Religious Education (“RE”) for children ages 4-13 is offered at 11 a.m. each Sunday, September through June. You and your family are welcome to drop by any time!
For more information about First Church’s RE program, please contact the Director of Religious Education (“DRE”), Mick Hirsch, at mchirsch@hotmail.com or by phone at (508) 488-7116, or contact the church office.
The RE calendar for Winter 2012 for Children and Youth is available at this link.
Children’s RE
Nursery: Childcare is provided for children up to 4 years of age. The nursery is staffed by a remarkable youth from the church and supervised by the DRE. The Nursery is a safe, enclosed environment, enriched by toys, books and games, where parents have the option to stay and listen to the service via closed-captioned audio, or safely leave their children in order to attend worship in the sanctuary. Just as the doors leading into the church are open to all, you will find once inside that you are free to move between the sanctuary, nursery and parish hall, according to your needs.
Children’s Chapel: Each Sunday begins with a time dedicated to introducing children to a variety of liturgical and worship traditions, songs and methods of prayer. Chapel is led by DRE Mick Hirsch and always features group singing to guitar accompaniment, as well as a special time for sharing joys and concerns. Chapel is a time when children of all ages gather together. Chapel usually lasts about 15 minutes, but has been known to go on much longer, depending on the children’s needs to share their thoughts. Typically, chapel leads directly into one of three classes based on age. Occasionally however, we offer “Contingency Sundays”: these are Sundays when we depart from the scheduled calendar of classes and focus on discussing as a group a current event of vital importance in a safe, affirmative and prayerful setting. Examples of Contingency Sundays include the Sunday following the earthquake in Haiti and the tragic bullying of Phoebe Prince.
Spirit Play: For our youngest children, ages 4 to 7, we utilize the highly respected Spirit Play program. Spirit Play is a Montessori-based curriculum that presents the core principles of Unitarian Universalism, as well as timeless stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition and many other world religions (e.g., Islam, Buddhism, Native American, classical mythology). The method behind Spirit Play is such that a story unfolds before the children, inviting them to question and wonder what comes next and what the connections are between various elements, characters or symbols they encounter. The story is followed by a time for brief discussion and then a period for creating artwork inspired by the story or its themes. This is not a curriculum designed ostensibly to impart knowledge; rather, it is an opportunity for children to be exposed to the mystery and wonderment at the heart of religion and spirituality.
People, Places and Things: This class is designed for 8-10 year olds to think more intentionally about the stories, myths, people and symbols that pervade our world. The emphasis, therefore, is to think more archetypically about how such stories keep on speaking to us through the ages. Our children will build a working repertoire of timeless tales that they will continue to discover in literature, philosophy, art, film, science and history.
Neighboring Faiths: For our 11-13 year olds, we now offer a Neighboring Faiths program. This is an opportunity for children who are wanting a more dynamic and direct experience with religious traditions that are not necessarily their own. Each month, we focus on a new tradition, dividing (roughly) each of the five weeks into the following: Week One: learning about the history, philosophy and practices of a tradition; Week Two: travelling to a house of worship to experience firsthand the principles and practices of a people; Week Three: returning to our home church to discuss the experience we had the week before; Week Four: participating in the “adult” worship service by incorporating something new, interesting and important into the liturgy (e.g., a song, prayer, poem, dance). Examples of “neighboring” traditions include Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the African-American tradition, atheism/agnosticism. Please contact our DRE for more information about this program.
Youth Group: Our Youth Group consists of teenagers, looking for fun activities, as well as social justice projects in which to participate. Each month, we partner with local Unitarian Universalist churches to eat pizza, watch movies, play games and coordinate community service projects.
Special Events for Children and Families
Each year, our church sponsors several special events for children and families. These include the annual Christmas pageant, Easter Egg Hunt, gardening Sunday, and an awesome party with chicken and waffles! (For more information on this, you’ll have to come see for yourselves!)
Adult Religious Education
Together with Rev. Terry Burke, First Church DRE Mick Hirsch offers an annual “Spirituality and Film Series” where we view and discuss films about a specified topic: in the past, we have explored films about “spirituality and art,” “insiders vs. outsiders” and “spiritual quests,” and we have screened films by such notable directors as Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, the Coen Brothers, and Kurasawa.
Additionally, Mick periodically offers religious education opportunities for adults. In the past, we have studied the intersection of religion and science/technology, and the contemporary significance of classical mythology.
More Information About Our RE Program
Brochure for the Winter-Spring 2012 RE Program
Spirit Play Reader – “The Stations of the Dalai Lama”
Spirit Play Reader – “The Story of King Midas“