural Religious Education
- Philosophy of Religious Education
- Teacher Development
- Unitarian Universalist History
- Unitarian Universalist Identity
- Worship for All Ages
Any group—a UUA region or district, a LREDA chapter, a cluster of congregations, or a camp/conference center—can sponsor a module. A step-by-step planning guide is available online and helpful UUA staff only an email away (renaissance@uua.org). There may already be a Renaissance module scheduled convenient to where you live. Check the UUA’s calendar of events.
Soon, participants will be able to take a Renaissance module without traveling. Funding support from the Panel on Theological Education has enabled the Faith Development Office to develop distance-learning modules, making the program more accessible than ever before. The in-person UU History module has been re-developed by Gail Forsyth-Vail into a distance-learning format: eight 90-minute sessions via phone or video conferencing, reading and assignments for each session, and a final project. A distance-learning module on UU Theology, by Rev. Lynn Ungar, is in development now.