Category Archive

I finished the first part of my presentation on Family Ministry in Milwaukee with a discussion of the importance of values, specifically the need to clarify and promote our values.

First, we took a look at what is probably the most well known statement of our UU values, our Principles and Purposes (along with the sources):

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:

• Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
• Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
• Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
• Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Now I’m a pretty strong proponent of using our principles as a guide for faith development, and I certainly think we should teach them early and often in our religious education programs. However, the way they are worded makes it a little difficult for persons unfamiliar with our faith to discern what are the values we actually promote. And if we’re unable to clearly articulate the values we share in our communities of faith, then we’re probably not offering a comprehensible message to families looking for a spiritual home. Our Principles and Purposes are an excellent example of limited comprehensibility. We know what we mean when we say things like “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” or “the free and responsible search for truth and meaning,” but for an outsider, these phrases may be seen as more evidence that Unitarian Universalists are just a bunch of over-educated elitists.

How, then, do we make our message clearer? By grounding it in the language of our shared values. So at the risk of sounding like an over-educated elitist, I’d like to suggest that we do more “collective values clarification” or CVC for short. Truth is, identifying our shared values is a relatively easy process, and it can even be fun. Here’s one I’ve done repeatedly and successfully. Gather the people. Generate/show them a list of values (I often use the 21 values George Lakoff mentions in his book Moral Politics). Give the people multiple votes to identify their top three values. Tally the votes. Take the top six or so values and use them in all of your congregation’s promotional material—welcoming brochures, websites, descriptions of religious education classes (for children, youth and adults), etc. Do a sermon series on them. Teach them to your children. Design small group ministry plans around them. Incorporate them into your shared spiritual practices. Use them to guide your social justice activities. You can even build your mission and vision statements around them.

What we need to do is speak the language of values, so that families will know what they’re getting when they walk through our doors. I mentioned my home congregation’s insistence on articulating these values from our mission statement over and over: Unity Church-Unitarian is here to help us live loving lives of service, integrity, and joy.

So, beginning with “service, integrity, and joy,” we generated a list of values on newsprint and ranked them by giving each person three votes. We were able to come up with seven values that would service very nicely as a basis for a family ministry initiative (or for an RE program, or to help build a congregational mission statement). Folks noted that different kinds of congregations would need to use different processes. The important thing is that every family ministry initiative needs to have a set of six or seven values that it’s trying to affirm and promote.

Continuing my Milwaukee presentation: I focused on why building and sustaining connected community is so important for family ministry.

Two things to consider from Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities, by the Commission on Children at Risk:

First, a great deal of evidence shows that we are hardwired for close attachments to other people, beginning with our parents and extended family, and then moving out to the broader community.

And…

Second, a less definitive but still significant body of evidence suggests that we are hardwired for meaning, born with a built-in capacity and drive to search for purpose and reflect on life’s ultimate ends.

The report offers a basic definition and then lists 10 components of a Connected (Authoritative) Community, which to mean sound remarkably like a healthy, vital, multigenerational congregation.

Authoritative communities are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who model and pass on at least part of what it means to be a good person and live a good life.

Authoritative communities have 10 key characteristics. Based on careful analysis of both the new science of nurture and the existing child development literature, the Commission identified the following 10 principal characteristics of an ideal authoritative community:

• [Connected] communities include children and youth.
• They treat children as ends in themselves.
• They are warm and nurturing.
• They establish clear limits and expectations.
• Their core work is performed largely by nonspecialists.
• They are multigenerational.
• They have a long-term focus.
• They encourage spiritual and religious development.
• They reflect and transmit a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person.
• They are philosophically oriented to the equal dignity of all people and to the principle of love of neighbor.

If congregations really want to attend to the needs of families, we must begin with the needs of children—and building connected communities is the best place to start. Now two of these 10 characteristics may cause some Unitarian Universalists some discomfort: clear limits and expectations, and a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person. So I offered the following interpretations of those concepts. The first is from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose work around optimal experience (or flow) I’ve found to be very helpful. Here’s what he has to say about clear limits and expectations:

There is ample evidence to suggest that how parents interact with a child will have a lasting effect on the kind of person that child grows up to be…. The family context promoting optimal experience could be described as having five characteristics. The first one is clarity: the teenagers feel that they know what their parents expect from them—goals and feedback in the family interaction are unambiguous. The second is centering, or the children’s perception that their parents are interested in what they are doing in the present, in their concrete feelings and experiences, rather than being preoccupied with whether they will be getting into a good college or obtaining a well-paying job [which is exactly the kind of parental pressure Madeline Levine talks about]. Next is the issue of choice: children feel that they have a variety of possibilities from which to choose, including that of breaking parental rules—as long as they are prepared to face the consequences. The fourth differentiating characteristic is commitment, or the trust that allows the child to feel comfortable enough to set aside the shield of his defenses, and become unselfconsciously involved in whatever he is interested in. And finally there is challenge, or the parents’ dedication to provide increasingly complex opportunities for action to their children.

I think all of these characteristics apply to the kind of connected community we’re talking about—especially the religious education programs within our congregations.

As far as a shared understanding of what it means to live a good life, I think the Lifespan Faith Development Vision Statement from the UUA gives us some direction here.

