Here are some extra resources for UU youth and those who work with them.
Central East Region Resources for Youth Ministry
This section, authored by the UUA's Central East Region youth ministries specialists, is chock-full of information handily sorted by topic - browse away!
Spiritual Practices Archive
This open-source Google folder contains ideas submitted across the UU denomination of spiritual practices that can be adapted into lessons for or used within groups and communities. Please add any you encounter in your work.
Great Books to Read
- Youth Ministry Advising: A Complete Guide
A must-have resource for adults working with youth in UU congregations. Offers guidance, program ideas and tips for creating and maintaining youth programs within congregations. This resource includes information on building safe community, supporting youth leaders, structuring a program and more. - When Youth Lead
Offers guidance, suggestions and advice for constructing and maintaining a healthy and spiritually vital youth ministry. Seeing youth as equal participants in congregational life, this book demonstrates how teens are an enormous generative force for our faith communities and how adults have much to learn from youth about passion, friendship, discrimination, equality, faith and more. - Full Circle: Fifteen Ways to Grow Lifelong UUs
Katie Tweedie Covey (Erslev), a lifelong UU, surveyed and interviewed 82 people from ages 25 to 87 who were raised as UUs. She identifies fifteen common threads as critical to their commitment to their faith. An excellent Unitarian Universalist-specific resource on building multigenerational community.
Movies, Literature, and Pop Culture Resources
Selma Discussion Guide
This youth-friendly discussion guide (PDF, 8 pages) to Selma, the 2014 film directed by Ava DuVernay which documents the struggle for voting rights for African Americans between 1963 and 1965, provides an opportunity to dive into what the film means for our faith and our society in the present day. It guides Unitarian Universalist youth and adults to explore the film and examine how it lifts up the everyday lives of the movement’s leaders.
Adam Driver in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Star Wars, Crisis of Young White Masculinity, and UU
Read this post from the blog Blue Boat to learn more about toxic masculinity and how it's on display in the latest of the iconic Star Wars movie series. The post would make a great starting-off point for a group discussion about gender identity for men - or an addition to the section on gender in Our Whole Lives (OWL).
Netflix recently adapted Jay Asher’s young adult novel, 13 Reasons Why, into a 13-part series that has catapulted into pop culture, breaking social media and viewership records. 13 Reasons Why is well-made, but that doesn't mean it's good. Read the Blue Boat blogpost and watch the accompanying recorded webinar discussion to learn more, have conversations about its vital content, and help youth process this wildly popular, easily accessible, and deeply flawed work.
