Are you a new Religious Education Professional searching for an onboarding pathway? You’ve come to the right place! The UUA’s Lifespan Faith Engagement office and your professional organization, the Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA), have partnered to offer a map to guide you through the 2026-2027 congregational year.

There are so many opportunities for professional development that it can feel a bit overwhelming to know where to begin! To help you chart a course, we offer these recommended destinations in the first year (or two!) of your employment as a Religious Education Professional, organized into sections by season.

Fall 2026

RE Kickoff

Choose one evening:

• Tuesday, September 22, 7:30-9pm ET / 6:30-8pm CT / 5:30-7pm MT / 4:30-6pm PT
• Tuesday, September 29, 9:30-11pm ET / 8:30-10pm CT / 7:30-9pm MT / 6:30-8pm PT

In these live sessions, UUA staff share our latest resources for Religious Education, from curricula to policies and practices to training opportunities. Representatives of a few congregations offer reflections on what has supported deepening and transformation in their communities. You’ll find tools for taking stock, setting intentions, and moving toward your goals.

Register for the RE Kickoff

Woven Faith Orientation

View a recorded orientation to the new Woven Faith curriculum materials the UUA has prepared for use in your congregation. We start by grounding in an approach of whole church faith development, cover tips for preparing your congregation, and provide an overview of each component, feedback mechanisms, and have time for Q&A.

Watch the Woven Faith Orientation (Vimeo)

Child and Youth Safety Training

This webinar (from Spring 2026) provides an overview of UUA recommendations for children and youth safety in UU communities, including congregational policies.

Topics include:

• Complexities and tensions
• Containers that help us build a culture of safety, including training, abuse prevention, covenant, and UU values
• Safety recommendations for ministry with children in religious education programs
• Safety recommendations for ministry with youth in middle school through high school programs
• What to do when more help is needed, including considerations for expanding confidentiality and managing mandated reporting

Watch the Child & Youth Safety Training

LREDA Community of Practice

Beginning in Fall 2026, LREDA is offering a monthly gathering designed especially for religious educators in their first two years of professional religious education work. Being a new RE Professional comes with a lot to learn. The Community of Practice will bring the same group of newer religious educators together throughout the church year, creating a consistent community where relationships can grow, trust can build, and we can learn from and support one another along the way.

Each gathering will include time for connection, a short learning or reflection activity, and plenty of space for peer conversation and support. Think of it as the connecting thread within the UUA’s New Religious Education Professional pathway: a place to bring what you’re learning, talk through what you’re experiencing in your congregation, and grow alongside colleagues who are navigating these first years of religious education work, too.

Register for LREDA’s Community of Practice

LREDA Fall Con

• Wednesday-Saturday, November 11-14 (online or at a local hub)

For a new RE professional, LREDA Fall Con is about so much more than professional development—it’s an opportunity to discover that you have colleagues! You’ll meet religious educators who understand the unique joys and challenges of this work, begin building a professional network, and start seeing yourself not simply as the person who “runs RE,” but as part of a larger community of religious education professionals.

Fall Con also gives you the chance to learn things you may not yet know you need to know and to gain perspective beyond your own congregation. This year, that includes an important workshop on the LREDA Code of Professional Practices, where we’ll discuss the shared ethical and professional commitments that guide us — an especially important topic to learn about as you’re onboarding into this work.

Winter 2027

New Religious Education Professional Orientation

• Fridays, January 22, February 5 and 19, 2-4pm ET / 1-3pm CT / 12-2pm MT / 11am-1pm PT

This series of three sessions will provide connection, community, and context. Get your bearings, build professional relationships, and learn about religious education resources.

We will:

• Explore interpersonal, professional, and identity-based relationships in our work
• Supply you with resources for the work, including creating your own philosophy for religious education, models for understanding faith development, safety resources, and tools for dismantling systemic oppression
• Introduce you to emerging programmatic resources
• Equip you with tools to navigate employment matters, professional development and credentialing

Register for the New RE Professional Orientation

Winter RE MeetUp: Intergenerational Conversations

The UUA’s quarterly RE Meet-Up for Winter will focus on Intergenerational Conversations in UU congregations. What might become possible as we grow our capacity to understand the experiences of those at different places in life’s journey? What new skills and ways of approaching relationships can we, as religious educators, cultivate in our communities to support rich intergenerational conversations?

January 2027, date TBD. Registration info will be posted here soon!

Spring 2027

Facilitation for Transformation

This virtual course on UU Institute is designed to help facilitators of Anti-Racism / Anti-Oppression / Multicultural curricula and groups develop skills to facilitate in a way that decreases harm and promotes transformation. It is a foundational course for all Religious Education Professionals and required for all facilitators of the UUA’s Mosaic Lifespan Anti-Racism Curriculum.

Register for Facilitation for Transformation

Spring RE MeetUp: Virtual Curriculum Fair

The UUA’s quarterly RE Meet-Up for Spring will be a virtual Curriculum Fair! Gather with UUA staff and other Religious Education Professionals to learn about UU curricula and share ideas and resources. This is a great opportunity to pause and consider — well in advance — what your congregation might need in the 2027-2028 congregational year and to find support for your process of selecting curricula and planning programs.

