Religious Education
for Young People
To register your
child for
CUUC Youth Religious Education, please click
HERE
Blue's Clues
CUUC Religious Education Update
  appy New Year! I hope everyone has a prosperous and healthy
2012! We have a very active and event filled January ahead of
us. If you are a family with a 6th, 7th, or 8th grader mark your
calendar for the MDD - PeaceCon2012. This Con is January 27th -
28th from 7 pm on Friday to 7pm on Saturday. The Con will be
hosted by Jefferson Unitarian Church but is a collaborative
event by several Front Range Unitarian Universalist Churches.
Our youth will explore ways to create peace within them and
thereby in the world around us. They will have lots of music,
play games, get active, and even learn some worshipful chill
skills. This will be a middle school event not to miss for 2012!
The Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) has taken
off. With its new YRUU Advisors, Suzanne Fey-Gaiser, Bryce Hunt,
and Tara Nelson we can look forward to hearing from them
throughout this New Year. The current YRUU schedule was set so
the youth will meet on the first and third Sundays of the month
at Columbine during the regular Sunday service. The curriculum
for these meetings was selected from the UUA’s Tapestry of Faith
curriculum and is titled “Sharing the Journey: a Small Group
Ministry with Youth” by Jessica York and Helen Zidowecki. Many
of UU congregations have embraced the use of small group
ministry or covenant groups with youth. Small group ministry can
be a way to help individuals build relationships, experience a
greater sense of belonging, and feel supported in their
spiritual journey in this congregation. The YRE Committee and
Youth Advisors hope this will be a new beginning for the youth
and a way to engage them in Unitarian Universalism.
The children’s Religious Education class will continue on
January 8th with classes for Preschool through seventh grade.
The following Tapestry of Faith curriculum description and grade
levels were selected for our 2011/2012 YRE program year.
Wonderful Welcome is for the pre-K through 2nd graders. In this
program, children identify intangible gifts central to Unitarian
Universalism such as friendship, hospitality and fairness, and
share these gifts with others.
Love Connects Us, for the 3rd
through 5th grades, celebrates important ways Unitarian
Universalists live our faith in covenanted community.
Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong, for our 6th and 7th
grades, intends to help sixth and seventh graders understand
right and wrong and act on their new understanding.
Have a GREAT New Year! Blue
Martin Blue-Norton, Director of Religious Education
Classes for
Children
Our Youth Religious Education (RE) program conducts classes
each Sunday that run concurrently with the services offered in the
sanctuary.
Children begin each
Sunday class sitting with their family in the sanctuary for the
first segment of the worship service (10-15 minutes), after which
they are invited to their classrooms. Parents are always welcome to
join in the lesson with their children.
 Our
Religious Education Program for children and youth focuses on
three major content areas important to Unitarian Universalists:
1) World Religions and our Judeo-Christian Heritage
Our focus is two-fold. We investigate our Judeo-Christian roots in
the context of Unitarian Universalism through the study of
foundational biblical stories, figures and events in both the New
and Old Testaments. We also investigate major world religions as
well as the many existing Jewish and Christian denominations.
2) Social Justice
We offer opportunities to both examine and practice our Seven
Principles . We
nurture concepts of responsibility, respect for diversity,
compassion, justice and peace within oneself, one’s family, this
church, the community, the nation and the world.
3) Unitarian Universalist Heritage and Identity
We encourage the development of a sense of religious identity as a
UU by teaching our long tradition of reason, questioning, good works
and tolerance. We provide lessons which help our children develop an
awareness of events, people and symbols significant in UU history
with a focus on understand the polity or structure of our
congregation and the denomination as a whole.
We offer the above on a three year rotation so that children
revisit these major areas with increased depth as they mature.
Children are grouped by grade level:
- Preschool (toddlers through age 5),
- Primary Class - grades K-1-2,
- Intermediate Class -
grades 3-4-5-6,
- Junior High Class - grades 7-8 and
- High
School
Our style is
casual; our classes are usually “hands on” learning. Our over-riding
goal is to build community and make life long friends while learning
all we can.
As is our tradition, children attend the first part of our Sunday
worship service with their family and then leave the sanctuary to
attend their classes. We offer nursery care for infants during the
entire service. We always welcome and encourage parental
involvement. Our classes can be visited at any time.
2012 Schedule Highlights:
K-1st Grade; 2nd - 5th Grades; 6th-8th Grades; YRUU
YRE Schedule
February 12th:
K-1st Grades - The Gift of
Learning Together
2nd-5th Grades - A Matter of
Perspective
6th-8th Grades - Right and Wrong Together
YRUU - 10:30 - 11:30 at CUUC
THEMES
Love Connects Us, for the 2nd through 5th Grades,
celebrates important ways Unitarian Universalists live our faith in
covenanted community. Moved by love and gathered in spirit, we
embrace our responsibility toward one another and the world at
large.
Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong, for our
6th and 8th Grades, helping youth understand right and wrong and act
on their new understanding. Helping them depend on their Unitarian
Universalist identity and resources as essential to their movement
toward understanding, independence, and fulfillment of personal
promise.
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