November 17, 2011


Dear Parent or Guardian,

A year and a half ago, when the congregation decided it was time to have two services on Sunday morning, I called parents together for meetings to discuss how to schedule our religious education program. Many of you participated in those meetings. After laying out the pros and cons of various options, we decided to try an experiment: to offer Religious Education between services.
This format is unusual among Unitarian Universalists. We liked that we would keep our children together (knowing we did not have critical mass to run two “flights” of RE). We liked that children could attend worship with their parents, and that parents could volunteer without missing the service. We also liked that parents who were not teaching could take adult RE at the same time. We wanted to avoid the dynamic where one service was for families and one wasn’t.
This decision created two significant difficulties. One was that it pushed the time between services apart, and thus made the early service very early. Second was that we allocated only 45 minutes to RE. We worried that the shorter time might reduce commitment and bonding, but we were willing to try.
It’s good to try things. It’s even better to try, assess, and change when necessary. As Kimberlee and I have reviewed this experiment, it is clear to us that it isn’t working very well. While 5 or 6 families regularly come both to RE and worship, most don’t. Children and parents (and teachers) who only come from 10 to 10:45 get no experience of communal worship, and get a very short amount of time to do anything. The commute time can be longer than the class time. Attendance at the 8:45 service can be very low, especially when the choir sings at the later service, or in bad weather.
So we have been considering and consulting. We are prepared to shift the Sunday morning schedule, with your input. Our proposal is to have one session of Religious Education, at the early service only. This would allow the early service to move to a 9:15 a.m. start time. Children and youth would begin in the service, and depart after the first song for RE, about 9:30. RE would have a full hour and extend to 10:30, with the second service at 11.
Thus, those families who value attending worship together could still do so, by arriving by 9:30 and staying for the second service. Teachers can do the same. The staff and volunteers (including the choir) will not have to be at church quite so early, for which we and our families will be grateful. We will not have to staff the early service community time, which has proven to be a challenge. I suspect that coffee hour, by being more compact, will be livelier. We can offer O.W.L. or other special programs during the 11:00 hour.
When we considered this option a year and half ago, I discouraged it because I did not want the non-RE service to be too small. I am confident now that the 11:00 service is strong and stable, though I hope the change in time will balance out attendance a little. And I hope that many youth and children will come to the 11:00 service after RE. (To further that goal, we will limit "Children's Community Time" at the 11:00 service to children 6 and under, and move it to the preschool room.)
There is one loss with this new schedule: my ability to offer an adult program between services. But, in truth, I have found it difficult and tiring to do that as is. We can still have some adult programs (a current issues discussion group, for example) from 9:30-10:30, but they will be led by others.
Of course it is a change for you. If you are now coming at 10, we will be asking you to come at 9:15 (or 9:30 if you plan to stay for the second service). If you are coming at 8:45, you’ll get an extra half hour. In a desire for more time, the Youth Group has already started meeting at 9:30; we hope that unless they are staying for the second service they will start coming at 9:15 to join in worship for a few minutes.
This is a change, one we think will strengthen both our religious education program and our worship and communal life.
We need, thus, to hear from you. What questions do you have? What details might we be missing? What do you think?
Absent a large unforeseen difficulty, we imagine making this change sooner rather than later – probably as soon as January 8th, 2012.
So, please email, call, write, facebook, tweet, telegram, or speak in person to Kimberlee Carlson or me as soon as you can. We’ll make a decision by December 1st.


In faith,


The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle