First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington, Massachusetts

RE Committee Goals

To maintain our current level of quality Religious Education programming. A program that supports the growth and development of everyone involved.

To continue to develop and integrate a social justice component into the RE Program. We will repeat the 3 social justice actions that we implemented last year: Unicef, Mitten Tree and Walk for Hunger.

To develop and implement parent education in conjunction with Religious Education programming
to address the specific needs affecting UU children and parents.

To continue to strengthen consistency of RE through “Rituals & Music” which begins at the start of each new term. 
Each term begins with all children meeting in the Bailey Room to learn a new song and/or ritual.

To continue to discuss ways of teaching and integrating the UU principles.

We welcome your input. Please feel free to bring to us your enthusiasm, suggestions, skills and concerns.

Jennifer Davis-Kay, Chair
Dawn Albright
Betsy Allen
Alex Aminoff
Val DePalma
Cheryl Dressler
Janis Fleishman
Amy Hadley
Marie Meteer

A Note from our chair -- reprinted from February 2011 Spire

At the Leadership Roundtable a few Sundays ago, a question came up about “living our mission” in our committee work, an idea that caught my imagination. I adore my committee, and we have a great time at our meetings while also getting a lot done. But are we living our mission? Please join me as I explore this question.

We choose to be a liberal religious community . . .

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall as the committee hammered out exactly what “liberal” meant in this context . . . ! But I take it to mean that we approach religion with an attitude of open-mindedness and acceptance, and this certainly applies to the work we do in RE. From the many possible answers to the question “What and who is God?” in the first grade curriculum, to the cornucopia of holidays and holy days celebrated in grade 3, to the visits to a variety of “neighboring faiths” in grade 7, we impress on our children over and over that UUism is a faith of open minds and open hearts.

. . . welcoming to all.

How to best welcome and foster connections with new families is an ongoing topic. We have a point person for this, the lovely Val DePalma, and her name and contact info are posted on our bulletin board and included in the folders we give new families. We pay attention when new visitors stand up in the Sanctuary, particularly if they have children with them, and make a point of speaking to them at coffee hour. But we know that we could do more. The families who attend for a few months and then suddenly stop coming—should we reach out to them, make sure they’re okay, find out if there’s a reason they no longer attend services? We’re not fully sure what our role is, and there are just so many hours in a day. We continue to discuss, brainstorm, and try to solve this problem.

As for the committee itself, because we are a large-ish and healthy group (nine active members plus Tina!), we actually try not to be overly welcoming, because right now we fit perfectly around the Parlor table. But that didn’t stop our determined newest member, Alex Aminoff, who started attending meetings, joining the discussion, and adding such richness to our conversations that we simply had to make the relationship official. Any day now, we’ll make him go through the dire initiation process . . .

We encourage each other on our spiritual journeys . . .

Teaching RE means missing Sunday services. We do our best to make it up to our teachers by having Marta’s services available in print form, and giving them a Sunday off every few weeks. But we also encourage our RE teachers to think of teaching itself—guiding and nurturing all these young souls on their spiritual journeys—as a spiritual practice.

All of our RE meetings begin with a chalice lighting and a reading and end with a benediction. In our discussions, we often delve into some of life’s deep questions. We are 10 very different individuals, with different backgrounds, beliefs, opinions, and values, and we don’t always agree. However, we treat each other with respect and compassion, and everyone has a chance to be heard. I am inspired on a regular basis by the other people at the table, who think of things I never would have thought of and encourage me to look at a situation upside-down and inside-out. For me, committee work is very much a spiritual practice.

. . . Support one another through the changes in our lives . . .

Though some members have rotated off and some new ones have joined, for the most part our committee has been together for three years now, and we are a tightly bonded group—partly because we’re all quite awesome, but also because we’ve done a lot of team-building work over the years. There is genuine caring among the group members. So when Tina told me that our treasurer, Janis Fleishman, was getting married the next evening, we quickly adjusted our meeting agenda to include a new Item 1: Break out the champagne glasses, pour a fizzy concoction of sparkling peach and OJ, serve cake, and launch into a rousing chorus of “Goin’ to the Chapel”! We were dippy. It was great fun.

(Later, I told Alex that this was his perfect initiation to our group, because we are in fact as girly as all giddy-up. He did not seem overly surprised at this news.)

. . . And challenge the excesses and injustices of our time.

In RE, we do this with the kids via social justice by involving them in a social justice project each term: UNICEF for grades 3 and 6 in the fall; a food/hunger-related project for grades 1 and 5 in the winter; and an environment-related project for grades 2 and 4 in the spring. The committee is also discussing having an overarching year-long social justice project for all grades that we can incorporate into our One-Room Schoolhouses. Ideas we’re considering include Heifer International, Pennies for Peace, and some of the suggestions from Teach Your Granny to Text and Other Ways to Change the World.

Called to love and upheld by joy, we live our faith.

In the immortal words of that great spiritual leader Whitney Houston, “I believe the children are our future—teach them well, and they will lead the way.” We have a stellar RE program, from the loving care our tiniest tots receive in the Nursery, all the way to our outstanding Youth Group. More and more, our youth are working with littler kids, providing an excellent model of what it looks like to grow up and become involved in a church—to choose to be here on a Sunday morning. In other words: We are not only living our faith, here in RE Land; we are doing our part to ensure that our faith continues to live.

By my count, the RE Committee gets an A+ on living our mission. I find this especially exciting because it’s performance review season, and I’m hoping that I will get a raise!

—Jennifer Davis-Kay
Chair, RE Committee