Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

From the Asst. Minister of Religious Education

April 25, 2010
Rev. Dan Harper

In the essay “The Early Years of the Palo Alto Unitarian Society,” Alfred S. Niles tells the story of the beginnings of our church, and he states, “In the minds of many of our group the chief reason for forming the Palo Alto Unitarian Society [as we were then called] had been to obtain liberal religious education for their children.” And when we built our present buildings in the 1950s, we put off building a larger worship space, but made sure to build plenty of classrooms. From the beginning to the present, our programs for children and youth have been central to what we do as a congregation.

At the same time, I’m willing to bet that there are lots more families in the surrounding area who would like to be part of our congregation, and bring their children and teenagers to our programs. Given the number of newcomers who have been visiting us over the past few months, I’d bet that we could double attendance at our children and youth programs within five years. To prepare us for this possibility, last fall I helped start a Sunday school class at our 11:00 worship service — because if we’re going to double in size, we don’t have enough classroom space to limit Sunday school to 9:30 only.

The 11:00 Sunday school class is going well. We have a few regulars who come nearly every week, and some more children who come sometimes at 9:30 and sometimes at 11:00. We’ve done well enough that it’s time to start another class at the 11:00 service. Instead of lumping together all ages from 6 to 11, beginning next fall we’ll have two groups at 11:00 — grades 1–3, and grades 4–6.

Now I have three favors to ask of you:

1. If you know families that you think would fit into our congregation, please tell them about our children’s programs and encourage them to come.
2. If you might like to teach Sunday school at the 11:00 service, please let me know because I will need four more teachers come September — you’ll teach on a team with three other people using teacher-friendly curriculum.
3. If you already have children or youth in the program, please register for next year as soon as possible, indicating whether you would prefer to attend the 9:30 session or the 11:00 session.

We will send registration forms via email soon, or pick one up at the RE table on the patio at social hour.

Children and youth have always been central to our congregation. And with your help, five years from now we’ll have twice as many of them!