Religious Education: Explore Your Sense of Wonder!
Our Religious Education community provides activities, programs, and classes for adults, children, youth, and
families!
The Religious Education program
of
the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco offers programming
for all ages, to enrich lives
intellectually, spiritually, and practically.
San Francisco Liberal Religious "Sunday School" :
Religious Exploration for Children and Youth
 They begin asking questions at such an early age. Who is God? What happens to me when I die? Was Jesus a real person?Why are there wars? Should I fight back? What makes it true?
This list goes on, and the inquiries are real. (As a parent or caregiver, maybe you have even asked them yourself!) How you respond will leave its imprint on a child’s spiritual life forever.
At the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, we don’t teach children what to think; instead we teach them to think for themselves. We develop a child’s natural sense of wonder by focusing more on questions than on answers.
Religious Education for Children and Youth classes are offered at 11 am each Sunday. We welcome new students throughout the year.
We help children base their beliefs on their own experiences and convictions. Then we encourage them to articulate the tenets of their own faith, and not one inherited from someone or somewhere else.
To do this we engage all five senses in the exploration of faith and reason. Learning is experiential and cognitive, active and reflective. We recognize that children bring gifts to our religious community and often model spirituality to adults. We encourage all learners to ask the tough questions, and do our best to explore the possibilities with them in a nurturing, non-judgmental environment. And we give them opportunities to share their gifts and knowledge throughout the life of the church.
This means that children are a valued part of our community and that they help us build relationships both across the generations and among peers. Our focus is present-day, not pie-in-the-sky. The religious ideas and ideals we explore are applied to everyday life, not just Sunday morning time slots. Whether in the pew or on the playground, your children will embody a living tradition that sustains them.
Want to know more? We are eager to share our unique approach to religious exploration, and many children find here a house of worship that affirms and supplements the beliefs and values you mirror in your own home. Please call our Acting Director of Religious Education, Betty Skwarek by email  or phone, (415) 776-4580 x16, and let the wonderment begin!
 Summer Arts Program
If you live, work, attend church or go to school in the Tenderloin, Western Addition, or Cathedral Hill areas of San Francisco — and are between the ages of 6 and 106 — you are invited to work together to create a giant mandala using a variety of mediums and techniques under the guidance of ArtSeed ’s artists.
The word Mandala is from Sanskrit and means “symbolic circular design.”
Thanks to a generous grant from the Hinckley fund, there is no cost to participants, just the wonderful opportunity to work together as neighbors on something beautiful and meaningful.
Only 15 adults and 15 children can participate in each of the 8 Sunday sessions..., so registering early is important. You may sign up for as many sessions as you want. Attending multiple sessions is encouraged.
Dates:
Between July 6 to August 24, 2008
Every
Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Participants
do not need to attend every Sunday but
need to enroll for the days they will attend.
Schedule:
10:00 walk from Church
to the Faithful Fools
10:15 sharing and centering
10:30 work on project
12:00 walk back to the church
Register by filling out the online registration form or signing up at the church office.
Please call Betty Skwarek at 776-4580 for answers to your questions.
Education Programs for Adults:
Good News for Growing UUs (Unitarian Universalists)
When it comes to religious growth and learning, “Sunday School” is the one school from which you never graduate. There is always more over the horizon and around the corner. To accommodate the broad range of spiritual issues faced by urban dwellers in a shrinking world, we provide classes, workshops, forums, seminars, and events that make liberal religion applicable to everyday life. What can you expect when you enroll in an adult religious exploration class at our Church and Center?
First, and perhaps foremost, expect to make friends. It sounds so simple, but our busy lives often compete with the time required to nurture relationships that sustain us both in the valleys and on the mountaintops of life. In other words, we need each other.
 Our educational ministry with adults emphasizes the importance of community and we have found that lifelong friendships are forged when participants in our program engage each other with intentionality. The church provides many opportunities to do so though its Adult Religious Exploration program.
Second, expect to be challenged. Liberal religion takes learners beyond the orthodox to the heretical and sets no limits on the laboratory in which learning takes place. In other words, you cannot flunk. Your life experience counts, and your opinions are eagerly solicited. When this takes place in a safe and nurturing environment, it’s likely your questions will be answered and your answers will be questioned! Because we are non-creedal, we do not expect everybody to believe the same way. Respectfully, we challenge each other to live fully human lives based on our own experience and convictions.
Finally, expect to find hope. Ours is a hopeful, hope-filled religion, and learning more about it provides tangible skills to confront the complexities of life. Rather than deliver ready-made formulas for faith, we insist that the process to belief is more important than the product of belief. In other words, it’s the spiritual journey, and not the destination, that intrigues us. A rational approach to religion finds hope that is grounded in this world, new every morning.
Want to know more? We’re here to walk or run with you, no matter where you are on your faith journey. Please contact our Acting Director of Religious Education, Betty Skwarek by email or phone, (415) 776-4580 x16, to learn more about our good news for growing UUs.
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