April 2027, date TBD. Registration info will be posted here soon!

Summer/Fall 2027

Begin Taking Sparks Modules

The Sparks Program provides Unitarian Universalist (UU) Religious Educators a learning community within which they can easily access applicable skills and tools. The program offers fourteen themed modules, all available in an online format with some being offered in-person.

Learn more about Sparks modules

Consider Enrolling in the Religious Education Credentialing Program

The Religious Education Credentialing Program is a three-level program for religious education professionals that nurtures the call to religious education as a profession, provides a comprehensive path for professional development, and articulates and upholds professional standards and guidelines in religious education leadership. Participants are paired with mentors to support them through the credentialing process.

Learn more about the Religious Education Credentialing Program

By Eric Dew Bliss

Welcome to YEAMSlam, readers! This is a new monthly blog from your YEAMs.

As you may or may not know, YEAMs is the acronym for the UUA’s Youth and Emerging Adult Ministry Staff. Just for fun, we pronounce it “yams.”

As we approach the new liturgical year, and as Woven Faith rolls out in support of our congregations’ religious education programs, each month we’ll elevate the current Woven Faith theme.

Our first theme is Interdependence—one of our deeply held Unitarian Universalist Shared Values. And our approach in Lifespan Faith Engagement is all about creating interconnected networks that communicate, collaborate, and support one another.

Lifespan Faith Engagement is your partner. As we work together to nurture faith in our congregants and constituents, ministry becomes a cooperative effort: we draw “wisdom from the room” and amplify it through our interconnected networks.

One example of this is a new campus ministry initiative. My colleague on the YEAMS team, Jennica Davis and I are working with a nationwide group of religious professionals, ministers, emerging adults, and lay leaders. Excitement is building as we imagine new ways to create a spiritual home base for our bridged youth. We’ve met via Zoom, over coffee, and through email, and we all have high hopes for a new Association-wide direction in support of our college-aged emerging adults and their unique ministry needs.

You’ve likely also heard about Deeper Joy, our new community-building curriculum. Interdependence is a core principle of this offering, which emphasizes that joy and strong connection are collective medicine and a foundation for resilient UU communities.

Within this curriculum lives the School of Deeper Joy, a youth-centered, multigenerational program hosted by congregations and supported by Lifespan Faith Engagement through online training and coaching. This modular program offers self-paced facilitator training, organizer support, and session plans for flexible learning experiences that can be adapted to fit the faith development goals of each congregation.

The School of Deeper Joy models Interdependence by designing against the idea that one person should be able to hold the whole thing. Instead, the model distributes responsibility across roles, capacities, and relationships: organizers, facilitators, supportive adults, participants, and the wider community each hold different pieces.

No one holds the whole. Everyone holds something. Our congregations, their leaders, and the UUA all work together to inspire our young people, nurture leadership skills, and create an immersive experience that can stay with them for a lifetime.

Lastly, are you subscribed to JUUst Breathe—A Unitarian Universalist Podcast, available anywhere you stream your podcasts? Our September episode explores Interdependence, with guest panelists Rev. Dr. JJ Flag and Dr. Maria Talero discussing how this concept shows up in their lives and work.

In this episode, they touch on Rev. Sierra-Marie Gerfao’s essay, Leaning into Interconnectedness:

“There is never, in this story, a solitary human, a singularly gendered, original human. Humankind is an interconnected whole, one body. There’s no aloneness in this story. Even the one-already-interconnected whole of humankind arrives into a world teeming with life. Humankind is part of, not separate from, the larger order of the universe.” (from Love at the Center, our ‘26-’27 Common Read)

Can we get an amen?

Please reach out to us with your youth and emerging adult ministry questions, concerns, and ideas by emailing youth@uua.org. We are willing partners!

(Interdependence, right?!?)

With so much love and gratitude,

Eric Dew Bliss

Who is the YEAMS Team?

Eric Bliss

Ember Oak Kelley

Jennica Davis

By Eric Dew Bliss

From Sol Cornell:

“Firsts are a lifelong experience, a daily one even, but many of us have some of our most foundational and transformative firsts in that turbulent period of early adulthood. Your firsts are holy, and you are holy for living them.”

First Unitarian Austin’s Director of Religious Education Sol Cornell and the National Emerging Adult Team (NEAT) created something absolutely sublime and impactful. They have fashioned a worship service that delicately tends to those challenging firsts, as well as communally commemorates those times for which one’s spirit soars. During the worship, the congregation is invited into a sacred space, engaging in kinesthetic and hands-on rituals amid other traditional service elements like chalice lighting, call to worship, time for all ages, and moving hymns.

The Celebration of Firsts service is an outgrowth of brainstorming at the National Emerging Adult Team retreat held last summer. We knew we wanted an intergenerational worship experience that celebrated milestone events in the life of emerging adults and their congregations. Through a process of dreaming together, visioning, and guided workshop experiences, the group began to coalesce around some very compelling notions. One of these BIG ideas focused on an intergenerational worship experience that celebrated the firsts of one’s life, a Whole Church Religious Education experience that could potentially become a yearly milestone ritual in the life of a congregation.

Watch a video of UU Austin doing the Celebration of Firsts service (YouTube).

