Happy prep time for our upcoming 2025 2026 RE program!
The 2025-2026 Religious Education (RE) program is around the corner. Religious Educators nationwide are all preparing for the start of their respective upcoming congregational and church RE program years like an athlete prepares for “The Big Game.” I am fortunate to be part of the Leadership team for the Metro NY area’s Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA) and privy to some of the private machinations of many of our local religious education program leaders. For the UUs (especially) of this community, the process for getting ready for the start of the RE year is a wide-ranging, process-driven, and subjectively personal journey into areas of creatively inspired idea generation. An eclectic road map through self-perception, collaborative engagement, positive reinforcement, nervousness, resolute purpose, compassion, integrity, hope, humor, and a whole lot of crafting. Key elements in a religious educator’s existentialism.
The sharing of stories, processes, and ideas by the collective LREDA members is the pluralistic collaboration that is the glue that creates the unity of our professional community. This dynamic approach to implementing disparate processes and game plans is the glue or structure that binds the eclectic and sometimes extravagant planning processes into a unified community. And subsequently, into a model of a Community of Communities as outlined in Paula Cole Jones’ (PCJ) latest intellectual engagement effort of defining and building a Community of Communities.
There’s too much to unpack to fully understand what it means to engage in the Community of Communities model as outlined by PC in this brief note. Understand, however, that the auspicious planning process of the beginning of a religious educator’s program year is all about the core elements that embody those goals.
As we prepare to begin UUCM’s 2025-2026 RE program, let us lift up and embrace the imagination and capacity for growth inherent in the pluralistic, broader approach to engagement offered by coming together as a UUCM Community of Communities. Volunteer to teach, encourage student enrollment, show up, and participate.