We envision children, youth, and adults who:

• know that they are lovable beings of infinite worth, imbued with powers of the soul, and obligated to use their gifts, talents, and potentials in the service of life;
• affirm that they are part of a Unitarian Universalist religious heritage and community of faith that has value and provides resources for living;
• accept that they are responsible for the stewardship and creative transformation of their religious heritage and community of faith;
• realize that they are moral agents, capable of making a difference in the lives of other people, challenging structures of social and political oppression, promoting the health and wellbeing of the planet, acting in the service of diversity, justice and compassion;
• recognize the need for community, affirming the importance of families, relationships and connections between and among the generations;
• appreciate the value of spiritual practice as a means of deepening faith and integrating beliefs and values with everyday life;
• experience hope, joy, mystery, healing, and personal transformation in the midst of life’s challenges.

I especially like the multigenerational quality of this statement. It refers to all of us–children, youth, and adults. And it points to the next part of my presentation: values. More on that tomorrow.

I continued my Milwaukee presention on Family Ministry by defining community:

Community is key to ministering to families. Conservatives understands this. It’s time progressives did, too. And while we strive to have as expansive definition of family as possible, the truth is that when we talk put the concepts of family and community together, we must inevitably think of the children. Here’s what Diana Garland has to say about this:

The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” became a political slogan pointing to the importance of community for children, but it does not quite go far enough. All persons, both children and adults, need community. Because children are dependent on others for their survival, their vulnerability in the absence of community is more apparent. As James Garbarino has pointed out, children are like the canaries miners used to take with them into mine shafts. Canaries are particularly sensitive to poisonous gasses, and if they succumbed, the miners knew the environment was dangerous (Garbarino, 1995). Like canaries in mine shafts without adequate fresh air, children “succumb” without adequate communities of nurture and support. Adults, too, however, need to live in community. Some seem to need community more than others, but even self-sufficient adults seek the company of others and need a community when they become ill, injured, or threatened. (Diana Garland, “Community: The Goal of Family Ministry“[Word Doc].)

It’s important for the future of our religious movement, for spiritual progressives, for progressives in general, for the country, perhaps even for the entire world. As George Lakoff says:

I think the issue to bring progressives together should be this most central of all issues—raising children to become responsible, empathetic adults. (Lakoff: Moral Politics)

[By the way, I could easily see “raising children to become responsible, empathetic adults” as the primary goal to measure the success of our religious education programs by. The secondary goal would be raising life-long UUs.]

Unfortunately, this is one of the shared weaknesses of mainline Protestant denominations.

A recent poll conducted for PBS’s Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly surveyed 1,130 adults about faith and family. Anna Greenberg, vice president of the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc., told Sojourners [magazine] that “progressive religious groups [need to] make sure they are offering services on the ground for children”—something she said conservative evangelicals often do well. Greenberg saw this as important to the long-term survival of progressive religious traditions. (”Progressive Family Values,” Sojourners Magazine)

So we’ve got our work cut out for us. Here’s where I think we should start: the primary service on the ground we can offer to our children is to offer them connected communities in the form of nurturing congregations.

Here’s why:

According to Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities (a report by The Commission on Children at Risk), the “mental and behavioral health of U.S. children” is deteriorating.

We are witnessing high and rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit/conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide, and other mental, emotional, and behavioral problems among U.S. children and adolescents.

According to the report, these “rising rates of mental and emotional problems among American young people raise a red flag about how well we are nurturing our kids.”

While many American young people are thriving, many more are not, and there are worrisome signs that as a society we are losing rather than gaining ground. Notwithstanding sustained increases in material well-being and important medical advances in the ability to treat depression and other mental disorders, the rate of serious mental and emotional disorders among American children and youth has been rising steadily. Eight percent of high school students have clinical depression, 20 percent report having seriously considered suicide during the past year, and, according to the Surgeon General, 21 percent of 9- to 17-year-olds have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder that will cause at least minimum impairment. A recent study of mental health problems among college students at a large Midwestern university found that over the past 13 years, the number of students being seen for depression doubled, the number of suicidal students tripled, and the number of students seen after a sexual assault quadrupled.

“Numerous studies,” says Madeline Levine, author of The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids “show that privileged adolescents are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse rates that are higher than those of any other socioeconomic group of young people in this country.”

[I mentioned the cover photo from The Price of Privilege: a group of adolescents sitting together on some bleachers, each of them with a wireless phone in their face, probably reading or sending a text message.] In fact, here’s a blog post I read last fall that shows just how disconnected kids are from live human community:

Class of ‘11 brims with gadgets, hope
Posted by Stefanie Olsen

My, my how time flies. In just four years, the profile of the average college freshman has vastly changed, thanks to technology. That’s according to a study published Wednesday from Alloy Media and Marketing and research firm Harris Interactive, which contrasted details of the class of 2011 from that of 2007. (It queried 1,592 students ages 18 to 30 in the United States to gather its data).

The gist is that most college freshman are likely carrying all of the following: cell phone, digital camera, laptop and iPod (or some other MP3 player). It may seem hard to imagine it any other way, but that wasn’t the case just four years ago, when “wired” still meant caffeinated and students weren’t necessarily messaging their professors on Facebook.
What are the differences? Here’s a short list:

No big surprise, but 93 percent of freshman say they own a cell phone, vs. about 78 percent four years ago.

A majority of students, 64 percent, owns a digital camera, double the figure four years ago. Sixteen percent say they plan to buy one this year.

