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Religious Education Volunteers Needed
We need lots of help to pull this off. We need your help! There are three children’s classes, Coming of Age, Youth Group, and Adult Small Groups. We are looking for lead teachers who would be the primary contact for each class, coordinating with the DRE materials, volunteer schedules, attendance, ect. We also need Co-Teachers who help prepare and teach classes.
If you are uncertain if you can do this work, we will be providing a teacher training before the year kicks off. If you don’t know if you can commit for the entire year, that is okay. We ask that you commit for at least 3 months. (Experience of current teachers says that you will probably sign on for more.) Though you are not required to volunteer every week. We hope to fill enough spots so that volunteers can work around their own schedules. If you have any questions or concerns, contact our DRE, Nick, to set up a time to chat.
Classes:
- Pre-K-Kindergarten (Need 1 Lead and 3-4 Co-Teachers)
- 1st-3rd Grade (Need 1 Lead and 3-4 Co-Teachers)
- 4th-5th Grade (Need 1 Lead and 3-4 Co-Teachers)
- Coming of Age (Grades 7-9) (Need 2 Lead Teachers and 1 Mentor for each youth)
- Youth Group (Grades 10-12 (Need 4-5 Advisors)
- Adult Small Groups (Need a facilitator for each small group)
Still not sure if you have what it takes? Here are what we are looking for, we can help with all the rest:
- A team player with a view toward long-term sustainability and short-term change.
- Live our UU principles and follow our Right Relations Promise.
- Familiarity (or openness to learn) REALM, Google Workspace, and other technologies that make this work more efficient
- Regularly check in with DRE to inform of any problems, concerns, or needs
- Share joyous stories with fellow teachers
- Willingness to submit to a background check
- Be organized and prepared
- Maintain a clarity of mind in stressful situations
- Developing a greater understanding of one’s strengths and weaknesses
- Maintains a sense of curiosity and wonder (In no way needs to be an expert, just a guide in discovery)
- Help build resilience, offer support, and encourage each child to connect with their quest for purpose and meaning
- Think about the gifts you will bring to the classroom and how your talents might complement your co-teacher and bring joy to the group
If this sounds like you and something you are ready to do, fill out this application. If you want to chat with Nick, set up a time here.
Looking towards Next Year in Children and Youth Religious Education
“I think we can learn together, but we don’t have to always be separate to learn important things” -Rev. Sasha Ostrom
As we continue to grow closer as a community and larger in size, it will be more and more important for us to intentionally be together; singing together. socializing together, and learning together. So as the Faith Formation Committee explored options for our Children, Youth, and Adult religious education, we were excited to rediscover a curriculum that the Fellowship can use in worship, religious education, and other small group opportunities. Next year we will be using Soul Matters for children and youth education, worship services, and adult small groups.
We are super excited to have a unifying curriculum for the congregation to use as a whole. There will be more information coming soon. But we are excited for us to have them explored in the service and then reinforced in children’s classes, Coming of Age, youth group, adult small groups. There will also be chances for crafters and writers to be part of the conversation.
We will be sharing more information soon as we work out more details. But we wanted to share with you this plan. We are also planning Coming of Age, Kindergarten-1st grade OWL, and Age of Reason/Flower Communion.
Religious Education 2022-2023
When the Fellowship began, it was almost entirely run by volunteers. Then, as staff was added, they supported the work of the volunteers. Then, after many surveys and discussions, there was a shift in the early 2000s to a desire for more professionally led services and programs. This is when Alison was hired. I am so thankful that she spent 17 years cultivating a collaborative environment between volunteers and staff. This was a shift for both the Fellowship and a departure from the fellowship movement within the UUA from which we came. It is a culture that I am excited to bring my 13 years of professional religious education experience to (June 3rd is my ministry anniversary).
All of this is to say that, though we are religious professionals, we can’t do this without your help. In the children and youth RE world, we need MANY volunteers. Children need more help. We need extra teachers in the classroom for safety. Some can’t read or sit still. We also break up our classes into smaller groups (based on age and stage) than adults do. We also don’t have enough professionals to step in when a volunteer can’t help as a Sunday morning service can.
On top of this, one of our primary calls is to raise our children to be good UUs so that they can make the world a better place. A Jewish proverb says, “Train up a child in the way they should go; even when they are old, they will not depart from it.” So our Children’s and Youth RE program, and the vital volunteers that make it work, are critical to our success as part of the Unitarian Universalist movement.
I want to thank all of our volunteers for making this program happen last year. With the pandemic, uncertainty in COVID surges and whether, and a Director of Lifespan Religious Education was getting their feet wet in a new place. If you know an RE volunteer, say thank you, hug them, buy them a coffee.
Now I turn to every person reading this article. If you are a Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship member, I ask you to help us out. As you will see in the following pages, we are trying something new. We are asking teachers to sign up for just six weeks at a time. Each teacher will be given a curriculum for the unit they are teaching and any resources needed. Each teacher will be background checked, and we will also be offering CPR and First Aid training for all teachers. You can also see the schedule so that you can plan ahead. We expect that you will be present in most classes.
This all may sound like your typical desperate plea for more volunteers. It is not. I want to offer you a significant opportunity to further the UU movement. A chance to teach our children about justice, peace, and love. And I want to say if you have read this far and are saying to yourself, “this sounds good, but I don’t know if I’m any good with kids” or “middle schoolers make me nervous,” let’s chat. Kids aren’t that scary.
If you are someone with educational experience, a parent or grandparent, or someone with a passion for children, OR a passion for the topics being taught, please let me know if you are interested (dre@muuf.org).
RE Changes
Two weeks into RE and we are already changing things around. We moved class locations and turned the first Sunday of October into a MultiGen instead of a Chapel Sunday. But that seems to be the way of things these days.
We have made adjustments to protect our children from this pandemic that still goes on. We have all made adjustments to care for the least of these, the little children. We are back together, and it’s getting colder outside; there is a desire to move inside. So waiting for this pandemic to end seems to intensify even more.
Luckily there is news that the vaccine may soon be approved for children. At that point, we will be faced with the difficult decisions of how to continue to engage ALL of our children while also protecting ALL of our children.
I am hopeful that this pandemic is nearing the end. And then we may be able to build on the excitement of returning to some sort of normalcy, what will hopefully be a long relationship between a new DRE and an RE program, and just the joy of being together.
An ever-evolving children, youth, and adult RE program will hopefully become the backbone of our success as “a vibrant, multi-generational liberal religious” organization. It will help us make a positive change in this world. Many of us are champing at the bit to get to work, but we must wait a little longer. In the meantime, we need to see how this vital work is happening; Sunday Morning RE is holding classes outside, Adult programs meeting outside or online, exciting plans about the Service Auction, worship in the Oval. Let us plan for the future while relishing in the present.