MINISTER: This morning we dedicate our Religious Education teachers who have been called to minister to our children, to our future. Without them to teach, nurture, challenge, mentor, our religious movement would be greatly diminished; indeed, it would die. Religious education is a life-long process which integrates the wisdom of the world's religions and philosophies with our present experience of reality and hope for the future.

DIRECTOR OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION (DRE):Many people who discover our religious movement say they first came so that their children could have a religious, but not an indoctrinated education. We are grateful to you teachers of our children for your willingness to take on this opportunity.

MINISTER: Sophia Lyon Fahs, the Mother of Liberal Religious Education, said in one of her books, that it not only matters what we believe, but how we gain our beliefs. Let's read from her poem, "It Matters What We Believe:"

DRE: Some beliefs are like pleasant gardens with high walls around them. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.

TEACHERS: Some beliefs are like shadows, darkening children's days with fears of unknown calamities. Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.

MINISTER: Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in a universal kinship, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.

CHILDREN: Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction. Other beliefs are like gateways opening up wide vistas for exploration.

TEACHERS: Some beliefs weaken a child's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness. Other beliefs nurture selfconfidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.

ALL: Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world. Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.

MINISTER: It is indeed important what humankind has believed. It is important what we believe. And what a child believes is also a serious matter-not a subject for jest or sentimentality.

DRE: Do you teachers covenant with the children and the adults of this congregation to take on the awesome and wonderful responsibility of religious nourishment in your classes, to help them understand what Unitarian Universalism stands for, and for helping them to become all they can be?<

TEACHERS: We covenant to do our part to the best of our ability as teachers in the religious education of the children of the fellowship.

MINISTER: Will the congregation please rise. Do we as the gathered liberal religious congregation of this Fellowship also covenant to nurture and support these teachers called to minister to our children, as well as acknowledging the great importance of Religious Education for all ages? Do we covenant, as well, to support the Director of Religious Education as well as the Religious Education Committee, however we are able?

CONGREGATION: We covenant with the teachers, the children and the Religious Education Director and Committee to acknowledge and value the ministry of religious education, to support you to the best of our abilities, and to realize that we are partners in the religious nourishment of our children.

MINISTER and DRE: We dedicate these teachers to be a crucial part of the nourishment of our children's spiritual growth. You who have chosen to teach our children will have the special blessing of being not only part of their religious development, but hopefully a loving part of our children's memories in ages hence.