Thriving in Faith Formation

Part of Thriving in Religious Education

When you ask someone in a UU congregation about what a successful religious education or faith formation looks like in their congregation most will be able to come up with an answer pretty quickly. Some will draw on memories of what RE was like when they were children or when their children were growing up. Some draw on what they’ve seen at other congregations. And many may not even be able to tell you where they got the idea but it involves lots of families with kids. Only a handful will describe what is happening right then in their congregation. This video asks us to reframe how we measure faith formation through a lens of thriving. Utilizing a lens of thriving invites us to move away from comparisons and numbers of participants and toward a deeper wondering of what robust faith formation could be for our particular context.

Transcript (TXT)


Part 1: Invitation to thriving

Part 2: Noticing points of thriving

Part 3: Many ways to measure thriving

Part 4: Reflection Questions

Some Reflection Questions From The Video

• Does your congregation have differences in visions of what thriving means? How do memories of what RE used to be like shape how you imagine thriving now?

• What might "thriving" in faith formation look like in your context today?

• How are the stories shared in this video inviting you to dream and imagine?

• Where do you notice thriving and flourishing in your congregation? (Perhaps even a small place?)

• What are our gifts?

• What do our people need?

• What might we imagine thriving to be for us in this time? And where do we already find it happening?

• Going forward how will we measure thriving?

Group Reflection Process

If you are working with a team, we suggest the following process for reflecting as a group. First, watch the video with your team, then, using a circle format, go through the questions above. We recommend going in circle so that each team member has the chance to voice their point of view - knowing that having multiple different perspectives ‘in the room’ is most helpful for forming a picture in complex times.