A New Year in Children and Youth Religious Education (CYRE)

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Welcome Back!chalicecandle

Fall program of CYRE at UUCH!

Children, youth, and leaders will meet in their RE rooms beginning this Sunday, September 4th, for our annual BIG, FUN RE Clean-up Day in which they will set up their rooms for the year.

The first day of fall curricula will be September 18th. As always, children and youth will begin the service in the sanctuary with our full multigenerational congregation and will go to their classes after the Story for Sharing. The worship service will include a ceremony of dedication for our CYRE leaders.

If you haven’t done so already, please register children and youth for this year’s program. Paper registration is available at the church, or you can register online by clicking here.

Our RE age based groups for this year are:

  • Nursery (ages infant to 3, staffed by experienced childcare providers)
  • Peace (ages 4/Pre-K to grade1);
  • Justice (grades 2-3);
  • Searchers (grades 4-6); and
  • Transformers (grades 7-12).

There are many children and youth transitioning rooms this year, which is VERY exciting!

This year’s theme is “Storysharing: Getting to Know Ourselves, Each Other, and the World.” Stories are powerful ways of sharing experiences that are bigger than rational explanations, getting to know the lives of friends and strangers, connecting with each other’s similarities and differences, inspiring us to compassion and social responsibility, exemplifying our UU principles, and probing our multi-faceted sources. This year children and youth will participate in religious education curricula that are grounded in story and integrated into our monthly Soul Matters worship themes. This means that each month’s theme will be explored by adults in the church service and by children and youth in our RE rooms. Story-based lessons are highly interactive with games, crafts, music, projects, and more!

We will be continuing our special way of welcoming children, youth, and families to church this year. In the foyer as families enter, the RE Committee will host each week an RE Welcome Area. Visitors will be greeted and given information about the program and the activities for the day. Returning children and youth will come here to check in, pick up their name tags, and also get a big, warm welcome to church. We want to encourage this ritual of a special welcome for children and youth, and we encourage families to stop at the table on your way in.

Welcome back, and welcome for the first time! We are so pleased for your presence in the UUCH Children and Youth RE Program.

For more information, contact Erin Reid, Director of Religious Education (DRE) at DRE@uuch.orgor Audrey Fox, CYRE Chair, at Children.RE@uuch.org.