Rev. Forrest Gilmore,
Associate Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Monterey
Peninsula
Riley McLaughlin, Director of Religious Education, Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City
Sheri Prud'homme, Lifespan Religious Education Consultant, Pacific
Central District
Coming of Age programs are powerful components of the Youth programming in many
churches. They provide opportunities for Youth to deepen their sense of spiritual
identity in the context of the Unitarian Universalist congregations they attend,
and they inspire and challenge the adult members of the church to examine their
own spiritual values.
While most components of Coming of Age programs take place in individual churches,
the Pacific Central District has, over the past four years, found that when
a number of churches cooperate, they can create programs of a complexity and
scope that far exceeds what any individual church could do.
The Rev. Forrest Gilmore, Riley McLaughlin, and Sheri Prud'homme all helped
create the Pacific Central District's most recent Coming
of Age program. They led the group through some brainstorming about "What
youth need to come of age" and about "What kinds of Coming of Age programs we
would like to see", shared their philosophy of Coming of Age with us, reviewed
their District Coming of Age program, and outlined some challenges presented
by this kind of program.
Sheri Prud'homme opened the session with some singing and brainstorming exercises:
"What do youth need to come of age?"
Knowledge of what to leave behind and what to take with them from their childhood
Companioning/Mentoring
A relationship with their home church
An understanding of what Unitarian Universalism is
Some willingness to engage in the process
"Mom" to sign them up
Modeling of how to think and talk about spiritual subjects
A feeling of safety in thinking and talking about these subjects
A challenge - something that's not quite comfortable
Affirmation and recognition
Knowing who they are
Inclusion in the life of the congregation
A Sunday morning service to own
Opportunities to make friends
Some depth to make it not just a dry set of activities
Some kind of bonding experience (like a trip together)
"Lengthy togetherness"
Celebration
Food
A space
Service in the larger community
A trusted adult
Trust from the adults
There is a lot of information out
there as to what makes a good coming of age program, much of it available from
the UUA. For a start, check out the YRUU section of the UUA web site, specifically,
Jen Harrison's article on "The Four Components
of Successful Coming-of-Age Programs."
The Pacific Central District has just completed its second set of district-wide
supplementary activities to the Coming of Age program. This helped many churches
get critical mass with their Coming of Age programs.
Prud'homme also led us through a brainstorming session on "What kind of Coming
of Age programs do we have, wish we had, or would we create if we could create
one. What could congregations in districts do together that they couldn't do
alone?"
Ropes Course (typically
$500 for 10 people and up)
Weekend camp
More frequent offering of Coming of Age programs
Intensity of worship from larger numbers
Big service project
Exposure to different cultures and diversity
Less isolation / more connection / connection to a bigger community
More attractive to youth
Deeper adult talent pool
Deeper youth talent pool
More choices for mentors
More planning time
Fresh ideas
Opportunity for parents to work with youth not their kids
The Rev. Forrest Gilmore
shared a little of his philosophy on coming of age. For him a perspective that
comes from his interest in wilderness experiences and human development creates
a structure within which he views the Coming of Age program: We all go through
cycles of childhood, youth, adulthood, and elder status, both over the course
of our lives and, in some ways, repeatedly through our life. These transitions
are growth experiences; "dishealth" comes when we get stuck in a stage. Between
each stage is a rite of passage. These rites help us pass from one stage to
the next.
He characterized the stages of life as follows:
Childhood as a time of
body and physicality;
Youth as a time of inward reflection - "Who am I?"
Adulthood takes those reflections and asks "How are we to give of ourselves
in to the world?"
Elder status - a time for breaking the rules and molds to make something new.
In this structure, Gilmore characterized
Coming of Age as a transition from childhood to youth. Though we talk about
Coming of Age as a youth to adulthood transition, in his view that transition
happens in the late teens or early twenties.
This passage is to the participants respond to the following kinds of questions,
and evolve as they answer these questions:
What is God
What is of ultimate value
Who will I be close to
Will I do drugs
Will I have sex, and when
The Pacific Central District Coming
of Age program is structured as follows:
It is done every other year. The program was originally developed by Rev. Geoff
Rimositis, Associate Minister of Religious Education at First Unitarian Church of San José. It
started from an examination of a number of other programs from different districts,
and an attempt to synthesize them. The most recent version of the program was
the second time the district had presented it. Originally the program was created
for 9th and 10th graders; most recently it was open to 8th through 10th graders,
but the best age group for which to do this is still an open question. In terms
of numbers, there were about 60 youth in the first program, and 80 to 85 in
the second program. Now they are beginning to wonder if this isn't too big a
program?
