BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Usually this column is geared toward kids, but we have a tradition of ushering in the new year with a reminder of what the CLF has to offer in the way of religious education resources for children and adults. We have such a lot of great material that it’s easy to miss something!
RE FOR CHILDREN
If you’d like to have complete lesson plans designed for UU families or for small, mixed-aged groups of children, already prepared and ready to go, week by week, what you want is CLiF Notes: A Curriculum for Families and Small Groups. This year we are focusing on religious rituals and practices, both UU and from other religions, but the curriculum also features material on our UU Principles, people of note from Unitarian and/or Universalist history and celebrations of various holidays. If you are not a CLF member, you can subscribe to RE Express Plus for $129/year, and have these lesson plans delivered to your email inbox each month, along with this column, the month’s issue of KidTalk, and access to the RE Index of Online Resources (see below). If you are a CLF member, you can subscribe to RE Express for free. To receive RE Express Plus contact Beth Murray at bmurray@clfuu.org.
If you’re not looking for a complete curriculum, but want a fun way to explore UUism and religions around the world with your kid(s), the place to look might be KidTalk. Designed for children to explore by themselves or with adults (or for adults to mine for gems to use with kids), each month’s KidTalk includes information and activities about UUism, world religions, spiritual practice and more.
Or, if you just like to find some cool stuff that you might be able to use, the Resources section of the Religious Education page has some great “printables,” including posters with the UU principles and a whole UU alphabet coloring book. That section also provides a music section with the tunes of some songs that work well with children.
Oh, and don’t miss Between Sundays. You can see general listings by age or topic, or even search on a particular word to find lesson plans that answer a variety of important religious questions that children often have.
Want more? As mentioned above, we have an RE Index of all of the CLF’s online resources that you can search by topic and age. Very handy if you’re planning a lesson on a certain topic, or if you’re just wondering if the CLF has anything great to offer for Martin Luther King Day (we do—as well as some holidays you might not even have heard of).
So what can you search for in the Index? It includes material from KidTalk and from uu&me!, the CLF’s magazine for kids ages 6-10. Published as a print magazine for several years, uu&me! is now included as an insert in the UU World magazine. But you can find all of their stories, activities and more online for easy access. But wait, there’s more! The RE Index also includes material from RE Connections. Published quarterly (or thereabouts) for a number of years, RE Connections was designed as a way to share ideas and CLF resources.
RE FOR ADULTS
Of course, religious education is not just for children. The CLF is all about learning and growth for adults as well. Would you like to chat about issues that are raised in Quest? Or maybe there are other topics that draw your interest that you wish you could mull over with company. What you want is our Quest Forums and Discussion Forums. Once you go through the quick and free registration process at our Online Learning Center, you’ll be able to sign up and join the email-based conversation with UUs around the world.
While you’re at the Online Learning Center, have a look at our broad offering of Online Courses. Taught by a variety of experts, primarily UU ministers and laypeople, these classes offer the chance, for a modest fee, to take e-mail based courses on topics from humanism to religion and ecology. Find more information about how online classes work.
What else? Well, gee, there are email lists called Shared Interest Groups, which allow people who share a common life experience or theology to have sustained conversation, on topics ranging from a support group for people who want to increase their fitness level to UU Christians. Covenant Groups provide more structured conversation and reflection in an intimate group led by a trained facilitator. And, of course, there’s the CLF Library, full of enough great books and curricula to keep you going for years.
Usually this column is geared toward kids, but we have a tradition of ushering in the new year with a reminder of what the CLF has to offer in the way of religious education resources for children and adults. We have such a lot of great material that it’s easy to miss something!