Welcome to our cooperative Religious Education program

From The Minister

I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing –
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones –

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

– Ranier Maria Rilke
From The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“I want to unfold,” exclaims Rilke, and so, too, do the throngs of people coming to Unitarian Universalist congregations seeking spiritual growth and meaning in their lives. “Unfolding” is an apt metaphor for this growth. Ever since the time of William Ellery Channing, the founder of American Unitarianism, our tradition has held that within each person there is a “divine seed” that can be cultivated such that each grows — “unfold” — toward the Holy. This is the lifelong process that today we call religious education.

Welcome!

– Rob Hardies

[photos by Bob Bonner]

Dowload the 2008-09 Religious Education Program prospectus

The 2009-10 Prospectus is coming soon

Program Components

Worship

Story for All Ages
Integral to a child’s religious education is worshipping with the entire church community. All children, except nursery-aged, attend the first 15 minutes of worship in the sanctuary on the first Sunday of the month or as otherwise noted. Middle and high school students attend the first 15 minutes of the service every Sunday.

Chapel Service
This service for kindergarten through fifth grade parallels the sanctuary service with singing of hymns, lighting the chalice, prayer, and a story three Sundays each month. Children participate as worship leaders. An offertory is collected, which the children direct to a social justice project.

Pedagogy (Study)

Nursery care
Childcare for infants through two year olds, supervised by two professional caregivers, is available in the nursery. Parents are asked to stay with their children until they are comfortably settled and to sit in the left balcony of the sanctuary in case they are needed during the service.

Very Young Learners (two and three year olds)
This activity-based class meets on the lower level and does not attend the 9:30 and 11:15 am services. Teachers engage children in small- and limited large-group activities while also respecting their developmental need to act individually. The class typically includes lighting a chalice and singing, simple activities, a story, snack, and monitored free play. Parent help is often needed in addition to the scheduled parent helper. Hearing devices are available that allow parents to stay with their children while listening to the service.

Young Learners (four and five year olds at 9:30 and 11:15 am)
This structured, story-based class gives children — as individuals, as family members, as congregants, and as citizens of the wider world — opportunities to grow in trust and caring, and the freedom to discover and express individuality. The class is primarily for children not yet in kindergarten. Children attend services intermittently through the year. Hearing devices are available that allow parents to stay with their children while listening to the service.

Primary through Intermediate Learners (K through fifth grade, 9:30 and 11:15 am)
Classes are grouped across three grade levels in an effort to model mixed-age learning communities. Primary classes include kindergartners through second graders, while intermediate groups include third through fifth graders. These mixed-aged classes encourage children to see each others as teachers and leaders. The morning typically includes a story in the chapel or a “story for all ages.” Children are encouraged to articulate their individual faith. Service learning and social justice projects are also introduced as the year progresses with children actively involved in developing the project.

Middle School and High School Learners (11:15 am only)
These groups, advised and taught by adults, meet Sunday mornings for learning, fellowship, worship, and social justice work. Integration with the adult community is encouraged and promoted. Students are encouraged to direct their own learning. The middle school group, focusing on stories of Unitarian Universalists whose lives and faith encouraged radical inclusion (from You Can’t Say, You Can’t Play), interpret these stories within the context of the world today.

Community

Coffee and lunch
Light breakfast foods are sold in the All Souls Cafe after the first service; a reasonably-priced lunch is available after the second one. The fenced playground, right outside Pierce Hall and the gymnasium on the lower level are open after the services. Both require parent supervision.

Classroom events
Intergenerational events happen throughout the year. These include pizza parties, cookies and milk, stone soup, etc., and are offered to help families get to know each other in smaller groups settings.

All-church events
The RE Committee offers church-wide events, often working with other committees, to encourage community-building and getting to know each other. These include the annual Halloween party and the end-of-the-church-school-year all-church picnic in Rock Creek Park (held on the third Sunday in June).

Parent helpers
Each family is asked to serve at least twice (for each registered child) as a parent helper in the classsroom. Parent already teaching are exempt. Parent helping teaches children the importance of participation in the life of the church. It also lets parents become more familiar with the teachers and the ideas, philosophies, and theologies of Unitarian Universalism.

Proclamation and advocacy

Teaching
One is not qualified to teach in the religious education program by virtue of a “teacher’s license, but because of a devotion to a way of living and thinking that is so strong that it must be shared” (Hirsh). In this way, adults come to know what Unitarian Universalism is and in what they believe.

Witness
There is at All Souls Church an historic tradition of standing as social witness to injustice in our community and the world. This tradition continues today and there are opportunities for children to join adults in standing together for what is just.

Social justice learning

Acting on sincerely held principles and values is vital to religious education; the hands follow the heart. Classes identify social issues on which they would like to collectively take action and then help plan the project.

Projects are age appropriate and most often happen on Sunday mornings. These have included:

• helping to rebuild New Orleans with adult congregants;
• preparing and collecting food for various organizations working with hunger in DC;
• working with an euthanasia-free animal shelter; and
• raising money by creative and targeted fundraising efforts (i.e. bakesale for La Clinica del Pueblo).
• See Prosptectus for more details.

Parents and other adults are strongly encouraged to participate in this portion of the program. Families are encouraged to participate in church-wide social justice projects with their children as well.