If you’d like to enact the Celebration of Firsts Worship (Google Doc) at your congregation, simply download this resource and recruit your worship team. If you’d like help incorporating it into your context, logistical demands, and/ or staffing circumstances, simply email emergingadults@uua.org and our staff can assist.

As the National Emerging Adult Team left the retreat center on Star Island, there was a deep sense of harmony and accomplishment as the group literally sailed into the sun(rise). This small band of emerging adults felt like something truly special had been brought into being over the course of those immersive few days in paradise. Memories were created, sure, but beyond that, something extraordinary that could very well enter the UU bloodstream and become canon, like flower and water communions, chalice lightings, and our holy acronyms. This worship is that good.

We hope your first experience of the Celebration of Firsts is transcendent! May your congregation’s experience be joyous, reflective, and transformative. May it become an annual milestone event that brings more life, more connection, and more meaning to congregational life.

References

• Celebration of Firsts (Google Doc)
• Whole Church Religious Education
• Star Island

By Lauren Wyeth

UUA General Assembly 2026 highlighted our Association’s complex longings for deeper engagement with and from youth and emerging adults in Unitarian Universalism.

Two Responsive Resolutions, Where Are the Youth? and Gratitude for UUA Support of Youth and Emerging Adults, that speak to this longing were passed. One of these specifically challenged us to consider what it would take to attract and enable more youth to attend General Assembly (GA). During GA General Session V, Ember Oak Kelley, UUA Lifespan Faith Engagement staff, offered a response to the issues raised by the resolutions. You can read Ember Oak’s response (PDF) or watch a recording of Ember Oak’s response (YouTube) online.

These heartfelt resolutions reveal a deep desire by the adult and the emerging adult who submitted them for a shift in our capacity for gathering as a multigenerational community. I know that the longing is strong, widespread and persistent. It is often accompanied by feelings of grief, frustration, and confusion. It is fair to say: Unitarian Universalists lament the lack of connections across generations in our movement.

We wonder:

• How can we – a community of people who share such a deep longing – find ourselves facing a significant decline in youth enrollment in the past decade?
• What does this decline reveal about the time we are in, the spiritual needs of youth and emerging adults, the youth and emerging adult ministry models we have and, perhaps more importantly, the models we need?

Blessedly, there is ample reason for hope. Youth and emerging adults are thriving in many of our congregations and communities. The way is opening, bit by bit, as we experiment with new ways of being together.

Because what we pay attention to grows (thank you, adrienne maree brown), those “new ways” are the focus of much of the work being done by the UUA Lifespan Faith Engagement team. We are grounded in a philosophy of Whole Church, which provides both a pedagogical foundation and practical tools to connect and practice UU identity, community, and faith development in UU congregations and communities. Our newest curriculum, Woven Faith, launches this month. Monthly Woven Faith curriculum packets include a variety of resources to support congregations in understanding how faith development is connected across the generations and is deepened through intergenerational relationships. And this Fall, the UUA’s annual RE Kickoff for religious educators will offer an overview of trends in RE and an introduction to workshops and trainings designed to help congregations build responsive youth and emerging adult programs, explicitly centering on “New Ways of Being Together.”

What’s clear to many is that the longing for a more multigenerational faith calls us to a sustained and dedicated focus on shifting our culture. Unitarian Universalists need covenants that hold us as we live into our values of pluralism and interdependence within our UU communities. We need practices that prepare us to be humble, patient, curious, creative, hopeful and joyful in our intergenerational relationships. Our collective desire for change must grow strong enough to carry us through the discomfort that accompanies growth. And our skills must be sufficient to keep us connected as the old ways are disrupted and new ways are established.

Lifespan Faith Engagement staff – and staff across other UUA offices – are excited to dream about the possibilities with you.

Based in deep listening and collaboration with youth, emerging adults, religious educators, and lay leaders across our movement, Youth & Emerging Adult Ministries staff are building out the School of Deeper Joy – a place where our collective wisdom, theological grounding, and most promising practices in ministry with youth and emerging adults are coming together under one metaphorical roof. In 2026-2027, we’ll roll out opportunities to learn more about Deeper Joy programs and related curriculum resources that can be used in a variety of settings.

The foundational spiritual disciplines (PDF) of the School of Deeper Joy include the co-creation of Inclusive Multigenerational Community. Six practices are named which, when faithfully engaged, reliably move us toward realizing that vision:

• Attending to power dynamics in pluralistic communities
• Doing our inner work to be self differentiated
• Safety and accessibility practices
• Learning to follow
• Centering the needs of the most impacted through pre-emptive radical inclusion
• Willingness to be renewed by what we learn in relationship

If Unitarian Universalists across our Association engage these practices with intention as we imagine and prepare for GA 2027, we might find we are ready for something new and beautiful to emerge in our congregations and communities, and in our General Assembly. Signs are strong that the momentum is building.

One thing is certain. When enough of us are ready to be changed, the transformation will be historic.

Invitation to Reflection

Youth and Emerging Adults may want to consider:

• What are my hopes for myself at GA, if I were to attend?
• What challenges do I anticipate might be part of my GA experience?
• How could GA make room for and minister to me and other youth/emerging adults?
• How might my/our presence be a gift to others?

