A Little Church-less

Filed Under uuism

Ever since GA I’ve been having niggling thoughts about whether my church spiritually feeds me. Also, the DH and I have been talking a lot about children which prompts me to ask myself, when the time comes, will I want to take them to my church?

Several things I’m concerned about:

I attend about once a month, and can’t remember a single sermon from the past year. The two services I do recall with some amount of clarity were the annual youth-led service (which features homilies), and the service celebrating the New Year, in which several congregants (including myself) delivered homilies.
The separation of children and youth from adults during worship service. I’m increasingly of the opinion that weekly worship should NOT be age-segregated. This is an open question that I can’t even attempt to tidily wrap up for the rest of the world, but for me and my future family, intergenerational worships are what I desire. Certainly, there should be space for youth and young adults, and other subgroups to meet and organize, but I’d like to see worships for everyone that involve everyone. Not adult-led worships that kids have to “sit through.”
Not enough prayer or time for reflection in the worship. Out of a 70 minute service there is typically 3-5 minutes of actual prayer time, including the “silent” meditation piece.

So those are three things that are bugging me. I need to spend some time thinking about how to address these concerns. It’s important that I remain in my church and not switch to another, but this might require some creativity. Another incentive is that I’ve recently pledged to the capital campaign - for six years.

Additional note:

Once a month we have Together Time, when the kids and youth enter the main sanctuary for the first fifteen minutes of service. A pet peeve of mine is that the children’s educator asks everyone, “How are the children?” And the ADULTS respond, “The children are well.” I’ve seen this done in other UU churches, so I know it’s ‘normal’ - but what on earth is that about? It seems presumptuous - as if the adults are answering for the children. What is the meaning behind this exercise? After the children’s educator reads a story to us all, we sing to the children, instructing them to “go now in peace.” Unfortunately, we don’t really get to hear from the children and youth much at all. And then they are gone for the rest of the service. I just find this ODD. Does someone know the story behind this tradition; maybe if I had some understanding on this it would no longer bother me.

Comments

9 Responses to “A Little Church-less”

Toonhead on June 30th, 2007 4:39 am

According to one minister who gave a sermon about “It Take a Village to Raise a Child” (not the Clinton book but about communities raising children), the How are the Children? is sort of a greeting in Africa. Along the lines of Hello, how are you? Takes the focus off self and places it upon the future. If the children are well then the village is well and all the other villagers are well.

We have a story for all ages during each service. We sing the younger children out with go now in peace. The story can be a crap shoot. Sometimes the kids are interactive, sometimes the story sucks, sometimes the teller is not quite prepared. Personally, I’ve done the story that ran the entire gamut - great to sucks. I did one that actually got applause from the congregation as a whole and interaction from both adults and children (It was the tortoise and hare fable with strong visuals and comedy).

As church members we often forget to bring newer members up to speed on our community’s traditions and explain the reasoning behind a tradition. Of course, doing this on a regular basis will allow us the opportunity to question the reason behind a tradition and perhaps scrap it if it found to no longer meet the needs of the community. The segregation of adults and children/youth may be one of those traditions that are no longer meeting our spiritual needs but we are having a hard time replacing that tradition.
David on June 30th, 2007 7:00 am

Hafidha

Because of our diversity, I’ve concluded that our Sunday services alone will never satisfy the spiritual longings of a majority of UU’s. Therefore, get yourself into a covenant group or other small-group ministry.

Notwithstanding, I’m a lay member who often gives sermons at small nearby UU churches. Suppose I’m coming to your church next month. Can you give me a ‘Top 3 Tips’ list for making my service connect with you spiritually?

David
Obijuan on June 30th, 2007 8:39 am

Growing up Catholic, I have to say that I didn’t learn how to be part of a church in the classroom, I learned how to be part of a church by being in the sanctuary on Sunday. I may not have understood everything that was going on, but I understood it was important and I absorbed lessons in “how to be” with others in that setting.

I once described to my father the age segregation model so many of our congregations practice, and then mentioned that there was a lot of concern that “we’re losing our young people.” He said to me, “You’re not losing them. With a model like that, you never really had them to begin with.”

