Religious EducationLifelong Intentional Faith Exploration (L.I.F.E.) for Children and Youth

Sunday Religious Education is now called Lifelong Intentional Faith Exploration (L.I.F.E.): Our children and youth begin with everyone in the Sunday service. After our “Time for All Ages” in the service, they get sung out to their classrooms.

We have four classrooms and age levels. Our school age children follow the Soul Matters curriculum with monthly themes which explore how we live our shared values.

  • The Nursery provides a safe space for children ages 0-4 years to play and learn about sharing and fairness.
  • SEEKers (Spiritually Engaging and Exploring Kids) are ages 5-8 years.
  • TWEENS (Team Welcoming Empathetic Enthusiastic Noticing Supers) are 9-12 years.
  • YOUUTHPICKS (Young Observant UU Thoughtful Hilarious Playful Interesting Creative Kind Souls) are ages 13-18 years.

Our Teachers

Our teachers are trained and background-checked volunteers who apply our UU principles of love, acceptance, and respect as part of our covenant with each other. Children quickly recognize UUCW as a safe space in which to express themselves genuinely as they explore their deepest thoughts about the world around them.

Parents

Parents choose Unitarian Universalist religious education for many reasons. We offer dynamic curriculum that helps our children and youth explore how to live our shared values of justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, generosity, and love. This community dynamic encourages our children to become kind, respectful, fair-minded and caring. We nurture their spirituality and progressive moral values as they grow.

Participation in UUCW worship services, social justice work, and multi-generational gatherings provide parents with opportunities to live their faith as role models for their children.

UU flaming ChaliceWe Believe

In our church, we believe it is important to learn about things from many different sources. The Unitarian Universalist Sources are foundational to religious education programming at UUCWNC, and include:

  • Direct experience of the mystery and wonder of life
  • Jewish and Christian teachings of God’s love
  • Inspiring wisdom from the world’s diverse religions
  • Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life
  • Humanist teachings which support reason and the results of science
  • Words and deeds of prophetic, inspiring people

L.I.F.E. Resources

UUCWNC’s Director of Lifelong Intentional Faith Exploration (L.I.F.E.) is eager to help you to develop, grow, and renew your family’s spiritual practices. Inspiring Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) materials include multi-media resources for individual and family faith development. Webinars are available for free (or almost free) on a variety of topics, such as how to answer your child’s toughest questions, how to advocate for your LGBTQ+ teen, and other timely topics.  The UUA maintains an in-house publishing company that promotes books for insight and timely articles about current events of particular interest to UUs. 

To Learn More about youth religious education programming please contact:

UUCW’s Director of Lifelong Intentional Faith Exploration at lifedirector@uucwnc.org.