The
primary purpose of the Unitarian Sunday School Society (USSS) is to provide
grants for the development, testing, publication and distribution of religious
education materials that can be used by churches, fellowships and individuals
throughout the UUA. It annually gives out two awards, presented at each year's
General Assembly:
- a sermon award in recognition of a sermon which best addresses an issue
in UU Religious Education in the context of adult worship
- a worship award in recognition of a service which best expresses UUism
in the context of children's or intergenerational worship.
Grant application process can be found on the REACH website at http://www.uua.org/re/reach/spring00/leadership/uss_grant.html.
Applications are reviewed four times a year by a Board of seven directors.
This year's winner for the Adult Sermon award is Rev. Mark Gallagher of Michael
Servetus UU Fellowship in Vancouver, WA. His sermon is entitled "Religious
Education: A New Vision." The Order of Service
includes an a capella rendition of "Gathered Here" with expressive arm gestures
which are easy to follow. Gallagher astounded the packed room with his radical
suggestion that Sunday School classes be abandoned totally in favor of other
kinds of youth programming that would touch lives more deeply:
- Retreats like the Coming of Age program, YRUU conferences, age-group retreats,
family retreats, all-congregational retreats
- Social Action programming that cultivate the youth's expectations to
make a better world
- UU Sexuality program like Our
Whole Lives
- At home family practices to draw families more powerfully together and
to share the knowledge that other UU families participate in these practices.
This can began with family night, then family clusters
In his home church, beginning this fall, their Sunday Morning programming would
be something like the following:
- 15 minutes - children and adults worship together
- 40 minutes - Children's Chapel
- 20 minutes - children break into Friendship Groups
He offers Chapel Songs, Song
Jam and Chapel Liturgy (all Adobe
PDF files) as examples of items suitable for children's worship services.
The winner of this year's Integenerational Worship is Rev. Victoria Safford
of White Bear UU Church, Mahtomedi,
MN. Her service is entitled "Mystery," which was presented at the Icaghowan
youth Conference in Amery, WI. The presentation lasts 75 minutes, including
an hour-long small group discussion period during which the youths recess into
the woods and then return to the larger group with their unique and dramatic
presentations of answers to one of 12 questions assigned to each group. Click
here for a transcript.
After the Prelude, Lighting of the Chalice, and opening comments, Safford sets
the stage with the story of the Ice Man of Tyrol who would be defrosted for
study. What if the process of defrosting has magically revived him?
Reported for the Web by Kok Heong McNaughton; photos by
by Kok Heong McNaughton
General Assembly
2001 · Program
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