More than half of students (58 percent) own an MP3 player, up from 17 percent in 2004.
A majority of students (63 percent) own a laptop, vs. 42 percent in 2005. The desktop is now considered “old school,” according to the report.

About a third of college kids are mobile on campus, thanks to blanket wireless connectivity at as many colleges, according to the study. That number has doubled in four years, and it’s poised to increase. Two-thirds of campuses say they have a wireless strategy in place.

More than half (54 percent) of students visit a social network every day. Four years ago, the number was too small to report. And 27 percent of students say they prefer to keep in touch with friends via a social network over face-to-face communication.

Finally, a third of this group believes they have an innate ability to change the world for the better and say they are more likely to buy brands that are socially and environmentally responsible. Harris didn’t report the earlier figure [four years ago], but it’s heartening.

The bit about the ability to change the world is heartening, but the fact that “27 percent of students say they prefer to keep in touch with friends via a social network over face-to-face communication” isn’t. While it’s not impossible to make real connections using Facebook and a wireless phone, it’s very difficult and it’s definitely no replacement for face-to-face interaction, or what Dr. Edward Hallowell calls “the human moment.” (He writes that the human moment is ”an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space. It has two prerequisites: people’s physical presence and their emotional and intellectual attention.”)

I was in Milwaukee over the weekend to do a presentation on Family Ministry at the Central Midwest District’s REALL conference. Actually, I’m still in Milwaukee as I write this, waiting at the General Mitchell Airport for a flight that’s been delayed twice, so I thought I’d catch up on my blogging. And since I told folks that I’d do a series of posts on the information I presented, I figure there’s no time like the present!

I started with the Mormons. I noted that in my hotel room I found a Bible and, surprisingly, the Book of Mormon. Which got me thinking about the intentionality the Mormon religion has shown around families, especially their official designation of one night a week as “family night,” where families are expected to spend time together and the local churches are not allowed to schedule any events. I also mentioned that in the very first issue of a LDS journal called Marriage & Families, there was an article written by a Brigham Young graduate and professor called “Traditions: A Foundation for Strong Families.” In that article there was a sidebar listing four books for further reading. Three of the four books were written by Unitarian Universalist:

• Bill Doherty’s Intentional Family: Simple Rituals to Strengthen Family Ties,
• Mary Pipher’s The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families, and
• Meg Cox’s The Heart of a Family (which is out of print: her new book is The New Book of Family Traditions.)

I then went on to talk a bit about how my interest in family ministry comes from my own experiece with the Methodist church my family attended when I was a child, and how the congregation really offered no help at all when my parents divorced. I noted that most mainline Protestant denominations of that era we’re doing much either, and that my situation was one shared by tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, adults. And while right-wing conservative Christian groups have been putting their energy into offering ministries for people like me (and families that are currently struggling with difficult times), mainline Protestant denominations haven’t. So I wonder where are the ministries in UU congregations that would help me today if I were a child or youth whose family was falling apart

There have been a lot of e-mails and postings flying around the internet over the last few weeks regarding the status of YRUU (Young Religious Unitarian Universalists) and its relationship to the UUA. There’s been some good coverage in the UU blogosphere, with lots of interesting posts and comments. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a single place to turn to for getting the straight dope. Until now, that is. The UUA’s website now has a “Frequently Asked Questions about the Status of Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) and Youth Ministry” page. It covers a full range of questions, from “What is YRUU?” to “What will happen to UUA services to youth such as trainings, curricula, continental gatherings, etc?” and beyond. So if you’ve been hearing rumors about the YRUU and Youth Ministry in our Association and are interested in getting the facts, please visit www.uua.org/leaders/announcements/100691.shtm.

I just read an article in Wired that says, “As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say. Less time spent outdoors means less contact with nature and, eventually, less interest in conservation and parks” (“Nature Giving Way to Virtual Reality“).That’s bad news for good memories, as far as I’m concerned. You know the kind of memories I’m talking about, time spent outdoors with family and friends. The kind of experience that church retreats and summer camps can produce in minds young and old. Fortunately for Unitarian Univeralists, there are a fair amount of opportunities available. Just check out the CU2C2 (Council of Unitarian Universalist Camps and Conferences) webpage.

There’s a good news/bad news situation for Prairie Star District, however. Our only camp is Camp Unistar, which is located on Star Island in Cass Lake, a part of the Chippewa National Forest in northern Minnesota. It is one of the real treasures of Prairie Star, so much so, in fact, that the camp is always filled to the brim, which makes it hard for newcomers to find a spot. The need for another camp experience in the district has been recognized for some time, and I’m happy to say that something is finally happening.

If all goes well, there will be a new camp experience available for families and individuals in Prairie Star beginning the summer of 2009. The plan is to get exclusive use of a camp somewhere in the southern part of the district (Nebraska, Kansas, or Missouri) for a week-long UU summer camp. At least, those are the plans of a small group of committed people who met last weekend at the Carol Joy Holling Conference and Retreat Center in Ashland, Nebraska. We’re hoping that things will come together in the month or two so we can make an official announcement about the new camp at the PSD Annual Conference in April. I’ll keep you posted.

Okay, so these aren’t just holiday bargains. But since we are in the midst of the shopping season, I thought I’d try to put a holiday spin on our early bird registration rates for the upcoming OWL trainings in Lawrence, Kansas and Northfield, Minnesota. Here’s the deal: register now for either of the trainings and save $30 per registration. That’s right, you can save $30 by registering before December 21, 2007 for the combined Elementary OWL training in Lawrence (January 11-12, 200 or by January 2, 2008 for the Combined Jr./Sr. High OWL training in Northfield (February 1-3, 2008). You can find all of the information for these training at the Prairie Star website. You can even register online. Just go to http://www.psduua.org/Workshops/OWLLawrence2008 for the Lawrence training or to http://www.psduua.org/Workshops/OWLNorthfield2008 for the Northfield training.

Here’s the part where I would say that these savings are for a limited time only. But actually, it’s not just about saving money. We need to have a least a dozen participants registered for each training by the end of the early bird registration period, or else we may have to cancel one or both of the trainings. And we’d really, really hate to do that. So, if you’re thinking of sending someone (or coming yourself) to either training, please register as soon as possible. You’ll save money, and you’ll help guarantee that these trainings will take place as planned. Thanks!

So here’s the plan for getting a majority of religious educators in Prairie Star participating in the Reducing the Risk program in general, and the Safety Award in Reducing the Risk of Child Sexual Abuse in particular. The district has purchased 25 Reducing the Risk resource kits to distribute to PSD congregations at a considerable discount (the kits normally cost $50 plus shipping–PSD congregations can order them from the district for $25 plus $5 shipping). In addition to the kits themselves (a DVD set, a training manual, and reference book), the district will also pay the tuition for religious educators to take the online examination required to receive the Safety Award through the Institute of Church Safety.

Completing the program does take an investment of time (I spent most of Wednesday reading the online sessions, taking self-evaluation quizzes and comprehensive reviews, and completing the 25 question final examination). But it’s an investment that’s well worth it. And since I’ve already completed the program, I’m ready to assist any PSD religious educator in the program. So, for $30 total Prairie Star religious educators receive the RTR resource kit, are eligible to enroll in the online seminars of the Institute of Church Safety, and are free to take the final examination needed to received the Safety Award. Again, the goal is to have at least half of the religious educators in Prairie Star trained in this program. For more information, send me an e-mail or call me at (612) 230-3274.

It may not look like much, but it could be one of the most important documents a religious educator can have. It’s the Safety Award in Reducing the Risk of Child Sexual Abuse from the Institute of Church Safety, an online training program from reducingtherisk.com.

I took the training myself yesterday, passed the comprehensive examination, and was rewarded with the above PDF (love the Old English font, don’t you?). Okay, I was rewarded with a comprehensive overview of the issues surrounding protecting our children from preferential and situational abusers, too. Here’s a look at what’s included in the training:

(1) Understanding the Problem of Child Sexual Abuse and the Church

Child sexual abuse can happen in any church regardless of size, location, or affiliation. In this four-lesson seminar, we examine the nature and impact of child abuse, the profile of molesters, why churches are vulnerable, and the legal theories used to prove liability.

(2) Church Liability for Child Sexual Abuse

This three-lesson seminar examines the unique vulnerability of churches to liability for acts of child sexual abuse. The first lesson highlights factors that make churches susceptible to incidents of child molestation. The second lesson looks at the current legal environment and reviews factors that contribute to church litigation. Lesson three examines the most common legal theories that are used to sue churches when child sexual molestation occurs within church settings.

(3) Selecting and Screening Church Staff Members to Work with Children

To ward off potential molesters, and to ensure adequate legal safeguards that rise to the level of reasonable care, every church should implement an effective screening program. This five-lesson seminar starts by reviewing the profiles of child molesters, and then examines the screening process for clergy and paid employees, the use of criminal records checks and other background checks, and concludes with developing an effective screening program for volunteer workers.

(4) Principles of Supervising Children and Youth

This seminar begins by examining the profile of child sexual offenders. It then focuses on the problem of negligent supervision, and explains how key principles can be used to establish a basis for reasonable care. Attention is given to general versus specific supervision, and assessing levels of risk using the concepts of isolation, accountability, power, and activities. The seminar establishes five general principles of supervising children and youth to reduce the risk of child sexual molestation. At the conclusion of lesson 7 is a safety checklist that reviews the material for the entire seminar.

(5) Reporting Child Abuse

This two-lesson seminar reviews legal obligations church staff members may have to report child abuse, and how a church can develop a reporting procedure. Attention is given to understanding the differences between mandatory and permissive reporters, when a report must be made, factors to consider in making a report, and establishing a reporting procedure for church workers.

(6) Responding to Allegations of Abuse

All churches and ministries need to focus on the prevention of child sexual abuse. Realistically no practical prevention strategy is 100 percent effective. An accusation of child sexual abuse may occur in any church. Churches need to develop a premeditated plan or strategy to respond to sexual abuse allegations. This seminar examines nine key issues that church leaders should consider in responding to an allegation of abuse.

Tomorrow I’ll post more about Prairie Star’s plan to have a majority of the religious educators in the district be recipients of the Safety Award.