Other folks may want to consider:

• How do I feel about a GA with more youth and emerging adults present? If I long for this, can I name why?
• Am I carrying unresolved feelings (such as grief, fear or anger) that could get in the way of me understanding the current experiences and needs of youth and emerging adults in our faith?
• What can I do to support and make room for the presence of more youth and emerging adults at GA?
• What might support me in adapting as the culture and practices of Unitarian Universalism evolve?

If you want to share your reflections and encourage dialogue on these issues, please consider initiating a conversation with your congregation’s Religious Education professional, minister, RE lay leaders, Board members, other religious professionals, or your larger congregation.

By Joy Berry, Jennica Davis, Eric Dew Bliss

As an Association, the UUA is looking to reflect, connect, and become a platform for sharing between congregations.

In last September’s Call and Response Blog, Reverend Janice Marie Johnson, Shannon Harper, and Nao Bethea highlighted the Hindu and Buddhist teaching metaphor of Indra’s Net.  It emphasized our interconnectedness as a faith, and in particular, as religious educators actively co-creating a faith where revelation is unsealed, accessible, and invitational. In this way, our individual and shared faith continues to learn and grow. To this end, the UUA is actively inviting and honoring more input, resources, and wisdom from the field, to grow and evolve our shared curricula and resources for religious professionals and lay leaders.

From that post:

Ancient wisdom offers a powerful way to understand how our congregations and our association really work as a microcosm of the universe. Indra’s Net is a metaphor used in Hindu and Buddhist wisdom stories…described as an infinite web of jewels, each one reflecting all the others. This beautiful image captures how our lives connect and influence each other every day…The ancient wisdom of Indra’s Net reveals something beautiful about how we’re all interconnected. Our web of relationships is simultaneously extremely delicate and incredibly strong. We’re embracing our role this season as educators who are jewels in our treasured Unitarian Universalist network.

With this heightened synergy and awareness of our interconnections, there is a buzz when it comes to Religious Exploration in our UU congregations. New ways to build community, to develop faith across the generations, and to amplify the voices of our emerging adults are here, finding footing, and getting their flowers.

Deeper Joy, Whole Church Religious Education (WCRE), and Storytelling Through Online Narrative and Expressions (STONEs) are three new, exceptional resources that are already making waves in our UU communities. Read on to learn more and find links to contribute to our shared abundance!

The UUA wants to honor, learn from, and lift up creative, innovative ideas from the field. Some of the best examples of Whole Church learning are emerging from religious educators and congregations. We are deeply grateful for the ‘wisdom in the room’ that our lay and professional colleagues hold, and are sharing in this moment.

Community Submissions of Deeper Joy Activities

Grounded in a Whole Church approach, Deeper Joy is an evolving compilation of games, songs, activities and practices designed for community builders, activists, educators, and anyone interested in fostering inclusive, multigenerational communities centered in Love. Most of these games and activities are from the “folksphere,” who knows when or by whom they were invented, but they’ve been passed down by oral tradition in performance and movement circles for generations. Do you have a creative community building exercise or game you’d like to contribute to this growing resource? Submit to Deeper Joy here.

Field Guide for Whole Church Religious Education

Speaking of Whole Church RE, this practical, multigenerational approach to faith development gives real tools to connect and practice Unitarian Universalism—especially our shared values in community. The goal of Whole Church RE is to create vibrant and thriving UU congregations and communities with love — and Faith Development – at the center.

Whole Church RE has six embodied faith development practices, including sharing sacred stories, faithful conversations, creative contemplation, community making, public witness, and joyful connections. If you have activities, stories, or liturgy that intersect with these practices or are emblematic of good old fashioned intergenerational church, please consider submitting them.

Submissions will be evaluated based on alignment with Whole Church goals, embodied practices, and our UU shared values. Fill out the WCRE submission form for each item you want to submit. We aim to accept as many submissions as possible, so if you have any questions, please reach out to faithengagement@uua.org to schedule a chat.

(Mile)STONES: Storytelling Through Online Narrative Expressions

The last crowd re-sourced resource we’d like to highlight is one the National Emerging Adult Team (NEAT) has created called Storytelling Through Online Narrative Expressions, or STONEs, a follow up offering to Rev. Kayla Parker’s seminal Becoming anthology for emerging adults. It’s an “of this time” magazine to honor the milestones of emerging adulthood with writings, images, and other media by emerging adults. This ‘zine will be released yearly with the first edition already making rounds. It will also be up on UUA.org later this year.

We are currently collecting submissions for ‘26-’27 STONEs Zine. If you’re an emerging adult UU, aged 18-24, please consider contributing poetry, art, photography, spiritual practices, words for worship, interpretive dance or music videos, anything grounded in covenant and designed to inspire! Please submit a new STONE here.

There are a myriad of ways to contribute and elevate the wonderful work and highlight the spectacular gifts of the lay leaders and religious educators of our Association near and far. Through community building exercises in Deeper Joy to multigenerational faith development tools from Whole Church RE, to beloved offerings of inspiration from our young adults, we hope you find new ways to connect and access your faith through this invitation to partnership.

Thank you for helping our communities grow in faith, together!

