Category Archives: Religious education

We hear about Abigail, and learn to make storyboards with a ringer

It’s been a month since I got to teach Sunday school, but finally today I was the lead teacher once again; Susie, who had been the lead teacher last week, was the assisatant. Three of our regulars came to class today — Heather, Zach, and Dorit. We sat down in a circle, and Dorit immediately said, “Can tell about a good and bad thing?” Zach and Heather both said, “Yeah!” I said that we would do check-in as usual, but we had to do attendance first, and light the chalice. Susie took attendance, and when it was time to light the chalice, both Heather and Zach put their hands up.

Susie pointed out that Heather had been lighting the chalice a lot lately. I proposed that Heather light the chalice first, then blow it out, then Zach would light it. Heather and Zach said that Dorit should get to blow it out. After a more discussion, that is what we decided to do. Heather lit the candle in the chalice. Dorit blew it out. Zach lit the candle, and we were ready to begin.

We were about halfway done with check-in when tow more people walked in: Bobby, and his father William. (Bobby usually attends the 9:30 Sunday school.) I explained what we were doing, and asked them to join us in the circle. We continued the check-in; I had to explain to Bobby that just one person talked at a time (I believe they don’t do check-ins in his regular Sunday school class). Heather had gone on a sleep-over; Zach had had a good football practice; I had seen a car accident on the way to church; William had gotten a good letter from a client; Bobby wasn’t ready to say anything yet. When we got done, Dorit had “two more things” she wanted to add to her check-in. At last check-in was done.

“Because we have some new people, let’s go around the circle and everyone say our names,” I said. By now, our regulars are used to doing this, so we went around the circle twice and said our names. I asked who could say everyone’s name, and Dorit said she could, and she did. Continue reading →

Abigail and David

The Sunday school class I’m co-teaching is doing a unit on King David. We used the stories from the book From Long Ago and Many Lands about David and Saul, and David and Jonathan — which are pretty much guy stories. So for tomorrow’s Sunday school class, I decided to do the story from 1 Samuel 25.2-42, which features the quick-thinking and clever woman Abigail. It’s still a rough draft….

Long before he became a king, when David was still running from Saul, afraid that Saul would kill him, he and his six hundred followers travelled to the wilderness of Paran.

In Carmel, which was near the wilderness of Paran, there lived a rich man named Nabal, who owned three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. Nabal was married to a woman named Abigail, who was clever and beautiful. Nabal himself, however, was rude and ill-natured; his name meant “The Fool.”

In the wilderness, David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. He decided to send ten young men to Nabal. David said to them, “Go to Carmel, find Nabal, and give him my greetings. Say to him, ‘Peace be upon your peace be upon your household, peace to all you have.’ Tell him that we have been living here among his shepherds, and we have not attacked them, nor have we stolen anything from them;– we have only the best intentions towards him and all those who work for him. You will arrive at his household on a feast day, and ask him if he would please give whatever food and drink he might have on hand to me and all of us.” David knew that anyone who lived in that land would feel compelled by the laws of hospitality to give at least some food to a band of men living in the wilderness.

David’s ten young men went to see Nabal the Fool, and they politely passed on David’s greetings, and his request for hospitality. But Nabal spoke to them harshly. “Who is this David?” he said. “There are many servants who try to run away from their masters. Why should I take bread and meat and water away from the people who have been shearing my sheep, and give it to people who come from I know not where?”

When the ten young men came back to David and told him what had happened, he told four hundred of his men to strap on their swords. “I protected his shepherds and everything else Nabal had in the wilderness, but for this good I did he returned to me only evil,” said David. “Now we will go and kill every male in his household.” They followed David towards Nabals’ house, while the remaining two hundred men stayed to guard the animals and the camp. Continue reading →

We welcome visitors, and hiss at Haman

During the first fifteen minutes of the 11:00 worship service, we had a child dedication this morning. Five children from two different families were dedicated, including one baby and four older children. The godparents each brought their own children. Thus after the child dedication was over, and the children left for Sunday school, I expected to see perhaps a dozen children come out of the Main Hall — the children associated with the child dedication, plus another 3 or 4 of our regulars. At the end of the first hymn, I opened one of the sliding glass doors at the back of the church, and as the children kept coming I realized that we were going to have more like 20 children.

Melissa, the lead teacher today, was waiting in the classroom for us. She, to was surprised as the children streamed in. I rounded up a few stray children; Melissa quickly rearranged the rooms so we could all sit down in a big circle. “Let’s take attendance first,” she said, and looked at me. “Dan, do you mind taking attendance?” I didn’t mind at all. Melissa asked each child to say their name and age; we had 18 children, ranging in age from 5 to 12 years old. Of our regulars, Dorit, Zach, and Heather were present (Heather’s sister, Sara, who is 12, is now staying with her parents to hear the sermon). Dorit brought her friend Vi. Rawley and Carl, who usually attend the 9:30 session, had been with us before. The rest of the children were either one-time visitors, or usually came at 9:30.

After I took attendance, Melissa asked me to do our regular check-in (and in an aside to me, said that she had to run and make some more photocopies that she would need later). I said we’d go around the circle, and everyone would have a chance to tell about one good thing and one bad thing that happened to them in the past week, or they could pass. Usually when we have new children, they choose to pass. However, this Sunday, most of the children chose to say something — this felt like a real accomplishment! Melissa was so welcoming, and I think our regular children have become quite good at accepting and welcoming newcomers and visitors. The children were mostly quite attentive to each other — except for Dorit, which is most unusual, but Dorit was distracted by the novelty of having her friend Vi, and the two of them could hardly keep from talking to each other.