I made a quick trip down to Cedar Rapids last Friday to meet with some of the religious educators there. Sherry Warren, our PSD Youth and Young Adult Specialist, happened to be in town for a Spirituality Development Training with the youth group from Peoples Church in Cedar Rapids, so she and Lori Allen (PSD Lifespan Faith Development program coordinator) and I were able to have a meeting before the, er, meeting. At any rate, it was great to see the folks in Iowa, and we had a good conversation about the future of Lifespan Faith Development in Prairie Star and in the UUA. I really enjoy getting together with religious educators around the district, so if you’re a DRE in a PSD congregation and would like an excuse to gather some nearby DREs and youth adviser for a weekday meeting, let me know and let’s see if we can arrange a visit!

Most of these meetings include having lunch at the local church staffs’ favorite nearby restaurant. We decided to have ours at Phong Lan Vietnamese restaurant, which is just a couple of blocks from the church. I had the mixed vegetables–not bad. And thanks to Marlene Walker, interim minister at Peoples, for taking this picture of us.

A quick report on last weekend’s workshop by Sally Patton, author of Welcoming Children with Special Needs: A Guidebook for Faith Communities. The turnout was relatively small, but the dozen people who gathered last Saturday at First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis to hear Sally’s presentation were rewarded with a wealth of information on how to make our congregations more welcoming to everyone. If you haven’t read Sally’s book, do. And if you haven’t had a chance to attend one of her workshops, keep an eye out for one and try to attend–you won’t be sorry. I was especially impressed with Sally’s tips for making religious education less like school. Things like: mix age groups; provide more experiential activities; and engage children in storytelling instead of having them read out loud. I’m really, really in agreement with Sally’s number one point in this regard–quit using terms like “Sunday school” and “religious education.” Children and youth are in school five days a week, why the heck should coming to church be more of the same. I wrote a sermon based on the really awful promotion the UUA came out with in the ’90s that featured a girl with her arm around a little boy saying, “It’s like regular school—except nobody flunks.” If that’s all we have to offer children and youth for faith development, then we’re really letting everyone down, not just kids with special needs.

(By the way, I’ve got four extra copies of Sally’s book in the district office, and I’d be happy to send them off to congregations in Prairie Star, so if your PSD congregation didn’t have anyone at the workshop, and if you don’t have a copy of Welcoming Children with Special Needs in your Lifespan Faith Development library, e-mail me at psdlund@earthlink.net and I’ll send a copy to the first four readers who respond.)

The tag line for the original version of this blog was “So, just what does the Lifespan Program Director of the Prairie Star District do?” And even though the tag line for this version is different, my primary purpose for blogging it to let the folks in Prairie Star know what I’m up to. As I mentioned in my previous post, right now I’m in San Antonio, Texas for the Liberal Religious Educators Association’s Fall Conference. It’s traditional for the Program Consultants of the various UU districts to meet the day before the conference to talk about various issues concerning religious education and faith development. Here are a few of the topics that my colleagues and I (along with Harlan Limpert, the UUA’s Director of District Services, a.k.a. “Fearless Leader”) discussed:

• The changing role of Program Consultants in our districts
• Collecting statistics regarding the effectiveness of hiring religious educators for the first time
• Guidelines for non-LREDA religious educators in our smaller congregations
• An update on last summer’s Youth Summit in Boston, along with possible effects it will have on our district youth programming
• Relationships between UUMA (UU Ministers Association) and LREDA chapters in some of our district
• And a bunch of stuff about the national ad campaign, the “Voices of a Liberal Faith” DVD, and Association Sunday

The conference officially starts today, and it looks like a good program to me. We’ll be learning more about the UUA’s new faith development curriculum series called Tapestry of Faith. I’ll keep you posted!

I was in Lawrence, Kansas over the weekend to do a presentation at the Unitarian fellowship there. It was basically a day devoted to getting the congregation on board with Our Whole Lives, the UUA’s (and UCC’s) comprehensive sexuality education program. I delivered a reflection at their early “spiritual” service, then did a presentation on what OWL’s all about. In between the two services there was a groundbreaking ceremony for the fellowship’s new addition, and after the second service there was a potluck, featuring some pretty tasty barbecue pork. After the potluck I participated in a panel discussion about the congregation’s commitment to the OWL program, and it looks like we’ll be offering a training for combined Elementary OWL in Lawrence next year. It also looks like there may be an adult OWL class in the fellowship’s future. All in all, it was a fun weekend (you can see a photo set from Lawrence here.)

As part of the presentation, I did one of those mock church sign photos you can do online ( www.churchsigngenerator.com). It got a pretty big laugh when it showed up during the PowerPoint presentation. Can you tell me what’s wrong with this picture?

I’m still finishing up with my notes from last month’s presentation in Dallas, Texas. I mentioned Dr. Ed Hallowell’s book Connect: 12 Vital Ties That Open Your Heart, Lengthen Your Life, and Deepen Your Soul during the presentation, and I wanted to give you a quick update on a resource I found that lists those twelve ties in an abbreviated–but useful–form. It’s from Dr. Hallowell’s website. The twelve ties are:

1. Your family of origin. Are you as emotionally close to your family of origin as you would like to be?
2. Your immediate family. Do you treat one another with love and respect?
3. Your friends and community. Do you see friends and neighbors on a regular basis?
4. Work and activities. Do you feel a sense of mission at work?
5. Appreciation of beauty. Do you make time to enjoy a favorite art form?
6. History. Do you feel the power of the past in your daily life?
7. Nature and special places. Are there special places that speak to you in ways no other place can?
8. Pets and other animals. Do you seek companionship from your pet or other animals?
9. Ideas and information. Do you feel that you know how to get the most out of your brain power?
10. Institutions and organizations. Do you take pride in group membership?
11. Greater truth or spiritual faith. Do you continue to seek the truth by whatever means make sense to you?
12. Yourself. Do you feel comfortable being who you are?

