Religious Education was the primary reason for establishing UUFHC back in the 1950s. Our founding members wanted a more convenient way to bring religious education to their children rather than making the hour-long trip to downtown Baltimore.
We started attending UUFHC in 1984, also primarily for religious education. At that time we had volunteer Directors of RE. This was also a time just before the UUA developed better curricula. Teachers did the best they could with the scant resources available, and the emphasis was on reason with little in the way of spiritual development. I remember speaking to older members then who were disappointed that their grown children grew detached from Unitarian Universalism and went to more traditional faiths.
Soon after we joined UUFHC, we received visits from the Rev. Dorris Alcott, a Minister of Religious Education, who was hired as RE Consultant in our district. This required her to visit congregations in Maryland and neighboring states to help develop and improve Religious Education programs. She formed a bond with our Religious Education volunteers, especially Judi Walkley, who for a while was our volunteer DRE, and with me. Whenever she wasn’t traveling she came to UUFHC on Sunday, led children’s worship services, and helped us improve our program and supplement the substandard curricula available. She even became an official member of UUFHC and continued to offer us advice, help us choose classes, and facilitated with drawing up covenants between the DRE and the congregation, when we began to hire professional educators.
The UUA eventually developed better curricula balancing the rational and the spiritual. Two course areas, however, have remained constant throughout the years. Our Middle School students continue to learn about other religions in the local area. Through the years, the course has been called Church Across The Street,
How Others Worship
and Neighboring Faiths.
Students learn about other religions and we arrange to visit a church service, where our kids often see their school friends. It’s not lost on many of them that they are able to visit their friends’ churches, but their classmates aren’t allowed to visit ours. UUFHC even developed a supplement to Church Across the Street
in our early years when the founders’ children were attending. The UUA published this supplement, which was available to churches and fellowships across the country outlining best practices. I believe there is a copy in our archives.
The other constant is sexuality education, which has been available since the 1970s. My kids took the course for grades K-2 and the middle/high school course, About Your Sexuality.
Now we have Our Whole Lives,
and OWL is a huge improvement and adds a real value to our program.
In the 80s I taught and became RE chair from 1989-92 and DRE for the rest of the 1990s. One thing continued to bother me – I wanted a course to foster the UU identity of our students so they wouldn’t fall away as they left the program. In the early 1990s a committee here developed a Coming of Age
program, one of the first in the denomination. I wasn’t on the committee that developed the course, but I was the one who first implemented the program. We had 12 categories of tasks for students to learn about UU history and polity and serve the church and community. Each student chose a mentor—an adult member of our congregation—who would advise and help them through the task list. The last item on the list was to write a personal statement of beliefs. Those who completed the program were rewarded with a chaperoned trip to Boston, to visit the UUA, some UU churches, as well as to participate in some fun activities in the Boston area. In the column of summer newsletters where we interview graduating seniors, almost all of the students mention the Boston trip as their best UUFHC memory.
The UUA continues to develop curricula to meet the needs of today’s students, and now the lessons can even be accessed on-line! The RE professionals and volunteers who have succeeded me have brought new ideas and energy to further build a cohesive religious community for our students. Our program has truly developed into a Faith Formation
program!
When I was invited to share on the topic this morning, I enthusiastically accepted! I am passionate about Faith Formation! It’s what I have chosen to dedicate my life to so why wouldn't I want to talk about it?
And then the time came to get started… I got out my computer, I gathered my water and my snacks, I turned on my music (I have a process), and I opened a fresh new document to pour all of my thoughts and emotions about Faith Formation into.
And then…I stared… and I stared… and I stared at the screen… Why was I struggling so much when this is something that I love, something I believe in. I just could not figure out where to begin.
So with that, I think it’s best to start at the beginning.
In families all over the world… Faith Formation starts at birth… in UU families, in Muslim families, in Christian families, in Jewish families, in Budhist families, in non-religious families… Every. Single. One.
Our first experience with faith is as infants, learning to develop faith in those who care for us. We learn to trust and have faith that we are going to be fed, that we are going to be changed, that we are going to be held, and kept safe.
I learned this concept in my studies as a Religious Educator and it’s the first step in James Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development
.
But what comes after we are babies? Where does the REAL faith learning begin? To talk about this, I look to The Fahs Collaborative at Meadville Lombard, a UU Theological school. They took Fowler’s stages and made them a little easier to digest.
