Family Services are changing this year!

Although the Children’s Choir will sing, as usual, we are going to try out a new format for the service.

If you did not receive the following letter by mail, with
an interest form & a registration form to fill out, please contact Patricia.

Unitarian Universalist Religious Education has been changing over the past years, moving away from a model of “Sunday School classes” and towards varied models such as “workshop rotations” and “small groups.” We are not radically transforming Sunnyhill’s RE this year but, in the spirit of seeking better ways to religiously educate our children and youth, we are going to try a few new ideas.

Parent(s) and families are the primary religious educators of children and youth-but what does that mean?

This year we are asking that you participate at least once during the year, as a family, in a new type of “Family Service” we are offering.

These services will be different from those of the past years. Using “interest forms” you should have received & returned, we will compile a monthly LifeCraft Family Service with particular families, age groups, or themes in mind. Of course the services will be open to all, but we will extend a special invitation to particular families based on interests or other criteria (such as a service for youth and their families).

We may ask your family to do some preliminary discussion for the service and we may leave you with ideas to carry off and implement in your family if you wish. Even if your child(ren) or youth have not come to a LifeCraft Family Service in the past I hope you will make an effort to attend just one service this church year as a family.
The schedule will be posted in the Prospectus (program guide) to be mailed out in August, and will be followed with a personal invitation to a service that might interest you.

Give this new idea a try and let us know if it meets the needs of your families. It should make clearer the idea that parents and guardians provide much of their children’s religious education.

Also, if any of you are participating in the new “Chalice Circles”
(small group ministry) over the upcoming year, keep in mind it’s
a model we can try to incorporate in RE in the future as well.
Many thanks for your willingness to participate in something
new at Sunnyhill!

From Patricia Loverich Bernard, Director of Religious Education