It’s a down-and-dirty list, but it clearly shows how one can make connecting a spiritual path. Which is something I think we need to do if we’re truly going to make our congregations the kind of connected communities our children and youth need.

I’ve got a few more things to post from my notes for the presentation I gave in Texas a couple of weeks ago. This one is about the fourth trait of a connected community: They establish clear limits and expectations. I think it may be one of the traits with which some Unitarian Universalist might have a hard time. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a lot of UUs want a “hands off” approach toward themselves and their children, something like, “I left my previous church because they tried to tell me what to believe, and I not going to stick around here it there’s going to be a lot of do’s and don’ts!” But every community needs some grounds rules, and if a community is trying to be intentionally multigenerational (something I hope all of our congregations are trying to do), then there needs to be some ground rules for every generation. So here are some thoughts from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Optimal Experience and Flow) about the kind of context that helps children and youth thrive:

There is ample evidence to suggest that how parents interact with a child will have a lasting effect on the kind of person that child grows up to be. . . . The family context promoting optimal experience could be described as having five characteristics. The first one is clarity: the teenagers feel that they know what their parents expect from them—goals and feedback in the family interaction are unambiguous. The second is centering, or the children’s perception that their parents are interested in what they are doing in the present, in their concrete feelings and experiences, rather than being preoccupied with whether they will be getting into a good college or obtaining a well-paying job. Next is the issue of choice: children feel that they have a variety of possibilities from which to choose, including that of breaking parental rules—as long as they are prepared to face the consequences. The fourth differentiating characteristic is commitment, or the trust that allows the child to feel comfortable enough to set aside the shield of his defenses, and become unselfconsciously involved in whatever he is interested in. And finally there is challenge, or the parents’ dedication to provide increasingly complex opportunities for action to their children.

“Teenagers feel that they know what their parents expect from them.” I think the same is true of our congregations. Unless our children and youth know that we do have certain expectations of them, then they might start buying into the bad press about Unitarian Universalism: you can believe whatever you want to believe here, we’re an “anything goes” religion, etc. So I love these five “c’s”: clarity, centering, choice, commitment, and challenge. I think they provide a great heuristic (a replicable method or approach for directing one’s attention in learning, discovery, or problem-solving) for measuring the quality of our religious education and youth programs.

I just received an e-mail from the Institute on American Values, and it seems they’ve created a video version of the Hardwired to Connect report, and it’s free! Just go to click on this link and fill out the order form. Here’s the text of the e-mail:

New “Hardwired to Connect” DVD Now Available

WHY ARE LARGE AND GROWING numbers of U.S. children and young people suffering from depression, anxiety, attention deficit and conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide, and other serious mental and behavioral problems?

Several years ago the Institute for American Values together with the YMCA of the USA and Dartmouth Medical School answered this question in the 2003 report, Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities. Written by the Commission on Children at Risk, a panel of 33 leading children’s doctors, neuroscientists, research scholars and youth service professionals, Hardwired to Connect draws upon a large body of recent research showing that children are biologically primed (”hardwired”) for enduring connections to others and for moral and spiritual meaning.

Because of the enormous interest in the Commission’s findings and recommendations (Hardwired is now at the end of its 5th reprinting, with over 25,000 copies disseminated), the Institute has created a short, informational DVD that distills the most important aspects of the report.

Produced by Globalvision, the Hardwired to Connect DVD won the prestigious silver Telly Award this year in the category of non-broadcast video.

Through the generosity of several donors—including the American Legion Child Welfare Foundation—the Institute is able to make this DVD available to you free of charge while supplies last. To receive a copy, please complete this order form found on our Center for Marriage and Families’ website.

Copies of the full report, Hardwired to Connect, are available from the Institute for $7.00 each (volume discounts are available).

Copies of the Commission at Risk’s working papers will be published this fall by Springer in Authoritative Communities: The Scientific Case for Nurturing Children in Body, Mind and Spirit.

This is an amazing opportunity. Order your free copy of the Hardwired DVD today (you know I already have!).

I’m continuing to post the notes from my recent presentation to teachers in Dallas. Here’s a very quick summary of the results of the Hardwired to Connect report I’m mentioned in my last post. The authors claim they are making a “New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities” (I call them “connected communities”). Their major claims are:

First, a great deal of evidence shows that we are hardwired for close attachments to other people, beginning with our parents and extended family, and then moving out to the broader community.

And

Second, a less definitive but still significant body of evidence suggests that we are hardwired for meaning, born with a built-in capacity and drive to search for purpose and reflect on life’s ultimate ends.

In order to offer our children the kind of environment they need to make those connections, the report lists these 10 components of a Connected Community:

• [Connected] communities include children and youth.
• They treat children as ends in themselves.
• They are warm and nurturing.
• They establish clear limits and expectations.
• Their core work is performed largely by nonspecialists.
• They are multigenerational.
• They have a long-term focus.
• They encourage spiritual and religious development.
• They reflect and transmit a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person.
• They are philosophically oriented to the equal dignity of all people and to the principle of love of neighbor.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–I believe that these 10 qualities are the definition of a healthy, vital congregation. They are, essentially, the qualities our congregations need to embody in order for us to do the work we’ve set before ourselves, especially anti-racism/anti-oppression work, moving youth ministry to the center of our collective mission, and getting over our 1% a year growth pattern so we can truly reach all those who would benefit from being part of our living tradition.