Melissa began telling the story of Queen Esther. I had to run off to gather some more supplies. When i came back, Melissa was in the middle of the story. Now whenever I’ve heard this story before, the storyteller has always had us hiss when Haman’s name comes up, so when Melissa said “Haman,” I almost started to hiss — but caught myself when no one else did. So at a break in the story, I mentioned this point, and Melissa said that was a good idea. She began the story again: “So the king turned to Haman…” — and she paused while we all hissed.

Melissa told the story very well, and the children listened attentively. (By “attentively,” I mean that there was the usual squirming on the carpet squares, but no side conversations, and no wandering eyes or heads.) At the end of the story, Melissa asked the children what they thought of the story. Rawley said she thought there might be a lesson to the story, and Melissa asked her what she thought that lesson might be. After Rawley gave her idea, Kayla, who was at the 11:00 Sunday school for the first time, spoke passionately but not very articulately, saying we should stick up for our ideals. A couple of other children also said what they thought the story meant. Melissa and I said the story could mean all these things, and Melissa had a couple of other ideas of what the story could mean.

Ellie (who usually comes at 9:30) asked if the story were true, which prompted another general discussion. Continue reading →

Religious Education Week at Ferry Beach

I have no shame about promoting Religious Education Week, July 10-16, at Ferry Beach in Maine: we have truly kick-ass programming line up. Not only do we have excellent programs for religious professionals and serious volunteers, we also have an excellent children and youth programming, and a tradition of superb intergenerational community — it’s worth attending just to watch the intergenerational programming in action. We often have people attend from as far away as Illinois and Ohio; I’ve coordinated conferences at Ferry Beach that drew people from as far away as New Mexico and Alaska. If you’re involved in religious education, you should think about attending.

Workshops for religious professionals:

Adult OWL Training — Get trained to lead the Our Whole Lives comprehensive sexuality education program for adults. Our trainers will be Chris and Rev. Bobbie Nelson, both long-term experienced sexuality educators. You simply cannot find better OWL trainers than Chris and Bobbie nelson!

Worship Renaissance Module — The well-known UUA training in how to do worship for all ages. Led by Rev. Liz Strong, recently retired district religious education consultant for Mass. Bay District, and Sadie Kahn-Green, DRE at Chelmsford, Mass., both of whom are experienced at leading worship with all ages.

New DRE workshop — Relentlessly useful introduction to everything you need to know as a new religious educator. For religious educators who have been serving for up to three years. Seminarians also welcome. Led by Rev. Dan Harper.

Social Media and Religious Education — Learn about Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media, and how to integrate them in religious education. Led by Shelby Meyerhoff, Public Witness Specialist at the UUA, and Will Kahn-Green, project manager at the Participatory Culture Foundation.

DRE Credentialing workshop — Join with other DREs pursuing UUA credentialing, for support and study. Led by Rev. Helen Zidowecki

Prices and more info here.

Conference staff include: Continue reading →

Not teaching, but still doing religious education

One in a series of entries in my teaching diary. First 2009 entry.

Sunday 27 December 2009

There was no Sunday school today, so I got to go to church to hear the sermon. I arrived a little bit late, and sat down just before the opening words. I could see Marco and Natalie sitting on the other side of the Main Hall with their godmother; I tried to catch Marco’s eye, but I don’t think he noticed me. Roger Jones, the visiting preacher, gave an excellent sermon — I was glad our church brought in a really good guest preacher on this low-attendance Sunday. Marco and Natalie stayed in for the whole worship service, and Roger’s sermon was good enough that I suspect Marco (and maybe Natalie) could pick up something from it; at the very least, the children got to hear the speech rhythms of a good preacher, rhythms which can be hypnotic and entrancing in their own right. I wanted to try to talk to Marco and Natalie after the service to see what they thought about it, but unfortunately I had to leave immediately; but I will make a point of asking them about it the next time I see them.

Later in the afternoon, I took a break and went over to the Baylands Nature Preserve, to go for a walk, and to do some birding. There were hundreds of wintering ducks in the marshlands, and I was standing on one of the dikes looking through my binoculars at a pair of Gadwall when I heard a familiar voice saying, “I don’t know if Dan wants to be disturbed.” It was Lucy, standing there talking to her daughter Dorit, who is in my Sunday school class.

I said hello to both of them. Lucy said she didn’t want to bother me, but I told her (truthfully) that I was pleased to see them both. Dorit is now six and three-quarters. I began talking to her about birds, and quickly figured out that she was interested in birds, and had some basic knowledge of how to tell different kinds of birds apart. “Would you like to look through my binoculars?” I said. Dorit nodded, and we went over to a nearby bench so I could sit next to her (when you’re six foot five, you either have to kneel down or sit beside a child when you’re going to let them use your binoculars, and it was too damp for me to want to kneel). The three of us sat on a bench looking out at tidal flats with American Avocets, various kinds of ducks, and lots of shorebirds. I asked Dorit if she knew how to use binoculars, and she did — she held them up, managed to hold them steady, and used the focusing knob. They were kind of heavy for her, though, and not much fun to use. So we just sat there looking at the birds without binoculars. It was a little chilly, and after we talked for about five minutes, Lucy and Dorit went off one way, and I went off the other way.

Strictly speaking, birds have nothing to do with religious education. But I remember that I liked it when the adults in my childhood church shared their interests and passions with me — it was nice to be treated by adults as a person instead of a child. So talking to Dorit about birding may have nothing to do with religion, but it has everything to do with being human; which I suppose is just another way of saying that it has everything to do with religion.