Late Summer nUUs from Religious Education

~ resouthchurchuu
Summer socializing after worship

Hi Families,

We hope your summer has been fun and adventurous and restful and that you are still squeezing plenty of goodness out of what remains of the season!

What’s been going on:

Our Sunday morning RE sessions have been ridiculously sweet times of connection and fun. We’ve had several volunteer guests who have brought great activities like: Nature journaling; Pride ally art; games; giant bubbles; sea shell exploration; and wool felting. It’s been a lovely, relaxed, all-ages program. Our Nursery staff often brings our tiniest people out to join the fun, too. 

What’s ahead:

We will continue this summer model through Labor Day, and then our community will kick off the new church year with an all-ages Water Ingathering worship on September 8th. On that day, everyone is invited to bring a small amount of water, sourced from wherever you’d like. Following tradition, we will combine all of the water contributions, for use in special ceremonies and rituals through the year. 

Following that 9/8 “opening day,” we will ease back into our awesome age-based Religious Education offerings, woohoo! 

A few highlights for this fall:

  • Information on what we offer for children and youth can be found by navigating from the Program Info page. I am always happy to share more information, hear your ideas, or help brainstorm other ways for kids and their parents to engage at church.
  • Special events that are especially family-friendly are listed here.
  • We need some adults in RE! Each child/youth program needs at least 4 adults to make up facilitator teams. You don’t need any teaching experience. We give all kinds of support. When we work together to find the right fit for you, it pays back far more than you put into it. Most commitments are less than 2 Sundays per month. Check out options here, and Contact JenDB asap to explore what your RE involvement could look like: jendeldeo@southchurch-uu.org, 603-956-5146
  • On average, we will have one multigenerational worship per month, with the first one being Water Ingathering on 9/8. Info and schedule for multigenerational worship days can be found here.

Summer Church Theme is “Creativity”

  • Book/story suggestions for this month: 
    • “The Beautiful Oops” by Barney Saltsburg: This story encourages us to think of our mistakes as an opportunity to create something new.Online read aloud:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUUSxgVGQxk
    • The Creative Family Manifesto: Encouraging Imagination and Nurturing Family Connections, by Amanda Blake Soule: This one isn’t a story, but more of a guide for caregivers to foster creativity in their families
    • “How To Teach Nature Journaling”, by John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren. One of our awesome RE volunteers has been bringing activities from this book to summer Sunday RE and the kids have LOVED it. The book is available for purchase in print, or free PDF download. John Muir Laws’ website has so many other great resources, too!
  • August Shared Plate Organization: Cross Roads House. Cross Roads provides shelter and other helpful resources to unhoused people in the seacoast area. There are lots of ways to support this great organization:

Chalice Lighting For Meal Times:
by poet butterflies rising

“let’s lose ourselves
in wild creativity and glow.
and burn and breathe at once in our skin.
out of our lungs.
pouring the aches from our chests.
with our wings wide open.”

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