Well, I’m back in Minnesota now, but I’ve got a couple of more posts about the information I shared during the teacher training in Dallas last Saturday. I talked a bit about the Hardwired to Connect report, using some passages from a sermon I gave last year. Here’s the gist of it:

According to Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities (a report by The Commission on Children at Risk), the “mental and behavioral health of U.S. children” is deteriorating.

We are witnessing high and rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit/conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide, and other mental, emotional, and behavioral problems among U.S. children and adolescents.

According to the report, these “rising rates of mental and emotional problems among American young people raise a red flag about how well we are nurturing our kids.”

While many American young people are thriving, many more are not, and there are worrisome signs that as a society we are losing rather than gaining ground. Notwithstanding sustained increases in material well-being and important medical advances in the ability to treat depression and other mental disorders, the rate of serious mental and emotional disorders among American children and youth has been rising steadily. Eight percent of high school students have clinical depression, 20 percent report having seriously considered suicide during the past year, and, according to the Surgeon General, 21 percent of 9- to 17-year-olds have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder that will cause at least minimum impairment. A recent study of mental health problems among college students at a large Midwestern university found that over the past 13 years, the number of students being seen for depression doubled, the number of suicidal students tripled, and the number of students seen after a sexual assault quadrupled.

“Numerous studies,” says Madeline Levine, author of The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, “show that privileged adolescents are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse–rates that are higher than those of any other socioeconomic group of young people in this country.”

I’ll say more tomorrow about ways we can remedy this situation. But for now, here’s one of those “me in action” shots I’ve been promising…

I’m in Dallas, Texas this weekend to do a presentation at the North Area Texas UU Religious Educators teachers training (that was this morning), and to preach at the First Unitarian Church tomorrow. I really enjoyed the training this morning–a terrific group of teachers from around north Texas. They do this every August, I believe, and it’s something I’d like to see happening around Prairie Star. I’m sure the congregations in the Twin Cities area could support something like this, as well as the congregations in Iowa and Kansas. At any rate, I had a good time, got to see some old friends, and met some wonderful folks who are volunteering their time and energy to be a caring presence for the children and youth in the congregations here. I promised the participants that I would post some of the quotes read during the presentation, which I think I’ll do over a series of blogs this week. Here’s the first set–definitions of faith, spirituality, and religion. It’s from an essay called “A Neuropsychological Perspective on Spiritual Development,” by Andrew B. Newberg and Stephanie K. Newberg, and it can be found in the Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence.

Faith
A neuropsychological perspective posits that all human experience is ultimately processed by the brain. The brain therefore can only provide a “secondhand rendition” of external reality. If this is the case, then human beings always have to have faith in their interpretation of the external reality as it is processed by the brain. Faith, in some sense, is absolutely essential for the human brain to function properly so that it assumes that the world as it is perceived and interpreted represents a reasonable one-to-one correlation with what is actually “out there.”

Spirituality
The feelings, thoughts, experiences, and behaviors that arise from a search for the sacred. The term “search” refers to attempts to identify, articulate, maintain, or transform. The term “sacred” refers to a divine being or Ultimate Reality or Ultimate Truth, as perceived by the individual.

Religion
Religion and religiousness not only contained the preceding criteria, they also included a “search for non sacred goals (such as identity, belongingness, meaning, health, or wellness).” Religiousness also implies that the mean and methods of the search “receive validation and support from within an identifiable group.”

I gave these definitions this morning because I think they do a good job of putting faith and spirituality in the context of religion. Here’s the comment I made about them: “You can have faith and spirituality without a religion. However, if you have a religion, it encompasses those things as well. So when we talk about religious education, we’re talking first and foremost about the things that specifically deal with “religiousness.” But questions of faith and spirituality are part of it, too.” So we teach about Unitarian Universalism, our Principles and Purposes, World Religions, etc. but we are always dealing with issues of faith and spirituality no matter what the curriculum because faith and spirituality are part of any religion.

I followed up those definitions with another definition of religion from another essay in the Handbook called “The Relationship Between Moral and Spiritual Development,” by Lawrence J. Walker and Kevin S. Reimer: “Central to the teachings of all religious traditions are moral guidelines for living a good life and for interacting appropriately with others.”

More from the presentation (and some photos) later.

Okay, so it’s not the same as the Lakes District in England, where Unitarian writer Beatrix Potter lived, but it is lovely. I’m talking about my trip to the Iowa Lakes region last weekend–to Okoboji, specifically, where I preached at an emerging congregation there. I had a wonderful time, in spite of arriving just five minutes before the service began (I got lost in a cornfield somewhere in southern Minnesota…thanks, Google maps!). I was greeted at the door of the Arrowwood Resort and Conference Center by a member of the fellowship, and was made to feel right at home (I hope all visitors are greeted that way!). I’m sorry I missed the coffee hour, which takes place before the service, but I was pleased to be a guest of the congregation at a buffet that immediately followed the service. As I mentioned to one of my table mates, one of my favorite definitions of church is: gather the people, break the bread, share the stories. To that, I would add, and change the world. At any rate, you can see pictures of the trip on my Flickr page (here), and you can download a revised copy of the sermon I preached (Losing My Religion). I’ll be preaching this version in Dallas, Texas this coming Sunday. Whoo-hoo!

