Threshold Conversations: Background

JUUst Breathe Season 3 logo: headphones around "JUUst Breathe" with a sound bar background and "JUUst Breathe Threshold Conversations Meaning Making for the Future of UU Faith Formation"

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Origins of Threshold Conversations

What is "Threshold Conversations?" How did it start? What are its purposes and goals? This episode is a flashback of sorts as we delve into the origins of Threshold.
Come listen to Rev Marisol Caballero and our co-host, running double duty as panelist- Joy Berry, as they discuss the origins of Threshold Conversations, the Unitarian Universalist religious education initiative and the focus for this Season's episodes.

The Grounding

We understand religious education as the ongoing, revelatory work that inspires the formation of faith - a transformative experience that both grounds and compels our faithful action in the world. We are called by our UU theology to be a justice-seeking, change-making, inclusive and welcoming people. As such, faith formation is our most essential and sacred work, and should be at the core of UU identity, culture and community.

Flame shaped Word Cloud of values taught by sample congregation "Love" "Peace" "Respect" "Community" "Hope"

Yet we know it is often voices from the margins that lead us onward. We are beckoned toward a future faith that can inspire and sustain and grow souls, beyond what we have known and done before. It is, therefore, a “threshold moment”. We find ourselves in a doorway, our long history of religious education behind us. Before us: an awareness that the future calls us to transform this work of faith formation in ways we cannot yet fully know, but that we commit ourselves to making real. It is a moment of preparation, of readying ourselves in solidarity of purpose, for what is ahead.

Threshold Conversations is not a compendium of engaging activities or best practices, a roadmap, or a blueprint for a successful religious education program. Instead, it seeks to gather and lift up the voices, perspectives, and ideas emerging from the wisdom of our communities. It honors religious education’s past, and the work done by so many to get us here, with an understanding that we are called in this moment, with clarity and purpose, to both shape—and be shaped by—its future.

The Gratitude

The "we" in Threshold Conversations is ever-evolving. We have interested individuals, and organizational representatives, and you the reader, all contributing to the success of these conversations and this project. We will be thanking our contributors along the way, so look into the topic for those who were involved intensely and primarily in a specific topic. This section acknowledges the behind-the-scenes contributions since the inception, including those currently active and those who have completed their contribution or role/affiliation in parenthesis:

  • Liberal Religious EDucators Association (LREDA): Kirsten Hunter, (Aisha Hauser)
  • Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA):
    • Lifespan Fait Engagment: Rev. Marisol Caballero, Joy Berry, Amanda Radak, Susan Dana Lawrence, Ted Resnikoff, Anna Bethea, Rev. Sarah Gettie McNeill, Jennica Davis-Hockett, (Rev. Stevie Carmody)
    • Congregational Life: Natalie Briscoe, Connie Goodbread, (Nancy Combs-Morgan)
    • Various Departments: Publications: (Mary Benard)
  • Religious Educators at Large: Austen Petersen, Charla Bregnante & Samantha Eyster
  • Starr King School for the Ministry: Rev. Dr. Sheri Proud’homme
  • Meadville Lombard Theological School: (Mark Hicks, Joy Berry)
  • UU Congregation at Shelter Rock: Rev. Dr. Natalie Fenimore
  • UU Ministers Association (UUMA): Darrick Jackson

If you would like to contribute to Threshold Conversations Behind-The-Scenes (Google Form)

Or continue on to a specific topic to contribute to a single conversation.