REC-Room Activities: Other

			Activities: Other

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QUESTIONS FOR PARENTING CLASS

Here are my questions. Each one actually has a few :). They are pretty simple, and could certainly be improved upon. They did inspire lots of good conversation though, so they were useful.

1) What do you think the children from our fellowship would say if confronted by their peers about their religious beliefs? About Heaven/Hell? About being "saved"? What do you think they should be saying in such a situation? While religious education begins and ends at home, what can be happening in our R.E. classes to give children a strong sense of UU identity? *Possible foci for this question: exposure to world religions-appreciation or appropriation?; what does it mean to be a young UU?; difficulties/blessings of a liberal religious education program

2) How do we make a bridge for teenagers to become members of the fellowship? How can they be provided with opportunities to participate in fellowship activities, without feeling pressured or burdened? [this is a constantly debated one at committee meetings-some think we will lose teens if we expect anything from them]

3) How can the Religious Education Committee bring more volunteers to help with religious education? What barriers are there between the adults and the children; how do we remove them? In your perception, how important is religious education in this fellowship?

4) In your groups, draw a picture of your ideal R.E. program. This can be done in any way you choose-be creative, but make your visions explicit. What does it look like? What is going on? Who is there? What is the purpose? [the committee chair thought this one might be a bit too loose, so we dropped it]
-OR-

* What is your vision for the heart of the R.E. program: Is it a respect and understanding of world religions? An historical understanding of religious development? UU principles? Fellowship/community? A feeling of self-worth? A scientific world view? A spiritual groundedness? Make a visual representation of these, going out in concentric circles around the heart. Use examples given, and/or other values you come up with. [everyone put UU principles in the center of their hearts-sounds like a no-brainer, but I was actually quite surprised considering some of the conversations I've heard/been in about why parents in my fellowship bring their kids to church. This was really positive.]

gina, uufw

Creating a Vision and Setting a Mission

1: Give everyone a piece of blank white paper and have available lots of crayons. Invite everyone (if they are comfortable) to close their eyes. Ask them to begin thinking about what this church would LOOK like if it was exactly the way they wanted it to be. Remind them that they are not looking for words to describe it, but to just picture it. Explain that a vision is a picture - you can feel it and walk around in it. Now invite them to open their eyes and put their vision on the paper. No one is expected to be an artist, they may just have colors that express the way they feel, or sick figures to represent people, or diagrams or lines and arrows to represent interaction. What we are looking for is a representation of the picture they saw in their heads.

2. Now that something is down on paper, ask each person to describe their vision. As they describe it, write down the central points of what they see as aspects of the ideal. As each person shares add to the list and underline those things that are mentioned more than once. When everyone is done you may go back and look at the list to see if anything was missed, if people need to change the wording, if there is something that someone cannot agree with. This list should comprise the group vision. If possible see if you can word it in a statement that reads something like"The vision of the ____ group_______ of the ______ congregation______ is..."

3. Now step back and describe the reality. Have each person describe on paper the way things are now. Go around hand have each person share their impressions taking notes as you did before. It is not important here to create a statement.

4. Now define the gap between the reality and the vision. What needs to change?

5. Define what steps you need to take to fill that gap. There may be a number of steps, and you will need to prioritize the order in which they need to be taken.

6. Based upon the steps that need to be taken you can define the mission of your group. A mission can be a permanent charge to a group, but it may also be temporary (lasting a year or so) and then re-evaluated and either reaffirmed or a new mission drawn up. As an example you may see that there is a total lack of understanding and knowledge as well as a failure to act in specifically desired ways. So you may see that you need to raise people's consciousness, educate them, connect the issue to UU values of social justice, and create a new norm of behavior. Based upon those steps your mission might be to Change attitudes and behaviors of the members and friends through consciousness raising, education, and emphasis of UU Principles and Values.

7. After defining your mission, use it to guide your decisions about what you will do. Is this activity fulfilling our mission? If not, then you are diffusing your energy or your mission needs to be redefined.

Liz Jones

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