New Year’s is a time to reflect on how you want to change for the upcoming year. As a religious educator where the church year is tied to the school year, it’s easy for us to think the new year really kicking off in August or September. But we never should put off innovating down the road when we know we can change some things now that will improve our programs, and help our children, youth, and adults build their faith.

In 2016, there are a few words that I can tell I’ll be centering my efforts around. Relevance, Messaging, and Coaching.

How are we helping our children, youth, adults, and elders apply their faith in their everyday lives?

I keep coming back to the idea of relevance. Relevance is my top word of the year for my religious education program, and indeed, I think it needs to be the top word for our liberal faith for this year. How are we helping our congregants have a relevant Unitarian Universalist faith? How are we helping our children, youth, adults, and elders apply their faith in their everyday lives? How is our Sunday school program helping them be Unitarian Universalists on Mondays? How are we embodying our faith in the world, every day of the year? On average, Unitarian Universalists tend to think of matters of faith more cerebrally – how are we moving from the head to the hands, and putting our faith into action? How are we as individuals, and how are we leading religious education and faith development programs that centers on applying a relevant faith? If our RE programs fail to be relevant in our society, our RE programs are going to continue to dwindle.

How are we helping our children, youth, and adults apply their faith in their everyday lives? Click To Tweet

Messaging is the next word of the year. How can we take conceptual matters of faith and break them down into something more relevant in their daily lives? It’s through crafting the right message – fine tuning the message, making memorable sound bites that are easily remembered outside of Sunday mornings, and getting parents to reinforce the same memorable, relevant message throughout the week. We need to spend more time crafting the memorable messaging we use in class and in our communication with the wider world. And once we have the message we want to use, we have to present in ways that will be the most memorable. Messaging goes beyond just the words used – messaging also gets in to how those words are presented.
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How can we take conceptual matters of faith and break them down into something more relevant? Click To Tweet

Coaching implies a closer, more interactive relationship between the coach and the coach-ee.

And my final word of the year for us to focus on in our Religious Education programs? Coaching. We need to move beyond thinking of preparing our teachers as “training” and move toward thinking of coaching our teachers to become better teachers. And we need to coach our parents on how to better parent according to their values. Training implies a one shot training session, whether it be a set curriculum, a four-hour long workshop, or a book to read. Coaching implies a closer, more interactive relationship between the coach and the coach-ee. Coaching implies regular check ins and check ups to see how it’s going. It implies being in touch every week with your teachers to give them tips in how to teach better and to give them inspiration to change our students’ lives.

Coaching implies a closer, more interactive relationship between the coach and the coach-ee. Click To Tweet

Relevance. Messaging. Coaching. Three words for you to focus on this year within your Religious Education and Faith Development programs, and for all of us to consider in our greater Unitarian Universalist faith. How will you apply Relevance, Messaging, and Coaching in your Religious Education programs?

How will you apply Relevance, Messaging, and Coaching in your Religious Education programs? Click To Tweet