I carry that with me. I’m working on ways of bringing more young people into the sanctuary.
earthbound spirit on June 30th, 2007 10:13 am

Each church seems to have its own traditions/culture on children. My home congregation begins each worship service with the children in the sanctuary. Except for intergenerational services, the children & RE teachers leave after the offering - before the sermon. We do not sing them out. A child comes forward at the end of the offering and is handed a candle lit from the chalice. That child then leads the children & teachers out, carrying the light of the chalice with him/her. The candle is used to light the chalice in each RE classroom, subtly connecting RE to worship. Children get to “do” church, and parents get some “child-free” time. It may not be perfect, but I think it’s a pretty good compromise between total age segregation and children in church the whole service every Sunday. Oh - and infants/toddlers are welcome anytime. (Like Obijuan, my dh grew up Catholic and the near-total age segregation of our first UU church stunned him!)
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hafidha sofia on July 3rd, 2007 11:26 pm

Toonhead: Thank you for the response. I looked up this tradition of the Maasai, and learned a little more about it. This makes a lot more sense now, except that I wonder why we only say this on Together Sundays, when the children are in the sanctuary. Why not every week? Maybe I will ask the religious educator at my church about this.

David: Yes, I’m thinking more and more about finding a smaller community within the church who worships together in a way that is more personal and spiritual. I just have to find that group.

Top 3 … hmm. Off the top of my head:
1. I’d like to hear a sermon about hope and steadfastness.
2. Singing that involves call and response (instead of a hymn, although hymns are sometimes nice).
3. I like being able to see the faces of the other worshippers during the service - not the backs of their heads.

Earthbound - that sounds reasonable. I gave a sermon at a small church that did that, and I loved having the kids around for the first part of the church. They add such a good energy to the space. It just makes me feel more relevant and alive as a human being to see kids happy in the space.
Mike (dh) on July 4th, 2007 11:55 am

Devils Advocate Mike:

I am not a UU, and only know a little bit about how this age segregation stuff works. But here are my suggestions, and I would be curious how much of this is already done.

I think you should make the Sunday service even more exclusive. Take away all the youths power that remains and further marginalize them. They will accept this because they already are treated this way by most of society.

Reinforce the notion that because of their age, they are not useful to the REAL society (that is the adult one). Really emphasize that age is the discriminating factor by allowing a newly converted UU adult to join the real service, while even life long UU youth is not allowed. This and other acts can really drive home the point that it is the AGE not the NEEDS of the individual.

One danger is that the youth being allowed to have their own pretend service may end up preferring it! But you guys already part of the answer by FORCING them out at a certain age. By having the policy that they are FORCED out, you imply to them that it is BETTER to be an adult. Metaphors like maturing spiritually, growing, etc would be useful. I also like that even within the TRUE church young adults and adults are also split.

The only thing that sounds like is really missing is you need to make it much more desirable to be an adult.

This is why things like the bridging ceremony are so important. It can send the message: “now that you have earned your right to join the true church (by not dying) you are being inducted into a superior group”.

Think back to High School for inspiration. Remember how much the Freshmen are degraded? Remember how cool it seems to be a Sr? How many high school kids dread becoming a Sr and want to go back to being freshmen?

If they still want to protest the transition, just smile and think of them as children who need to be forced to give up their blanky, or the notion that santa is real.
claire on July 5th, 2007 8:12 pm

i recently read a blog entry by a young UU mother who took her ~1 year old into a service (which happened to be about humor) and the daughter was making happy gurgly baby noises. not too long into the sermon they were encouraged to go to the sterile “family” room where they could hear the piped in sermon. not a positive endorsement for UUs & kids, since the baby wasn’t even crying and still the congregation couldn’t quite handle extra noise. it didn’t take long for mom to leave, since she felt so unwelcome to be shunned into a crappy weird room because of what i consider to be highly pleasant sounds. i’m guessing this was probably a congregation that doesn’t do sunday stories for the kids…
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