From the Director of Religious Education, Sadie Kahn-Greene
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Sadie Kahn-Greene, Director of
Religious Education
Religious Education Program Office: 978-256-5133, dre@uuchelmsford.org
Religious Eduction at First Parish Church
From the Director of Religious Education, Sadie Kahn-Greene |
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June 20, 2010
Religious Education & Spiritual Parenting Resources for the Summer
As Unitarian Universalists we seek to support parents and encourage them to be the primary religious educators of their children. While we are all on summer break from our Religious Education program at First Parish, this is a wonderful time for nurturing the spiritual growth of your children. To help you enjoy a wonderful summer exploring faith as a family, I have assembled a list of resources for you to check out.
#1 Listening to Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is at the top of my list. On Sunday June 20th, I listened to a fascinating interview with Rabbi Sasso on the public radio show Speaking Of Faith. I was intrigued because we have quite a few of her children's books in our First Parish Library. Rabbi Sasso spoke about the spirituality of parenting, the importance of making time for our children to nurture their souls, by making time to talk with children about their questions, nurturing sense of wonder and making space for silence and prayer. I encourage those of you that are interested to listen to the interview which can be found at:
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/spirituality-of-parenting/
#2 The UUWorld magazine website has a series of blogs and there is a great blog by Michelle Richards about UU Parenting. Her current post is Helping children develop a healthy sexuality. Some past entries were titled: Unique challenges of Unitarian Universalist parenting, Sharing beliefs is not indoctrination, Spiritual and ethical growth spurts, It’s not easy being UU in middle school, The great mystery: Talking about death, Spiritual practices for children and youth.
You can find this blog at: http://blogs.uuworld.org/parenting/
#3 KidTalk is a Unitarian Universalist webpage for kids that is updated monthly. It is sponsored by the Church of the Larger Fellowship, our largest UU congregation which serves people all over the world through their online and mailing ministry. Each month KidTalk explores celebrations around the world, famous Unitarian Universalists, spiritual practice for kids, and ways to live out our principles. I encourage families to explore this page together at: http://clf.uua.org/kidtalk/2010/06/index.html
#4 Between Sundays is a website designed to help parents and other adults answer religious questions raised by children and youth. Questions are listed in groups of early childhood for four through eight year olds and middle childhood for nine through thirteen year olds. Question fall into categories such as UU Identity, Jewish and Christian Heritage, World Religions and Social Justice. For each question parents are provided by a story or activity to explore the answer with their children. You can find this site at: http://clf.uua.org/betweensundays/.
Religious Education Enrollment 2010/2011
Next September we will be handling RE registration a little differently. If your child was enrolled in RE this year, we will contact you in mid-August to confirm automatic re-enrollment. At that time, if any of your information has changed, please let us know and we will update it for our files rather than ask everyone to re-register. We hope this will simplify our enrollment process. We have registration forms available for new families which can be found on the church website.
Volunteering Survey Online Now!
Please visit: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dFJ4a2VnbnRpcW9sbXFPX3VpOXlncHc6MA#gid=0
We explain several ways for everyone to support and help run our Religious Education program and ask that you share with us your skills and your availability so we can use our volunteer resources more efficiently. Please think about ways that you can contribute your time and talent. We will start recruiting for next year’s program in the weeks ahead. Our program of 130 children & youth depends on over 90 volunteers to keep the program running. Thank you! – Religious Education Council & Director of Religious Education, Sadie Kahn-Greene and Religious Education Administrative Assistant, Jill Hayes