Volume XXXIV | February 1, 2019
February 2019
Your monthly Religious Education
news & updates
Upcoming youth activities and events as well as information for members
who want to know what is going on in the youth program.

(If you do not want to receive these monthly updates you may unsubscribe
at the bottom of this email. It will not affect your regular newsletter subscription.)
February 3 - Service for All Ages
Trusting Each Other (Our Promises)

When we agree to follow the rules we make together, we are covenanting with each other. A covenant is a promise to each other about what we are going to do, and how we are going to behave. Covenants can be made on the playground. They can be made by people in families and by students and teachers in schools. They can be made in religions too. Our Unitarian Universalist religion has a covenant.
We are going to explore the history of our UU covenant, the Seven Principles, and see how they relate to each other and to us. The Children’s Choir will sing for us.

led by Steve Cooper and Wendy Cortes
Services @ 9:30 & 11:15
Youth Religious Education
Sunday Topics
Everyone starts in the sanctuary for the worship service. On days with religious education classes the children will leave after the Time to Gather with their teachers and go to their classrooms.

Our theme for February is TRUST. The weekly topics will be:
Feb. 3 - Trusting Each Other (service for all ages, no RE classes)
Feb. 10 - Offering Love and Trust: the practice of compassion
Feb. 17 - Trusting Life: you can trust life to be a friend not foe
Feb. 24 - Trust Yourself: the practice of trusting your gifts
Each week we will provide parent and family resources relating to the theme and/or topic. (see further below for more resources on Trust)
Traveling Chalice
Would you like to take the Traveling Chalice home with you for a week?
You can sign up by clicking here.

The following are included in the kit:
A handmade one-of-a-kind Chalice created for our church; Special Cloth, Battery Operated Candle, Votive with Wax Candle, Pen, Journal, Chalice Lighting Readings, and a book titled “A Cup of Light: All About the Flaming Chalice” by Pamela Baxter and instructions.
Purpose
The Purpose of the Traveling Chalice Program is to deepen our understanding of one of our most familiar Unitarian Universalist symbols. The light of the Chalice connects us all together and is a sacred element of our beloved community. The Chalice may also be used as a symbol of hope when one is feeling or experiencing a sense of darkness. We will learn about its history and how it brings people together through learning and love.

How the Program Works
Each week a family/household (not just those with children) will take home the Traveling Chalice, which will be inside a special Chalice Carrier. On Sundays, a sign-up sheet will be in Kreves Hall on the buffet cabinet near the video kiosk and online.

You may want to use the Chalice during your meals, family meetings, or as a bedtime ritual. Choose a reading from the materials provided or make your own.

Take a photo of the chalice and post it on the DUUC Coffee Hour Facebook page or send it to dre@dupageuuchurch.org
(is the Chalice on your dining room table, mantle, next to a bedside table?)

Record your experience in the included journal.
  • How did the chalice enrich your experience?
  • In what ways was the chalice used?
  • Tell us who you are and when you had the chalice.
  • if you created your own reading, you may share it in the journal.

Bring the Chalice Carrier and all its contents back to church the following week so that the next family/household may use it.
A Blessing for You & Your Home
Trust yourselves, dear ones - you are more capable than you realize, and you are not alone. May you feel empowered as you nurture a family of love, forgiveness, and support.
Resources for TRUST
These resources support parents as they live out and engage our themes with their children. Playing off our monthly theme question of “What does it mean to be a people of Trust?”, we invite parents to ask “What does it mean to be a parent of Trust” or “What does it mean to be a family of Trust?”

Each month we will provide a list of table topics which are questions based on the monthly theme that will open up discussion during meal times, family time or just time of contemplation. The first half of the questions are at a higher age level and life maturity. The second half of the list of questions (in blue text) are kid friendly. You can find the TRUST Table Topics here . Print them out and have them available or cut the questions into strips and place them in a table topic jar.


Add-on Table Topic

Name two adults you trust well enough to reach out to if you were not in a
safe situation. (See below.)


Note: Does your family use code words to help young children know when to trust
familiar adults, and to help older children to reach out to trusted adults so they
can exit fraught peer situations? Check out this article to learn if this practice is
one that would fit in your family:

Articles like these help remind us that being a family of trust can also be about
supporting one another’s safety and well being, even if we don’t like or fully
approve of each other’s actions.
You can contact Steve Cooper, Director of Religious Education at dre@dupageuuchurch.org or the Youth Religious Education Committee at yre@duuc.org