By Joy Berry

As Summer approaches, many churches are winding down their regular religious education programming. It’s also when congregations get ready for their annual meetings — an important governance event that helps guide decisions in alignment with our values for the coming year and beyond. Religious educators may be looking for ways to help kids and youth take part in these milestone, meaning-making moments — or for creative ideas for one-off or Summer Sundays. Here, you’ll find RE resources with both “traditional” and emergent (Whole Church-inspired!) ideas for the coming weeks. (See our March and April posts for more on UU rituals, Bridging, Coming of Age, and Volunteer Appreciation.)

Resources for Upcoming Special Days and Celebrations

May

Asian / Pacific American Heritage Month

• Asian American Histories of United States

• Asian American is Not a Color

• We Who-Produce-Pearls: An Anthem for Asian America (ages 4-8)

Jewish American Heritage Month

• Jewish American Heritage Month

• Jewish Unitarian Universalists

• Jewish Voices in Unitarian Universalism (book)

Mental Health Awareness Month

• Peaceful Mind: An Introduction to Meditation by the Dalai Lama (ages 2-5)

• ABCs for a Peaceful Me: A Mindfulness Seek-and-Find Book (ages 3-5)

• It’s OK –Being Kind to Myself When Things Get Hard (ages 3-7)

• Words Are My Superpower: A Kid’s Guide to Affirmations, Mantras, and Positive Thinking (ages 8-13)

• Here I Am, I Am Me: An Illustrated Guide to Mental Health (ages 13+)

• Rest and Sabbath Retreat: J. Zimmer’s weekend youth retreat; focus on mental health

• A Novel Mind: database of kid’s books, educator resource pages on mental health/neurodiversity

May 10 Mother’s Day

• Celebrating Mother’s Day (History, Articles, Ideas for Action)

May 17 International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia

• Love at the Center – Defending Trans Lives and Democracy (Study Guide, Lecture)

• The LGBTQ+ History Book

• If You’re a Kid Like Gavin (ages 4-8)

• This Is Our Rainbow: 16 Tales of Her, Him, Them, and Us (ages 8-12)

• Tales from Beyond the Rainbow: Ten LGBTQ+ Fairy Tales Proudly Reclaimed (ages 8-12)

• Beyond They/Them: 20 Influential Nonbinary & Gender-Diverse People You Should Know (ages 12-14)

May 25 Memorial Day

• Honoring Fallen Soldiers (Time for All Ages)

June

• Pride Month (History, Stories, Activities, Social Action, and Printables)

• If It’s Pride and You Know It (board book, ages 0-3)

• Are You a Friend of Dorothy? (picture book ages 4-8)

• Queer and Fearless: Celebrating the Lives of LGBTQ+ Heroes (ages 6-9)

• Queer History A to Z (ages 10-14)

• This Book is Gay For teens, tweens, and adults — including educators who want to learn/teach about the LGBTQIA+ community and parents of LGBT youth (ages 14-18)

June 16 Muharram (Islamic New Year): at Sighting of Crescent Moon

• Muharram Guide For Kids

June 19 Juneteenth

• Juneteenth (history, readings, prayers)
• Singing for Freedom (hymns)

• When We Get Our Freedom (story for all ages)

• The 1619 Project (adult book)

• The 1619 Project: Born on the Water (book, ages 7-10)

June 21 Father’s Day

• A Father’s Day Prayer

• These Are Our Dads (reading)

• I Believe in Fathering (meditation)

• Possibilities for Our Children’ s Lives (reflection)

• Ordinary Blessings for Parents

• Chaos, Wonder and the Spiritual Adventure of Parenting

• Project Fatherhood: A Story of Courage and Healing

• Brave A tender father-son story about connection and indigenous traditions (ages 5-9)

• Good Dads Project (YouTube) (secular but faith-friendly youtube video series)

June 21 Summer Solstice

• Opening Words for the Summer Solstice
• Making Room for All That Is (prayer)
• The Solstice Teaches Us (poem)
• The Uncovering (Braver/Wiser reading)
• The Wheel of the Year

June 28 Stonewall Riots Anniversary (1969)*

• Defiantly Joyful: Unitarian Universalist LGBTQIA+ Histories
• The Stonewall Generation
• A Queer History of the United States for Young People
• Not He or She, I’m Me (Stonewall Honor book, ages 3-6)

Creative Ideas from the Field, for Summer and Beyond

Kids’ Annual Meeting: A Whole Church Approach

While the adults are gathering for this important event, consider how kids/youth could engage. In a recent post in the LREDA Facebook group, educators shared ideas. Included were pictures of a town-hall with questions and answers on chalkboard walls (then made into word clouds and shared back to the congregation) as well as a Kids’ Annual Meeting lesson plan from J.L. Shattuck.

Practicing Reverence: Kids in Worship

A last minute crisis means bringing kids into worship unexpectedly. Many of us have been there! Wren Bellavance-Grace describes how one REP needed to do just that. “The sermon’s theme that day was onreverence. She circled the kids up and introduced the concept — what does it mean? What might it look like in faces or bodies when you feel it? What words might describe it? Then they took papers and pencils, sat in the choir loft and searched for signs of reverence. Kids noticed adults’ faces, drew pictures of the sanctuary, and at coffee hour had so much to share with parents.”

