Welcome to the UU Youth Ministry Sparks Module!
The UU Youth Ministry Sparks Module is designed for current and budding religious education professionals to deepen their understandings of today’s youth and explore best practices for building UU youth communities within their congregations and beyond. This module seeks to provide an overview of UU histories and cultures throughout the ages, a snapshot of the uniqueness of youth communities today, and opportunities to discuss how to best meet the needs of today’s growing and changing youth within a context of UU ministry. This module offers participants opportunities to build and practice their skills on how to communicate and listen to youth and support them through challenges in their personal and spiritual development and provides models on shared leadership, decision-making, and youth empowerment. Our goal is for new and practicing religious education professionals to reflect on their own practices and collaborate with one another to grow their toolboxes for building and supporting vibrant UU youth communities, in the multitude of ways that could look.
The five-session module employs a flipped classroom design, empowering participants to actively engage with the material, reflect, and explore independently before coming together in interactive virtual sessions. Throughout the sessions, we will aspire to the following learning objectives.
Learning Objectives
The overall goals of this module are for participants to:
- Investigate the histories and cultures of Unitarian Universalist youth ministry;
- Explore dynamic, iterative, and responsive youth programming, including Coming of Age programs, Our Whole Lives programs, and Bridging;
- Examine adolescent human development, faith development, and the spiritual lives of teens in the context of today’s world, including UU identity development and the adolescent need for deep connection and belonging;
- Articulate the dynamics of adult relationships with youth, located within a lifespan ministry and multigenerational context;
- Equip participants to empower youth to discern for themselves what faithful action around our shared values means to them and commitments to which they want to devote their time, such as in broader congregational life (i.e. worship, justice making, leadership, religious exploration, pastoral care, etc);
- Explain and support the implementation of youth safety, bearing in mind incorporating basic pastoral care skills and the change management that’s necessary for implementing newer youth safety practices;
- Discern measures of success for youth ministry; and
- Create space for the learning community to share tools that assist in achieving the above mentioned goals, including the ever-evolving use of technology.
Registration Link
The Youth Ministry module is an online learning experience comprised of five 2.5-hour webinars with reading and other assignments for each session. Credit will be offered for full participation in the module. Full participation includes:
- Online attendance at five 2.5-hour sessions
- Reading and reflection to prepare for each session
- Completion of final project
- Submission of final evaluation within a week of the ending of the module
Instructors/images can go here (or not).
