Religious Education Resources

Here are links to websites that can provide resources for congregations and individuals who need help with religious education programs.

Looking for Lay Leader Development programs? Harvest the Power: Developing Lay Leaders is an Adult RE Workshop from the Tapestry of Faith Program now available to congregations online. Visit www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith/harvestpower/index.shtml

Tapestry of Faith now has brief descriptions of all the various components of the program available online. Visit http://www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith/abouttapestry/130209.shtml to read them.

Discussion Guide for the movie "MILK". The Rev. Mark Belletini has written a discussion guide for the movie "MILK" for use by congregations and group. To learn more about this guide and to download it as a word or pdf file, visit: www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/leaderslibrary/125446.shtml

Small Group Ministry Resources. Many of our congregations have active small group ministry programs. The UU Small Group Ministry Network has a wealth of resources that are on or linked to at their website, www.smallgroupministry.net. If your congregation wants to learn more about this valuable program please check it out.

Guest at Your Table Materials for the Annual UUSC Guest At Your Table campaign are available online at www.uusc.org/guest. Congregations are also mailed a packet of materials.

Looking for some fun things to do as an individual, teen, young adult, or family this summer? Here are some camps and institutes you might want to check out: Our own Summer Institute is scheduled for July 11-17, 2010at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH. Visit www.omdsi.org for registration forms and details. UUMAC, the UU Mid-Atlantic Community in neighboring Joseph Priestly District is also in July. Go to www.uumac.org for more information. Our neighbors the St. Lawrence District has a wonderful summer camp for teens at Unirondack. Check out their schedule at www.unirondack.org. Just south of us in the Appalachian Mountains is The Mountain, you can find their summer schedule, including a week of Leadership School at www.mountaincenters.org. The Midwest UU Summer Assembly is located in Missouri, you can learn more at www.muusa.org. Many UU Camps and Institutes are part of CU2C2, and you can find links to their website from the CU2C2 website at www.uucamps.org.

The UUA's Lifespan Faith Development office puts out a packet of materials titled "FaithWorks" (originally it was the REACH packet). This packet of materials comes out twice a year and is divided into sections, including curriculum, worship, administration and youth. Here you can find worship ideas, skits and plays, songs, readings, games, activity suggestions and curriculum additions. The files are available online and can also be downloaded as pdf files. The archives go back several years as well, so there is a great deal of material available.

The Church of the Larger Fellowship has created an entire curriculum beginning with age 6 and going through coming of age that is available online at their website. CLF also has a number of other RE resources, including a page called Between Sundays with information about how to answer questions children often ask about religion, a page called KidTalk, with information about upcoming holidays and ideas for celebration and supplemental materials for the UU&Me pages included in the UU World. They also offer some online adult RE classes, which at this time are limited to CLF members.

Need help finding curriculum? There are a number of resources. Start with the UUA's curriculum map pages. You can also check the UUCARDS website, which is an organization of independent curriculum writers. The REC-Room can also help you find comments and resources for curricula. There are some short programs now available for download at the UUA website. Also, be sure to check the district library, where you can see descriptions of curricula in the district library, which congregations can borrow.

If you are specifically looking for information about the Our Whole Lives Program, check out the information provided at the UUA OWL website. It includes descriptions of the different age levels curricula, suggestions for discussing the program with your congregation and other tips.

Need a resources on a specific topic, such as anti-bias, or want to know how to better support the teachers in your program? The UUA RE pages has a listing of RE Resources - some by topic, and one with everything that can help those planning RE classes. You can also find help at the Teacher Development Pages, which has lots of information including how to better understand learners, how to support or sustain teachers, and teacher training suggestions.

Trying to plan special holiday services or classes? There are a number of calendars on line to help you determine when moving holidays occur as well as sites with suggestions for activities, readings and songs. Holidays on the Net has suggestions for many holidays including in depth descriptions, recipes, crafts and activities. To find out dates, try the Interfaith Calendar or Religious Tolerance site, a site that also offers explanations of the holidays and sacred days. KU Medical Center has a children's calendar with dates and some descriptions for different religious and cultural groups.

www.uuintergenerational.org is a website with intergenerational worship service scripts available for UU congregations to use. Some of the services involve children and youth in the actual service, others are for adults to present for an intergenerational audience. For resources for children's focuses and stories, there are a number of places to look. Try the Children's Picture Book Database at Miami University (OH), or the REC-Room for suggestions. There are also reviews of books included in the FaithWorks packet.

Trying to make connections between church and home? Check out the UU Family Network site, which has suggestions for making congregations more family friendly and ideas about activities and events families can do together. The Task Force puts out a yearly packet of information as well, which can be downloaded from the website. Some of the CLF RE pages help with this as well.

Need ideas for games and activities to supplement lessons? Try some of these websites. For environmental games, try Planetpals. Seussville has activities relating to Dr. Seuss books. For Multi-cultural activities try DLTK's Countries and Cultures Section. For fun ideas try Just Kids Recipes, Make Stuff, FunBrain and Kids Domain. Print-A-Poster has posters you can print out for free and Discovery School's Puzzlemaker can help you make puzzles.

Those looking for famous UU resources should try Notable American Unitarians at the Harvard Square Library, Photos of UU Leaders at the UUA website, Notable UU Women and Famous UUs.

Social Justice projects are a common activity in UU classrooms. You can get more information about possible projects and groups at these sites. Heifer Project provides curricula, classrooms posters and activities as well as information about where the money goes as children raise money to purchase animals for others to receive and learn to care for. Empty Bowls is a program that helps people understand hunger and raises money for local soup kitchens and food pantries. The UU Service Committee sponsors the Guest At Your Table program as well as many social justice work camps and trips and provides RE resources on their current projects. Teaching Tolerance is a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center and has tons of resources on diversity conflict resolution. Earth 911 has information about recycling centers, Earth Day and other environmental issues.

UU World has created an entire new website that has lots of additional information and discussion guides for the stories they run in the magazine. In addition, there are weekly updates to the pages so that new information on topics covered in the magazine are available.

Youth programming is very well supported by the youth office website at the UUA. Here you can find downloadable copies of Deep Fun, conference planning resources, worship resources, current and back copies of Synapse, schedules for trainings, announcements about leadership opportunities and much more.

Young Adults also have their own department at the UUA and their own websites. The Young Adult and Campus Ministry office of the UUA website has information about current events and trainings and other resources for those who want to start or support a young adult or campus ministry program. The OMD Chapter has their own website at omd.uuyan.org. Finally, the Church of the Larger Fellowship has started a new Church of the Younger Fellowship for young adults age 18 to 35.

Looking for adult RE options? The UUA Archive site has some study guides that have been written to accompany books and movies. Most are available to be downloaded as pdf files. Beacon Press guides specifically for UU Communities can be found here. General Beacon discussion and teacher guides are found here.

The Commission on Appraisal has created a "living" study guide at it's website for the new report, Engaging Our Theological Diversity. You can see what other congregations have used to discuss and study this topic at this site. There are also study guides for the previous two reports, Belonging and Interdependence at the website, as well as the text of those report which can be downloaded for use.

Need some help finding training as a religious education leader in your congregation? Check the Religious Education Leadership page, where you can find links to the RE Credentialing program, the Renaissance training program and other learning opportunities. Also, check the Lay Leader page for the list of leadership schools.