How to Gather: Creating Great Multigenerational Experiences (from Priya Parker)

Multigen gatherings are rarer than ever. Want to try more Whole Church RE, but wondering how to meaningfully involve kids without centering them?

Opportunities to Learn, Share, and Connect

• Whole Church RE Training Resources Available
  Missed the event in April? Check out the resources that we covered in the link above! Includes slides and all suggested resources. The recording will be posted in a few weeks — watch for an announcement in this space.

• Call for Submissions: Whole Church RE Field Guide
  Whole Church Religious Education (WCRE) gives UUs a powerful story and practical tools to connect all the parts of the congregation, center faith development, and engage a community practice of shared learning as UUs. We hope to learn from, and lift up, creative ideas from the field. Please consider sharing WCRE resources/activities that you’ve created for your congregation. Click the link above!

• The Deeper Joy of Whole Church RE – at RE Week @ The Mountain
  This workshop will be offered for Sparks credit, July 5-10, 2026. Designed especially to support shared ministry approaches to congregational community-building and co-learning – registrants are encouraged to invite their ministry colleagues! Register by June 21. 

By Joy Berry

Spring is a time for dizzying new growth in the world around us, even as we plan the rituals and celebrations that help mark the end of the regular church year — and the beginning of Summer Sundays. Whether you are looking for inspiration for big ideas, stories, activities, or worshiping together as a community, this month’s round up is here to help.

UU Rituals

Spring is a time for rituals and ceremonies important to UUs, like Coming of Age Service, Flower Communion, and Volunteer Appreciation. (See March resources post for more on COA and Bridging.)

A Primer on Rituals (excerpts from Blessing It All: Rituals for Transition and Transformation)

For UUs, ritual is an embodied, participatory way to mark transitions or facilitate transformation, connecting us to something larger—community, the holy, the seasons, the cycles of life and death.

Ceremonies and Rituals for Worship: ideas and resources on UUA’s Worship Web.

Volunteer Appreciation

Recognition of Volunteers: A Litany

Ideas for Volunteer Appreciation Gifts (from the members-only LREDA resource portal; LREDA membership info)

Flower Communion

Flower Communion: Worship Resources

Learning from Daffodils (Time for All Ages)

Flower Ceremony: Coloring Page 1 &Coloring Page 2

Coming of Age

Coming of Age in a Unitarian Universalist community | Rev. Beth Dana (10 min video)

An example of celebration and blessing of CoA youth and graduating seniors bridging into young adulthood. On the songs we know about ourselves — and the stories of our lives not yet written.

Coming of Age–Threshold Conversations: panel discussion, essays, interviews, podcast

Opportunities to Learn, Share, and Connect

Call for Submissions: Whole Church RE Field Guide
Whole Church Religious Education (WCRE) gives UUs a powerful story and practical tools to connect all the parts of the congregation, center faith development, and engage a community practice of shared learning as UUs. We hope to learn from, and lift up, creative ideas from the field. Please consider sharing WCRE resources/activities that you’ve created for your congregation. Click the link above!

Whole Church RE Training: April 29 1:30-3:30 ET
RE professionals and lay leaders are invited to register for this 2 hr webinar on Whole Church Religious Education (WCRE). We’ll explore the approach together, with examples from the field — including WCRE as an emergent strategy that meets the moment of change we are in. This training will equip you for congregational conversations and creative ways to share the blessings of RE, in community-wide faith development. Register by April 26.

The Deeper Joy of Whole Church RE – at RE Week @ The Mountain
This workshop will be offered for Sparks credit, July 5-10, 2026. Designed especially to support shared ministry approaches to congregational community-building and co-learning – registrants are encouraged to invite their ministry colleagues! Register by June 21. 

Resources for Upcoming Special Days and Celebrations

April

Arab American Heritage Month
Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture: The author, child of refugees, grew up speaking Judeo-Iraqi Arabic — a language that’s now on the verge of extinction. The healing power of our ancestor’s music, stories, and recipes.

April 1-9 Passover
Celebrating Passover Seder | UUA Worship Web: activities, stories, and worship elements (beneath search boxes)
UUs for Jewish Awareness: a variety of resources for Passover and more

April 5 Easter/April 12 Easter (Orthodox) 
Celebrating Easter | UUA Worship Web: activities, stories, and worship elements

Blessing of the Easter Baskets
Easter Litany Worship Activity
Mary Magdalene’s Story

Marie’s Magic Eggs: Story of the woman who saved the craft of Ukrainian Easter eggs and brought it to America. A richly illustrated picture book for kids who love creating. Great idea for shared activity. (ages 7-10)

April 13 Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)
Ceremony of Remembrance: Yom Hashoah
The Gift of a Raspberry (Story for All Ages)

April 22 Earth Day

Activities, Stories, Games, Taking it Home

Dirt Communion: multigenerational worship service appropriate for Earth Day. With homily, ritual, and a “blessing of the dirt” brought by congregants from places special to them.

Our Roots of Resilience (Body Meditation)

Church Grounds Clean-Up (Multiage Activity)

Climate Change Religious Education Curriculum (aimed at 4th/5th grades — also works for multi-age)
Earth Day: An Alphabet Book (ages 3-6)
Love, the Earth (ages 3-7)

The Tide is Rising, So Are We! (ages 5-8)

Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet. There is anger, fear, and grief—but also wonder, hope, and love. A soaring journey, filled with mythology, physics, witchcraft, bad movies, volcanoes, sequoia groves, and the many small miracles of nature we usually take for granted.

