December 8, 2019 -- Crossing Paths youth visit Bethany Church

The "Crossing Paths" unit on Christianity concluded Dec. 8th with a field trip to Bethany Church. The first iteration of UU youth visiting other faith centers was called "The Church Across the Street" and was published in 1947. This visit was literally that--to the church across the street!  

I (Liza) was leading Sunday morning programming at our own church, so couldn't join in the visit.  But many thanks to Jackie Dennison for taking these photos and the facilitators for these reflections.  Thank you to Rev. Amy and the people of Bethany for the warm welcome.  And thank you to the youth for being such great visitors once again. 

From Nancy Schulz:  Our group of 11 was warmly welcomed by Rev. Amy Pitton and others. The service lasted one hour and had many features akin to a UU service (announcements, joys and concerns, hymns, time for all ages, sermon) and notable differences, also. After some social time during coffee hour, we were guided by Rev. Amy to a separate room where our youth could ask questions. The Q & A time flowed nicely and everyone seemed relaxed. Some of their questions were: 

• What is your favorite Bible story?
• Why did you want to become a minister?
• What do you like least about being a minister? 

When we returned to UCM, all had an opportunity to share impressions before we wrote short notes in a "thank you" card that will be mailed to Rev. Amy.  

Julie Bond's recap after the second session on Christianity:  

The youth seem to be now bringing in connections and questions from previous units, which is great. ie., questions about how Unitarian Universalism is related or not to Cristianity and Judaism, with some explanation that they are cousins, have some common origin/history or tenants and also trying to place them on a timeline to help them understand what came first, next, next etc. so they can begin to place Unitarian Universalism in their own mind and timeline seems to help (i.e., Christianity was born out of Judaism, Islam founded after and with reference to both these earlier religions, etc.). They have some cool connections and thinking around the content.