Freedom of belief promotes diversity of thought in our communities and fuels the responsible search for truth and meaning that leads toward a beloved community. This freedom encourages exploration and experimentation, lending creativity and innovation to our communities. Yet over the decades since the consolidation of Unitarians and Universalists, an overemphasis on individual exploration and experience as the primary, if not sole center of religious experience developed. This centering of the individual decenters the communal as a locus of theological exploration. One of the unintended consequences has been the atomized individualism of the search for truth and meaning without accountability to its impact in communities.

– Excerpt from the “Theology” chapter, Widening the Circle of Concern

Does the practice of writing a Credo—or, an “I believe”—statement, and ritually delivering it in a Coming of Age ceremony before the congregation, overemphasize individual experience? How might this practice be re-envisioned to emphasize our covenantal theology?

The first service I attended at a Unitarian Universalist congregation was a Coming of Age service in my hometown of Arlington, MA. My friend Paul (along with other teens I knew from school) was being honored. The Director of Religious Education, Tina, invited the rock band trio that Paul and I played in to offer a musical interlude in the service.

I remember Paul’s Credo, about standing up to his friends who were destroying a corn field (Paul grew up partly in Lincoln, NE). Since I had a spot looking out from the front of the sanctuary, I remember more so the faces of all the adults in First Parish UU of Arlington, MA—paying attention.

The type of attention that communicates, “You have something to teach me.”

I needed this attention. I was in a crisis of faith as an eighth grader, on the precipice of leaving my Catholic faith. First Parish was centering young people in worship. Nurturing them as free thinkers. Keeping them safe. The contrast I sensed—especially as a Catholic in Boston in the early 2000s—was stark.

So I left Catholicism that summer, and started going to First Parish on my own. In time, the community claimed me, this high schooler who walked to church each Sunday for services. Like many adult newcomers from other faiths, I needed space and time to heal. To listen to the sermon, weigh it, consider it. To be asked what I believe, rather than told what to believe.

In time, my allergy to God-language softened. My pain and my anger toward the Church were cared for and channeled. And in all the listening, I began to learn our Unitarian Universalism. Rev. Carlton preached on how our liberation is all bound up together. The community started asking me to help out: attending rallies, volunteering at the fair, and eventually, helping teach religious education. There, I began hearing the call to the ministry that I am living out today.

Hearing Joy Berry, Greg Boyd, Tracy Breneman, Meagan Henry, and Tie Resendiz explore Coming of Age in the first Threshold Conversations panel attunes me to how each of our UU communities emphasizes different aspects of the Coming of Age process. This piece draws mostly from my experience with our congregation in Arlington, MA—the same congregation where I witnessed my friend Paul’s Coming of Age. During seminary, I served as their Religious Education Assistant and then Youth Program Coordinator. And now, I’ve returned as the Minister of Religious Education, carrying forward the legacy of our longtime Director of Religious Education, Tina Schultz.

Joy wondered what explains the popularity of Coming of Age services, especially in congregations that otherwise do little or no intergenerational faith development. She suggested the ceremony risks being a performative, or (in my words) extractive exchange. Joy is not alone in raising this. In Arlington, our religious education committee also discusses the dynamics of how young people are included in worship.

When I think back to those adult faces I witnessed (and was transformed by) in eighth grade, I see genuine, empathic curiosity. And in light of the panel discussion, I wonder what adults in our congregation get out of it.

Perhaps yes, we have a culture that values intellectualism, and a Credo is a feat of public critical thinking (paraphrasing Tie here) that is invigorating to witness. We may wonder if this is the right kind of pressure to put on all youth in our programs.

But, while asking, “What’s in it for the community?” our value of Pluralism points me in two other directions. Yes, it is just genuinely interesting to understand what someone else believes (or, how they think), and more so, understand the journey that brought them to that belief. On another level, when we are giving the middle schoolers an opportunity to authentically share their stories, their dignity and inherent worth shines through. This type of knowing across differences (of generations, of experience) makes Love possible.

Settling into my role in Arlington, and while engaging the appreciative inquiry process called for by Tina’s departure, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing young adults in their mid-20s about what the Religious Education program meant to them. These are folks I knew as high schoolers, so the relationship was already there.

One former youth leader, Sarah, summed up her Coming of Age experience in words that reminded me of it as a Rite of Passage. I was probing to see if it was necessary to have publicly delivered Credos. She said, (paraphrasing here), that it got her ready for all the other times she was asked to speak to the congregation. That is just what we do here, and now Sarah was a part of it.

First Parish asks its youth to help lead worship in front of the congregation a lot! Sarah and I talked through those other times—the youth services, the litany readings, the holiday services, and her cumulative senior reflection. She was proud and grateful for the experience. And First Parish also asks adult members, young adults, and outside guests to bring their reflections.

But is asking eighth graders to write “Credo,” or “I believe” statements overemphasizing individualism?

On surface level, yes, if we just stop there. As an entry point, it might have the potential to be an “about me” essay. Developmentally, this makes sense to me, for teens to be claiming who they are and saying it to their community. But as Greg discussed with regard to family covenants being renegotiated in adolescence, claiming who you are is only part of the covenanting process. A teen needs to share where they’re at, and the community needs to adapt and learn to incorporate their experience into its whole.

When I remember the Credos we’ve had over the years, they often describe ways these young people found values that they learned and claimed in community with others.

Remember my friend Paul? His Credo was about how being part of his faith meant standing up to his friends in the cornfield, even when it was uncomfortable to do so. And how he came to that ethical firmness in relationship to his family and his UU community.

This year, I might experiment by spending time thinking with the participants about their evolving covenants, throughout the program. So much is shifting in their lives! Potentially, we’ll include in the Credo prompts to our eighth graders,

“What do you want to promise… to yourself, to your family, to your faith community, to your world?”

And, perhaps,

“What do you need your faith community and your family to promise to you?”

And, in the liturgy of our Coming of Age Sunday, we may include a place for parents and members of the congregation to voice the reciprocity of those promises.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Download as a Word File