Life-Span Religious Education

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RE Minister's Note:
Random Kindness
(September 2010)

Welcome back!

Our first Sunday together is our In-Gathering worship service, a multigenerational one, with Water Communion and a Teacher Dedication ceremony on September 12th. Remember to bring some water back from your summer adventures. I so enjoy hearing about where this time has taken you.

The first gathering of the Religious Education community will be the day before on Start-Up Saturday, September 11th, our teacher orientation. Teachers new to our program please come at 8:30 AM for a course in the basics. Lead Teachers will meet with me to set the agenda for teacher team meetings. Coffee and registration start at 9:00 AM with worship at 9:30 AM. You all bring such amazing energy to this new beginning and so I look forward to this time with great anticipation.

We do have some openings for volunteer teachers, an opportunity to enjoy the younger side of life and deepen you own spiritual life and understanding of Unitarian Universalism. Please let me know that you would like to participate and we will find just the right connection for you.

The Nursery/Toddler and PreK classes begin on September 12th. All other classes meet for the first time on September 19th. We will also have a welcome back Children's Chapel for grades K-5th in the Rotunda on September 26th.

Our new program year together holds some new and exciting changes, ones that we all hope will bring us new opportunities to live out the mission of our congregation to recreate our lives and help heal the world the world.

You may have heard that our first service will begin at 9:00 AM. We hope that this additional 30 minutes between services will give us the opportunity to create additional bonds within our congregation. There will be new opportunities for learning, meeting, and spiritual growth.

We will also welcome Allison Solinsky as Religious Education and Program Assistant. This is an expansion of the RE Assistant position and Allison will assume that role and more. She comes to us from Central Unitarian Church in Paramus where she was an extraordinary RE volunteer. Like many of you she taught all her daughters classes up through the 7th grade. She was also the RE Committee Chair there and worked closely with their Director of Religious Education. We welcome her to our congregation!

With Allison's arrival we say goodbye to Daphne Wolf who, for the last five years, has been an amazing RE Assistant. Always keeping things organized, taking initiative and making sure that everybody had what they needed to get the job done. Though Daphne will be with us through Start-Up Saturday, she has decided to pursue some new interests. We are so grateful for her time with us and wish her very well in her new pursuits. I know we will all miss her. Many blessings, Daphne!

Our volunteer teachers will offer some new curricula developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association with a mix of some that we treasure. For a full description of our children and youth RE program please see the RE prospectus that will soon be mailed to all RE families or pick one up in the Narthex.

The Adult RE Committee welcomes Melissa Allen. She will join continuing members Laura Kushner, Connie Thames and Tanya Dixon. We have an exciting fall lineup. Rev. Charlie Ortman will bring us New UU and Five Questions. Along with the stellar team of Courtney Allen, Kimberly Johnson, Judith Rew, and Teresa de Sousa, I will be facilitating a leadership program called Harvest the Power. We will have a presentation on the new health care bill with Dr. Caryl Heaton and Gray Russell will make a presentation on going green. It will be an enriching and deepening fall program.

Let us begin together.

In the faith,
Judy Tomlinson
Minister of Religious Education