This Sweet Earth: Walking with Our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse We raise our children toward an uncertain future. This book helps us see that those same children shift our posture, slow us down, and invite us away from despair: to fall in love with the ground we inhabit together.

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden The author wanted to diversify her garden in a white community — with strict restrictions on “allowed” plants. Uses the diverse garden as metaphor for risky homogeneity; explores why cultivating intersectional language in our discourse on the environment is the best means of protecting it.

May

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Asian American Histories of United States
Asian American is Not a Color

We Who-Produce-Pearls: An Anthem for Asian America (ages 4-8)

Jewish American Heritage Month
Jewish American Heritage Month
Jewish Unitarian Universalists
Jewish Voices in Unitarian Universalism (book)

Mental Health Awareness Month 
Peaceful Mind: An Introduction to Meditation by the Dalai Lama (ages 2-5)

ABCs for a Peaceful Me: A Mindfulness Seek-and-Find Book (ages 3-5)

It’s OK –Being Kind to Myself When Things Get Hard (ages 3-7)

Words Are My Superpower: A Kid’s Guide to Affirmations, Mantras, and Positive Thinking (ages 8-13)

Here I Am, I Am Me: An Illustrated Guide to Mental Health (ages 13+)

Rest and Sabbath Retreat: J. Zimmer’s weekend youth retreat; focus is on mental health

A Novel Mind:database of kid’s books,educator resource pages on mental health/neurodiversity

May 1 Beltane / May Day / International Workers’ Day 
The May Weavers (Multigenerational Activity)

May 10 Mother’s Day

Celebrating Mother’s Day (History, Articles, Ideas for Action)
May 17 International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia 
Love at the Center – Defending Trans Lives and Democracy (Study Guide, Lecture)
The LGBTQ+ History Book

If You’re a Kid Like Gavin (ages 4-8)

This Is Our Rainbow: 16 Tales of Her, Him, Them, and Us (ages 8-12)

Tales from Beyond the Rainbow: Ten LGBTQ+ Fairy Tales Proudly Reclaimed (ages 8-12)
Beyond They/Them: 20 Influential Nonbinary & Gender-Diverse People You Should Know (ages 12-14)

May 25 Memorial Day

Honoring Fallen Soldiers (Time for All Ages)

Creative Ideas for Summer and Beyond

Better than Sunday School: UU World Article
UU World article explores how one Oakland UU church changed its approach to RE with Summer Camp — changing their church culture, and deepening community and faith identity, in ways they didn’t expect.

Born to Belong: Spirituality for Mammals

J.L. Shattuck’s BORN TO BELONG explores the core emotional systems common to all mammals, and calls UUs to lifespan faith formation with a whole church approach. A focus on embodied practices of care, wonder, and joy that will nourish all ages — and inspire big ideas about how to live into them.

Full Week Faith — Shared Values Learning

This 6-week offering supports spiritual practice, lifelong learning, and community connection. For each value, a ritual of candle lighting, family reflection, activity prompts, playlists, songs, and stories invite reflection on the values that guide UUism, and shape our life together.Note: These resources were offered as part of one congregation’s tradition of “Chalica”, a “holiday” problematic for many UUs. However, the content is deeply faithful to our shared values, and useful under any name!

Building Beloved Community: A Whole Church RE Cooperative Game

The whole congregation takes turns drawing cards and resolving actions: an opportunity to listen, to work together, to learn and to share! Resources include adaptable, printable cards, tokens, and guide.

By Mylo Way

In the very best of times, “safety” is a loaded term for many of us. These times are not the very best. And, we still need to show up, co-exist, grow, learn, and be. How are we supposed to do that? 

The UUA has made some particularly relevant resources to address community safety in these times and help your congregation with discernment and action.

I cannot recommend more strongly this simple resource from Side With Love to look at community safety: Six Questions Congregations Need to Answer About Community Safety in this Moment. And there is a deep trove of resources and information available at our Community Resilience Hub.

Right now, it may feel like we’re drowning in crises and long-term, big-picture, structural planning feels impossible. And if all we can do is grab a tool kit and breathe, do that. Co-regulate as a community. Come back when you’re individually and collectively a little more grounded.

And. The crises will continue to come. We have a chance to create structures and systems that set us up to be able to navigate what life has to offer.

One of the places we can look to skill up our congregations is in the realm of “youth safety.” And that certainly does mean the guidelines your community writes up, ensuring the rule-of-three be followed, getting permission slips and waivers signed. AND, just like the resources and toolkits won’t keep your congregation safe from fascist violence, neither will a beautifully decorated covenant on the wall of the youth room make spaces as safe as possible.

We keep us safe.

The guidelines, the trainings, the conversations are all tools to skill us up as a community to see what safety looks like and how to support, encourage and implement that… and what looks like danger, and how to interrupt, limit and contain that.

