DRE/Ministers Collegial Conversation

Fashion Us a Postmodern People

Snow date: February 16, 2012 - same location
First Parish Church UU of Northborough, MA
with Karen Bellavance-Grace, Director of Faith Formation and Rev. Sue Phillips, District Executive

Join other teams of ministers and religious educators from throughout Clara Barton and Mass Bay as we engage the future of lifespan faith development in our congregations.

We've seen the predictions, considered the demographics, and heard the words of warning and hope in Faith Formation 2020.  We know that the way we approach faith formation and other aspects of congregational life need to change to serve 21st century realities. What we don't necessarily know is what it will all look like when we get there.

Religious Educators and Ministers know better than most that our families are

living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth. They're being besieged with information and calls for their attention from every platform - computers... iphones...hundreds of television channels [Sir Ken Robinson, from a talk at the Royal Society of the Arts]

and yet so many of the core faith formation offerings in our congregations are based on theories of education developed in the industrial age.
 
The reality is that in the daily and weekly busy-ness of the church year, we don't have the time or luxury to think about what we imagine the future of church might look like, much less consider what direction we can begin to faithfully lead.

We invite you to join colleagues for a half-day conversation in which we will:

• Consider what is the core and essential knowledge about our faith that we must carry with us into the new century
• Reflect on your own congregation's orientation toward change by sharing your community's story
• Use the concepts of call, discern, equip, and evaluate as touchstones to create faithful experiments toward a 21st century Unitarian Universalism

Fee: $15 / person - includes morning refreshments and lunch
REGISTER NOW!