Religious Education Curriculum
Welcome to the Children and Youth Religious Education program at UUCF! From our nursery to our senior high youth group, we have exciting plans for another year of religious growth and learning.
Our religious education classes provide a loving and nurturing environment where children are able to explore their beliefs, deepen their understanding of the sacred, and enrich their religious lives. We strive to create a supportive atmosphere where children and youth can be themselves while learning to acknowledge, accept, and affirm the differences in others.
The Unitarian Universalist Church in Fullerton offers three age-appropriate Sunday summer school programs, along with childcare for infants and toddlers. The summer program runs from July 4th through Sunday, September 26th.
Backyard to the Universe our program designed for pre-school and elementary school children embodies our seventh Unitarian Universalist Principle – a respect for the interdependent web of life of which we all are a part. Each Sunday we will explore our connectedness to the universe while nurturing a sense of wonder, and actively engaging children as caregivers of living things and stewards of Earth cycles and systems. Hands-on experiments and outdoor activities are the hallmark of this program. Lessons include:
- You are Made of Star Stuff
- What is the Sun Creating?
- Finding Ancestors in the Sky
- If There Were no Bugs to Bug You
- No Peace in Keeping Silent
- Cosmic Communion
Popcorn Theology, our middle school-age program, is structured around films that raise issues of theological and ethical importance to our world and to our youth. By using this visual medium to explore relevant issues, youth will:
- Examine how the choices we make affect our lives and the lives of others
- Explore how concepts such as truth and meaning are related to perspective and point of view
- Understand ways in which the right of conscience calls us to do what is right despite negative consequences
- Consider ways which our faith can help us understand our questions, seek answers, and deal with the trials of life
- Learn about other faith traditions and their responses to important theological and ethical issues.
Our YRUU (Young Religious Unitarian Universalists) is the high school youth organization within the Unitarian Universalist Church in Fullerton. The YRUU group is primarily run by the teens with mentoring of our youth coordinator and adult partners. Teens will meet weekly with their youth advisor and special teen guest speakers throughout the summer. YRUU teens will also have the opportunity to attend the adult sermons when the topic or speaker is of particular interest to the group. Special after hour activities are also planned.
In addition to our summer program, children at UUCF will have the opportunity to participate in Heifer International’s Read to Feed program. Read to Feed is a fantastic way to help families get out of poverty, just by having kids read. Donations will go to Heifer International to help their work by providing livestock to struggling families who have few resources and need an ongoing source of income. These gifts help families move out of poverty to self-reliance.
Sponsors will be asked to pledge a set amount for each book read or unit of time spent reading – a quarter or a dollar, or any desired amount. At the end of the program, children will collect their pledges, pool their money, and decide what type of livestock they would like to buy for families in need.