What does youth safety look like? Certainly, it looks like following some basic practices in your programming that will include youth. It also involves general awareness and mindfulness around what it means to have a multi-generational space. Fun fact: When we make congregations more open, welcoming, and sensitive to youth and their needs, the congregation is more open, welcoming and sensitive to everyone. And, a space that is open, welcoming, and sensitive to the needs of the members is, in fact, a safer space.

Some generally solid questions to ask as you are making your spaces:

Who is present? Who is absent? Ask this about everything. Who is in your congregation? Who is not being reached? Who is on your board? Who is at the Social Justice Team Meeting? Who is being asked to move chairs after events are planned? Who is welcome at the table to design events?

I ask these questions in the context of youth. Are youth invited to be decision-makers? Is the input of the youth considered about programming? About worship? About engagement? Are their needs being met? When a decision is made that is in conflict with what the youth advocated for, is there honest, clear, grounded conversation about how and why the decision was made? We all sometimes advocate for something, and the decision doesn’t go our way. Emotional safety is tended to when we take the time to share how the advocacy was heard and what may be taken into consideration. Are policies and plans sometimes actually shaped by the advocacy of youth?

Also. Who are the youth who are showing up? Who is being served? Do you have accessible spaces? Are you grounded in anti-racist frameworks? Do you have an understanding of neurodiversity? Is your space full of queer liberation and ready to defend trans lives?

And, are your ministers and religious educators and pastoral volunteers skilled at holding the spiritual and pastoral needs of youth? Do your youth have the skills to provide peer pastoral care?

This list is not exhaustive and is not meant to be exhausting, instead to be encouraging. There are so many resources and community opportunities to grow, to learn, to encourage each other to take big and small steps. It’s not up to one person to know and hold all of this, not even one congregation. It’s our challenge, our call, as people of faith, as Unitarian Universalists, to work ever more to center Love. And to keep our love expansive, welcoming, and as safe as possible.

The good news, and the bad news, is that this doesn’t end when you’ve answered every question and taken every training and grown together as a community. The sacred work does not end. We must keep asking those questions of ourselves, and even exploring if the questions themselves are still relevant. Because new people arrive. New needs are surfaced. New understandings and approaches are developed. It may feel exhausting that the work is never done, that there isn’t a checklist to complete and be doing things the right way. I hear you. Let me offer you this reframe: there isn’t some secret you don’t know, some code you need to unlock. We’re all in this together. And we keep being in this together. This is hard and messy and wonderful and sacred work.

Together, we will keep being and doing better. And we will remember that we are loved and we are Love.

May it be so.

By Joy Berry

The first green shoots are emerging and multiplying here, even as the snow melts around them. March reminds us that Spring is on the way; a green promise we can count on the Earth keeping each year. In religious education, this is often a time of planning and prepping for end-of-year events and trainings — like faithful gardeners, preparing the soil for what we want to cultivate and grow in ourselves as professionals, and in our congregational community.

Upcoming Special Days and Celebrations

Women’s History Month (March)

• Black Women’s History of the United States

• Celebrating UU Women in History

• The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

• Women Warriors: An Unexpected History

Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31)

• Trans History: A Graphic Novel

• Raising Trans Kids

• Authentic Selves: Celebrating Trans and Nonbinary People and Their Families

• The Trans and Gender Diverse Teen Resilience Guide

Celebrating Ramadan (February 17 — March 19)

Celebrating Purim (March 2)

Celebrating the Vernal (Spring) Equinox (March 20)

Celebrating Palm Sunday (March 29)

Celebrating Passover Seder (April 1-9)
Celebrating Easter (April 5)

Religious Education Events in March

Safer Use of Tapestry of Faith March 24, 1-2:30pm ET. 

ToF is no longer being updated, due to extensive cultural appropriation and centering of whiteness. In this interim period, as we create a new curricular series, we want to support ToF users. Register here for the 1.5 hr webinar if you want to: understand the challenges and risks involved; learn to notice and avoid harmful use in advance; and explore better options.

UU World Focus on Religious Education

• Whole Church Religious Education: Calling Us To Deeper Formation, Joyful Experimentation

• Imagining New Possibilities for Welcoming Families to UU Congregations

• Community Sundays Foster Intergenerational Connections

Youth Ministry and Bridging

Bridging from Youth to Young Adulthood The transition from youth to young adulthood is a moment to be celebrated — and a process to be supported.

UUA’s Lifespan Faith Engagement Office wants to celebrate your 2026 Bridgers!

• Want Bridger necklaces? Request one per Youth by March 15, 2026.

• For a video celebration at GA, please submit names of Bridgers by May 1, 2026. 

• Youth groups are invited to create and upload artwork symbolizing our Shared UU Values to be used in the celebration video.

Suggested Titles and Resources

Celebrating the Bridging Ceremony readings and rituals on WorshipWeb

Becoming: A Spiritual Guide for Navigating Adulthood

Bridging: A Guide for Congregations

Reimagining Bridging: A “Milestones” Framework for Youth Ministry
A non-linear framework with accompanying tools and resources. This training will guide leaders to design a bridging program grounded in relationships and congregational context.

By Lauren Wyeth

• View the recording (Vimeo) of Kind, Clear and Heartful: Effective Boundaries in Faith Development. 
• Read the captions of the recording.
• Explore the Resources and Slides from this session (Google docs).