With in-gathering behind us, we settle into the rhythm of Autumn and the church year. This month’s round-up includes resources related to this season of harvest as the wheel of the year turns to special days, like All Souls Day, Samhain, and Indigenous People’s Day — and tools to engage the Faith Development goals of Whole Church RE and connect with wider conversations about congregational faith development.
String art chalice — made cooperatively in UU worship service
Religious Education and Faith Development
Wondering how to talk about Faith Development Goals in ways that connect Whole Church RE practices and programs to a congregation’s broader goals, mission and ministries? This overview of seven goals describes how we make faith happen in community (through Justice Making, Identity Formation, Spiritual Development, Beloved Community, Multigenerational Connections, Covenantal Leadership, and Pastoral Care) and offers encouragement for faithful flourishing, with a whole church RE approach.
UU World Highlights Religious Education
The latest issue of UU World includes several articles about Religious Education, and a special message from the UUA president: Faith Formation Across the Generations.
- ‘Whole Church’ Approach Can Deepen Intergenerational Spiritual Practices at Your Congregation
- Intentional, All-Ages Faith Engagement More Crucial than Ever for Spiritual Health
- Trying to Revamp Your Congregation’s Religious Education Programs? Here’s Some Helpful Advice
- Regularly Reimagining Religious Education Can Boost Membership, Better Serve Families
Our Common Read: Social Change Now
This year’s UU Common Read, Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Now, is well-suited and supported for multigenerational learning. Register here to explore the UUA’s official resources for learning together.
Check out the Emerging Resources from the Field for more ideas, including DRE Jen Shattuck’s pairing of the Social Change Now roles with her Born to Belong paradigm for multigenerational spiritual community.
Join the Conversations!
Threshold Conversations seeks to understand and attend to the emergent needs of UU communities — and to lift up the essential work of religious education. A panel of religious educators discuss a given topic, followed by a Q&A with a live audience and written response pieces from contributors like you. Previous topics you can explore include Coming of Age; faith formation as an agent of culture change; and Whole Church RE as a solution to the deep need for adult faith development. Want to know more? Check out the UU World article on the project, listen to a podcast about it, and register for the next panel, on the Theology of Covenant (on Oct 14, at 1pm ET).
JUUst Breathe is a Unitarian Universalist podcast exploring whole church and lifespan ministries! Host Ember Kelley from the UUA’s Lifespan Faith Engagement office interviews UUs across the spectrum who hold a vision of liberal religious education that is both life saving and spirit lifting. This season, the focus is on Unitarian Universalists embracing a whole church religious education approach and deepening community connections across generations through the Deeper Joy resource. A total of 36 episodes you can binge on your favorite platform include discussions on Shared Values, COA, Threshold Conversations, and deep dives into youth and young adult ministry. Prefer video podcasts?Juust Breathe is also on YouTube.
Seasonal Resources
Autumn, Harvest and Interdependence
These welcoming, opening and closing words, as well as a harvest-themed coloring page, remind us that gathering, especially in Autumn, is a deeply human form of abundance.
Samhain, Dia de Los Muertos, All Souls, and All Saints Day
These special days arose in different parts of the Western hemisphere, a reflection of how the year’s turning toward the darkness of winter calls us to remember, honor, and learn from our beloved ancestors. Learn more and see collected resources here.
Indigenous Peoples Day
Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to fully understand the legacy of Christopher Columbus, just as it calls us to respect and learn from indigenous peoples and support their struggles for social justice and religious freedom.
Learn more here — including suggestions for Ten Ways to Honor Indigenous Peoples Day.
Webinar and Collected Resources: Decentering Whiteness in Worship
Recommended Reading by Indigenous Authors
Perfectly paired with this season of harvest and abundance, “Serviceberries show us a model…based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults
With informative sidebars, reflection questions, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults brings Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People
Adapted for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.
This collection of more than two hundred meditations introduces us to the Spirit Wheel and the four directions that ground Native spirituality: tradition, kinship, vision, and balance.
Our everyday acts of resistance hold us all together. Readers learn to practice embodied ways of belonging and connection, through everyday practices, such as getting more in touch with our bodies, resting, and remembering our ancestors.