They say that the next stage of Faith Formation is Caught
where children are too young to really understand and to process outside of themselves… so faith formation is not as important for them right? Wrong! Making positive connections with their faith community, being involved in rituals, and watching others around them and how they engage in faith is important.
Then comes Taught
where children start to understand differences between fact and fantasy, they learn through stories and participating in rituals.They start to understand that others can have different beliefs than they do. Being in a faith community is important because they start to look to other spiritual leaders outside of their own family… Teachers in the Faith Formation program, people who help lead worship, any people who actively interact with the children are all a part of this development.
Next, Faith is Bought
. This is seen as the stage where teens buy-in
to the faith of their family and friends. They have the ability for abstract thinking now, so they have the ability to see layers of meaning in the stories, rituals and symbols of their faith.What were once simple unrelated stories and rituals can now be seen as a more cohesive narrative about values and morals.
There are more stages of Faith Formation beyond this… some that involve struggling with questions and seeking answers… in my case, the very path that brought me to Unitarian Universalism. A path that many of us have followed.
So what does that mean for UU kids? We’ve done our job! We’ve brought them to church! We put them in Faith Formation classes… our work here is done! Right?
At the risk of jeopardizing my career, I believe that the future of Faith Formation is at home. Does that mean we don’t need Faith Formation classes? Or a Faith Formation Committee? Does that mean that we don’t need Directors of Faith Formation?
Absolutely not!
Those are important and integral parts of both this fellowship and in our wider religion.
They are where our children and youth go to learn the what and why
behind the scenes of Unitarian Universalism. Classes expose them to truths from around the world, share parts of our UU history and our rituals, challenge them to figure out what their values are and live them out in the world. Faith formation classes and activities offer a sense of connection to the faith, a sense of ownership over their own spiritual being.
But I will say this again, I believe that the future of Faith Formation is at home, and not just the homes with children in them. Think for a moment…
These are all a part of the faith formation process for the children & youth of UUFHC. This is what they see each time you gather (even virtually), this is what they hear each time someone shares, or they have a conversation with you.
So think back to that first stage of faith. No matter our age or which stage we find ourselves in, our faith community can make us feel just like that tiny baby… we stay here, in this community because we know that we are going to be fed spiritually, we know that we are going to be changed, we know that we are going to be held, and kept safe.
I hope that is what you have found here for yourself… and I hope that you will do what you can to help provide that for the children and youth too. That is what Faith Formation is all about. Thank you.
At UUFHC, the Coming of Age program offered by our congregation is arguably the most important activity that directly affects a teenager’s faith formation. The COA program established by our congregation offers a coherent and challenging process for a teen to examine his/her faith beliefs. It is focused on providing resources, exercises, and tools to aid the youth in examining, developing, and refining their personal religious beliefs, values, and religious credo.
There are 3 elements to the COA program,
The program provides a wide variety of tasks for the student to choose from. Each completed task provides one point. A total of 20 points are required to complete the program. The program will culminate in a Coming of Age Worship Service on April 25, 2021 conducted by the students. At this service the students will present their own assessments of the program as well as its results as they relate to them personally. Students who complete the program will participate in a trip to Boston (Coronavirus, funding and safety permitting) and/or a celebration event planned by the participants (camping trip, amusement park trip, etc.).
One of the resources offered to assist the student in completing this program is a mentor. Each student chooses an adult mentor who is a member of the congregation to assist with the program. The mentor aids in planning the individual program and recommends resources, approaches and tools to support the student in task accomplishment and meets with the student regularly to ensure progress is being made. Additionally the mentor ensures that tasks are complete and he/she approves the students completed work. Note that the mentor is a facilitator and does not lead the student, rather he/she provides options, ideas, resources, encouragement, and motivation. The mentor must take care to not influence the student’s choices and decisions; those are the purview of the student alone.
I have had the great fortune to have served as a COA mentor and as a YRUU teacher in the past and I think I speak for many others who have also served in those roles when I say that the rewards for taking on those tasks were and are priceless. I have become very close to several students who have completed this program and have watched them grow to become thoughtful, productive and caring adults. Perhaps even more importantly I have been forced to reexamine my own religious beliefs, values and the spiritual underpinnings of my religious credo and in the process, I have gained far more than I have received. Each of you also have a role in this program. You are also a mentor in that the work you do in supporting this congregation and its works including the Faith Formation programs of our children sets an excellent example and directly influences the students view and understanding of the variety of ways which we individually approach and practice Unitarian Universalism. I encourage you all to continue to practice your version of UUism and to support the COA program as best as you can.