- Description
- UU Connection
- Comments
- Backers
Parents are the primary religious educators of their children. We know this because of research, because of the amount of time that parents spend with their kids compared to the amount of time that families are present physically in our congregations, and because even parents themselves acknowledge this in surveys. But what a daunting prospect! Our families are busy and overwhelmed, and adding the job of teaching kids about Unitarian Universalism, especially for parents who are relatively new UUs themselves can feel like just one step too much. So, we want to help!
Our congregation is launching a weekly email column from our minister for our families called UU At Home. Aimed at parents, this column will include ideas about family rituals, ways to approach major holidays with a UU perspective, ways for families to reflect on the UU Principles in their home, the story of the month from our Religious Education program to help families engage it in a deeper way, and other resources for parents to use at home. The column will be short enough to not overwhelm, full of practical ideas, and grounded in the lived experience of UU children and parents.
The money we raise from this campaign will help to pay for the staff time to develop the column, as well as any materials we want to purchase for distribution through the column. Thank you so much for your support!
Project UU Connection
This project is Unitarian Universalist all the way through! It is designed to help parents bring Unitarian Universalism and the UU Principles into their family life with greater depth and clarity. It is explicitly grounded in the UU Principles, the sources of our faith, and the worship and teaching life of our own congregation. It is our congregation's way of reaching out to parents where they are to support them in raising UU kids.
2 thoughts on “Help Launch UU At Home”
Leave a Reply
-
Anonymous11/18/2018$25.00
-
Anonymous11/16/2018$15.00
-
11/15/2018$20.00
-
11/01/2018$10.00
-
Anonymous11/01/2018$100.00
David P Cauffman
What amount are you needing to raise? What are the special credentials of the minister for this work? Will it be shared with other congregations if successful and useful? Why is the congregation unable and unwilling to fund this itself? How large is it? How many children?
UU Catskills
Hi David,
Sorry that it took me awhile to see your comment! We are hoping to raise $500. Yes, we will share the column with other congregations if it is successful and useful. Like most congregations, we need to raise some of our annual budget from outside our own membership, since we have more we want to do than we can fund ourselves. This seemed like a project that might be interesting to others, so we decided to see if others might want to help us fund it. As we are all trying to find a way to do family ministry in a shifting cultural context, this is one experiment in that direction which, if successful, might help our own community and be able to be shared with others. Our congregation has about 100 members, and we send the family newsletter to about 10 families or so. I (the minister) have been doing a lot of thinking about how to transition our family ministry to a context in which we can’t count on regular attendance of our families on Sunday morning. I’ve taken a number of webinars through Courageous Faith Consulting on family ministry models, including faith at home, which is the model this is based in. I also attended a week-long training through the UU Ministers Association in family ministry, including how we might better support our parents in being the primary religious educators of their children. Hope this helps!