There are four components to the district wide program: three weekend retreats
and a final celebration.
The programs are Friday night to Sunday afternoon. The host church provides
food; the district Coming of Age committee coordinates the program.
The program drew from 12 congregations this time, with four congregations sending
twelve or more youth. Some congregations choose not to participate, some have
their own programs, some are too far away. Overnight lodging is at the church.
The overall charge for the program is $225 per youth for the whole program.
They urge congregations to sponsor their youth. In some congregations, youth
raise one third of the fee, the congregations contributes one third, and the
family contributes one third. This model seems to work well.
Continuity is important. Youth need to commit to two out of the three events.
How much sharing among the churches is there to help the congregations improve
their own Coming of Age programs? While the Pacific Central District Coming
of Age committee is working to support congregations more actively, that is
an area in which the program is growing. Ultimately having one youth and one
adult from each church participating is also a goal, but one that hasn't totally
been fulfilled yet.
The adults participating in the weekend retreats are the Pacific Central District
Coming of Age Coordinating Committee plus other adults they recruit. The Coordinating
Committee forms the continuity through all the events, but it's usually 10 to
12 adults recruited from among the congregations, mentors, and religious professionals,
for a target ratio of 1 adult for each 8 youth.
There is a
background document sent to the youth and their families to set out the expectations
for the program. There is also a
registration form which describes many of the administrative details of the
program. (These documents will be available online here soon.)
Retreat 1: The Ropes Course.
For this weekend, they meet at a local church, do climbing, jumping, and cooperative
activities on Saturday. Both adult- and youth-led worship are big parts of that
weekend. But in the larger sense, this is an adult-led and coordinated program
for the benefit of the youth. Adding past graduates to the program is a goal
of theirs.
Other important elements of the weekend are free time and wisdom circles - gatherings
for groups of 10 to 12 to get together with an adult and process the weekend,
talk about who they are, and get to know each other. They try to do this at
least once a day, sometimes more.
Retreat 2: Justice or Urban Challenge
This weekend is held at an urban church and is still being fine-tuned. Typically,
on Friday youth are locked in a room and have to find one or more "keys" to
get out. This isn't very popular, but it's really hard and seems overall to
be positive. There's a lot to debrief on this one after they are done. The dynamics
among how much effort different youth put in to this are very powerful. This
is followed by a worship.
Saturday there's a "street retreat:" becoming familiar with the inner city and
the social problems that concentrate there Groups of two or three youth with
an adult go out and become familiar with what's out there.
Retreat 3: Wilderness Vision Fast. The "main event" is a seven hour "solo" spent
in silence with no food or contact with others. Groups of ten go out with a
mentor. The events of Friday night and Saturday morning lead up to and orient
the youth for this event. A series of issues get emphasized in worship, like
passage, giving up, and moving on. Also there is a letting go ceremony, burning
messages the youth have written of what they're giving up. They are advised
to bring a journal, and helped to develop questions to work with.
The ritual of bringing the group together, separating into the small groups,
then going off by themselves , then returning at the end to the full group is
a very powerful one. Following that, there is a a community feast followed by
games and worship. Then there are men's and women's conversation circles; at
the men's circle, topics such as fathers, work, machismo, conflict have been
discussed.
Sunday time is spent processing the experiences from the previous day; youth
are encouraged to hold their stories overnight to sit within themselves, and
then spend 10 minutes sharing their stories with everyone.
Event 4: The Party! Churches in the district are encouraged to have youth present
the service on a particular "Coming of Age Sunday." After the services they
have the district wide gathering for the party, with mentors and parents: Dinner
and ritual celebration and dance.
Challenges of the District-wide Coming of Age program:
Age is a question - the trend seems to be moving towards 8th and 9th grades,
or even 7th and 8th grades. Gilmore likes the younger age group because this
creates the nucleus for a youth group. The Coming of Age program serves as a
real goal to keep the youth involved with the church.
A second issue arises around rules, and how they are enforced. The rules ended
up being very clear, along with the consequences for rule infractions. There
as a council (the dean of the retreat along with two others on the District
Coming of Age committee) who meet with those involved in rule problems and talk
with them. Finding that the rules were clear and the consequences followed through
with changed the relationship with the youth to one of more trust. Typically
the consequences are like "letter home" or "send you home." The YRUU conference
and the Coming of Age rules are different. That makes it important to set the
expectations clearly. Adults enter in to the same covenant for behavior as the
youth.
Reported for the
Web by Jordan Young; photos by Jordan Young; formatted for the web by Kasey
Melski.
General Assembly 2001 · Program Grid