I’ve just received a preliminary report on the UUA’s Youth Summit (the culmination of the Ministry To and With Youth process) from my colleague in the Central Midwest District, Dori Davenport. The gist of Dori’s report is this: “At the end of our five day Summit, we came away with one overarching theme: We ask for a fundamental shift in Unitarian Universalism–a shift to a multigenerational, congregation-based youth ministry in which youth ministry is central to the articulated mission of the UUA.” To which I say, Whoo-hoo! This is good stuff, and I agree with it whole-heartedly. Multigenerational, congregation-based youth ministry–yes! Youth ministry central to our mission–yes! I’m going to be blogging more on this over the next few weeks, specifically about what I consider to be one of the more useful approaches to youth ministry these days. It’s an adaption of the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project that I’m calling “Spirituality & Service: Youth Ministry for the Whole Congregation.” Stay tuned….

I just received the following e-mail from Jesse Jaeger, Director of Youth Ministry (new job title) at the UUA’s Office of Youth Ministry (new office name). It’s worth reading if you work with youth:

Hello All,

I would like to introduce you all to some changes in the Youth Office.

New Position: First of all, please join us in welcoming Darrick Jackson. Darrick is filling the newly created position of Assistant Youth Ministries Director. Darrick just graduated from Andover Newton School of Theology and will be ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry this fall. He will be taking on more of the day to day management of the Youth Office including supervising the Youth Ministry Associates. Darrick will also be supervising the Office of Youth Ministry while I am on sabbatical this fall.

New Office Name: The Youth Office will soon be the Office of Youth Ministry.

New Job Title: You might have noticed that Darrick has the job title “Assistant Youth Ministries Director.” My present title is changing to Youth Ministries Director. As an Association we have an increased awareness of our work with youth as a ministry. These title and name changes (including the change from Youth Programs Specialist to Youth Ministry Associates) all underscore this shift in understanding. [Jessica York, the new Youth Programs Director, oversees youth curriculum development in the Curriculum Office of Lifespan Faith Development, not the Youth Office. Hope that clears up any confusion.]

Summary of who will in the office next year:

Jesse Jaeger: Director of Youth Ministry (on Sabbatical from September 14th returning January 2nd)

• Overall management of the office.
• Focus on implementation of recommendation from consultation on youth ministry.

Darrick Jackson: Assistant Director of Youth Ministry

• Overall management of office while Jesse is on sabbatical.
• Supervision of Youth Ministry Associations.

Rek Kwawer: Youth Office Assistant

• All the same amazing things she does right now.

India McKnight: Youth Ministry Associate (Starts July 16th)

• Support for the Chrysalis Training Program.
• Support for General Assembly Youth Caucus.

Sara Eskrich: Youth Ministry Associate (Starts July 16th)

• Support for the YRUU Leadership.
• Support implantation of recommendation from the consultation on youth ministry.

This will be the group that will carry us through next year as we work to transform how we do youth ministry in our movement.

Beth Dana and Laura Manning will be leaving the Youth Office in August. Keep an eye out for how we will be honoring the amazing work they have done here. We will be holding parties later in the summer.

Please let me know if you have any questions,

Jesse Jaeger

Jesse C. Jaeger
Youth Ministry Director
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon St.
Boston, Ma 02108
jjaeger@uua.org
www.uua.org/yruu
617-948-4359 (work)
617-367-4798 (fax)

This may not seem like much, but acknowledging on the associational level that the work we do with youth is ministry bodes well for the future.

As the current church year winds down (all that’s really left is General Assembly), I’m beginning to think about the three big projects I’ve committed myself to work on next year. I plan on writing about each of them this summer to help clarify my thoughts, but right now the one that’s on my mind is creating a Youth Spirituality & Service Program for congregations to use in Prairie Star. It’s on my mind because I’ve started reading The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence (edited by Eugene C. Roehlkepartain and others) as part of my research for the project, and it seems that coming up with a working definition of “spirituality” will be crucial for success. Here’s a couple that I’ve found in the first chapter of the book:

Spirituality can be defined as a search for the sacred, a process through which people seek to discourse, hold onto and, when necessary, transform whatever they hold sacred in their lives [the sacred includes the concept of God, divinity, transcendence, and ultimate reality].

Spiritual development is the process of growing the intrinsic human capacity for self-transcendence, in which the self is embedded in something greater than the self, including the sacred. It is the developmental “engine” that propels the search for connectedness, meaning, purpose and contribution. It is shaped both within and outside of religious traditions, beliefs and practices.

I like these definitions because they leave room to go beyond God and divinity when talking about the sacred, and because they recognize that spiritual development can occur “both within and outside of religious traditions.” This embraces both seekers (those who remain ambivalent about committing to a particular religious tradition) and dwellers (those who are willing call themselves Unitarian Universalists). Our job, as I see it, is to create a program for dwellers that is also welcoming to seekers.

By the way, I’ve just discover a terrific new resource: The Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. Check it out!