Workshop #1 Love Reaching Home: Faith Formation Way Beyond Sundays
Best.Workshop.Yet. Absolutely wonderful and overflowing with creative ideas that spawned other creative ideas from myself and the rest of the audience. Here are the highlights.
The Big Ideas
- Faith formation never ends, and RE is only one component of faith formation.
- Faith formation is made up of 4 areas:
- Covenant (How do we agree to be in relation with each other?)
- Content / Curriculum
- Community (What defines us as a whole?)
- Context / Call (How do we serve our broader community?)
- Faith formation can happen at potlucks, while visiting hospital rooms, filling school bags for foster children... Anywhere.
- There is no right way or wrong way for someone of a single age to participate in church. If the traditional offering is not fulfilling a persons spiritual needs, there are plenty of ways for them to spiritually 'fed' within our congregations (see previous bullet point).
- Furthermore, if the only way for children to participate in church is to go to their RE classes in the basement - separated from the church - we are not doing our jobs.
Faith Formation Ideas for at Home and at Church
- 7 Principle ornaments
- Home Altar (or a special place to store the 'sacred')
- UU Playlists (Have you been listening to the "First Unitarian Church, Summer 2014" Spotify playlist?)
- Sibling Covenants
- Trash to Treasure Chalices
- Downloading a Tapestry of Faith activity for the Home
- Make a Lego Chalice
- UU Quote / Inspiration Box (to read at the beginning of every meal)
- Other (There are a few suggestions I am not listing here because they take too much time to explain).
EqUUal Access Meeting
Today, the members of EqUUal Access met for their annual meeting. It was a small gathering, as the meeting took place during a designated workshop time. But, it was an interesting meeting. There was some discussion about a video shown during the morning worship (full disclosure, I did not attend morning worship). Apparently, this video showcased the features of the UUA's new headquarters. Sadly, the video made a big deal about the sites new staircase, and did not mention accessibility as one of the new features (even though it is). Sigh, it seems we still have a long way to go when it comes to raising disability awareness. Lucky for us, EqUUal Access and the UUA are looking to launch their pilot program (which is like welcoming congregation) next year. In other big news, EqUUal Access will also be getting a new website.
Workshop #2 Spiritual Practices
I originally chose this workshop because our curriculum next spring will be 'Spiritual Practices through the lens of World Religions'. It was to my delight that when I arrived I discovered this was a youth caucus workshop. Listen to me now, if you ever have the chance to attend a youth caucus workshop, DO IT! Not only are they extremely experiential, but they are also deeply thoughtful and moving. In this particular workshop, I and the other participants spent 10 minutes at 6 different spiritual practice stations. They were...
- Journaling (see directions below)
- Hand Washing (an exercise in 'washing away' the negative)
- Mandalas
- Prayer Beads (UU prayers, of course - more a practice in Mindfulness)
- Yoga
- Guided Meditation.
If you want, you can try out one of these spiritual practices for yourself - try journaling about one of the prompts below...
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| This journaling prompt from the youth workshop on spiritual practices ask participants to write down a few sentences in response to one of the following prompts: What have you accomplished today? What are you grateful for today? What challenged you today? What will you remember from today? What has made you feel on edge? What has made you feel at peace? What makes you look forward to tomorrow? |
May you be filled with creativity,
- Ms. Meredith
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