REflections
with Nathan Ryan, Director of Religious Education

December 2006

Anyone who has met me knows that I am not shy about sharing my joy with our Unitarian Universalist faith to anyone who will listen. It has helped me grow into the person I am now, and given me many great gifts. During this holiday season, I can't help but reflect on some of the gifts our faith has given.

Our faith has saved thousands of people's lives. The Unitarian Universalist Association, using donations from our church, spent years writing "Our Whole Lives" – a comprehensive lifespan sexuality education curriculum. It teaches children, youth, and adults using real facts and information, not just scare tactics or a "just say no" mentality, how to avoid unwanted pregnancies and STDs like AIDs. It goes further than most abstinence-only-based curricula to teach about all aspects of sexuality, not just health and reproduction. It teaches students how to have healthy relationships, how to recognize unhealthy relationships, and how to identify one’s own sexual and gender identities.

We have also been strong advocates for gay marriage. Our church has made love its doctrine, standing firm and telling all gay people they shall not be separated from their God-given right to marry. We believe that all people, regardless of their sexual and gender identities, should have the right to be in loving, committed, consensual, healthy relationships.

And I am thankful to our church on a personal level. Last month, Lauren and I were married here at Live Oak, which would not be possible were it not for our Unitarian Universalist faith. As youth we were both active in Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU for short). We first met at a district youth rally. While in college, we met again at our district's Fall Conference and decided to start dating. And now we are married. Were it not for this religion we would have met or had the support to build a strong and healthy relationship. For this I thank each and every one of you.

October 2006

When I first moved to Austin, I went shopping for a Unitarian Universalist church. I was looking for a warm community of spiritually progressive people to share my time and energy with. When I met Live Oak in 2002, it only had 90 members. It lived in a storefront and because of the lack of space, the children and youth met in a different part of the building.

In June of 2003 Live Oak moved into its new building on El Salido Parkway. I always knew that Austin needed a liberal, creedless ministry that openly preached compassion and justice from the pulpit, but I never imagined the community needed it this much. Right now, a little over three years after we moved, we have ballooned to over 190 members! That is unheard of growth in UUism.

Austin has been calling for our message and we finally have the ability to share our good news. The problem with a church that grows as quickly as ours is that there isn’t time for the church systems and culture to catch up. In many ways we are still thinking and acting like a small church.

As we grow we need to be intentional about how we do things. We need to look at how our church works to make sure our ministry can get to all of the people who desperately need it. On October 7 we will take a step towards that. We made an arrangement with the SWUU District to send a program consultant who specializes in RE to our church. She will spend all day leading a workshop called a New Director of Religions Education Start-Up. Church members will share their experiences with Live Oak Religious Education and their vision of the future of this very important and precious ministry. Please come and make sure your voice is heard and that our ministry can get to all of the people who need it.

Nathan Ryan, DRE

September 2006

We are excited to start another year of Religious Education at Live Oak. This year’s program will start September 10. Because we need to know how many people to expect each week, please make certain your child is registered for the upcoming year.

Pre-Kindergarten & Kindergarten: Spirit Play

Spirit Play is an exciting new way of looking at religious education. This Montessori based curriculum teaches children about Unitarian Universalist culture, heritage, and values through stories.

1st & 2nd Grades: Treasure Hunting

Using the theme of treasure hunting in a concrete way, this curriculum involves children in the excitement of the search for the meaning of life. It addresses issues that children face daily, explores the meaning of UU principles and values, and emphasizes an accepting and caring community.

3rd & 4th Grades: We Believe

Building on the seven principles of UUism, this curriculum works on the very foundation of our faith. We Believe encourages participants to incorporate the Principles into their lives.

5th & 6th Grades: You the Creator

Creativity is unleashed as participants discover they are part of the creative forces in the world. Participants will gain a better understanding of their own faith through seven major themes, including: Religion & Creativity, Religion & Creative Arts, Arts & Creativity, Creativity & Self, Practical Creativity, Universal Creative Force, Creativity for All.

7th & 8th Grades: Compass Points and the Twilight Zone

Youth will journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. There’s a signpost up ahead. Your next stop: The Twilight Zone! Participants will learn about spirituality and morality through famous UU Rod Serling’s television show The Twilight Zone, and a wonderful brand new curriculum, Compass Points.

High School: Our Unitarian Universalist Faith

Youth will learn how to express their faith through the Articulating Our Unitarian Universalist Faith curriculum. They will also learn about Our American Roots with a curriculum of the same name.

August 2006

The oldest church in our Southwestern UU Conference was founded in 1833. A Presbyterian minister named Theodore Parson Clapp, who was excommunicated from his church for preaching universal salvation, was its founder. Because Clapp was dedicated to civil rights – for example, he was fined $20 in 1821 for presiding over a ball for slaves and free people of color – the church has always embraced a culture of social justice. This church has always been a strong voice for civil rights and religious tolerance in the heart of New Orleans.

This past year, however, First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. The entire first floor was flooded for a little over a week. For months every pew, hymnal, curriculum, and piece of furniture was covered in a black mold that crept up the walls of the church. The church’s members have been scattered all over the country; many lost everything and haven’t been able to return. To this day, nearly a year after the storm, the church is still unable to meet in its building. The sanctuary and entire first floor are stripped of anything that marked it as a church. It is just a skeleton of a church. This tragedy hurts my heart strongly because this is the church that my family calls home.

I am proud to say that this August, Live Oak is going to make an effort to help. On August 3 a group of youth and adults will travel to New Orleans to help rebuild part of the church. They will stay on the second floor on air mattresses and cots.

For anyone interested in going, there will be an orientation in Room 205 on Tuesday, August 1, at 7:00 pm. If you are interested in helping, please email me at DRE@liveoakuu.org.

Nathan Ryan
Director of Lifespan Religious Education

July 2006

Unitarian Universalism has always been on the cutting edge of social reform movements. We have always stood up for justice, sometimes in the face of great adversity.

Unitarians and Universalists were instrumental in supporting the Underground Railroad. Rev. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister, wrote To a Southern Slaveholder, a book advocating abolition in 1848. He was known to have fugitive slaves living at his house and attending his congregation (which had grown to over 7,000). His parishioners included Louisa May Alcott, William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

In 1965 James Reeb, a UU minister, was killed on what was later dubbed “bloody Sunday” in Selma, AL, after a civil rights march. In 1994 Lt. Col. James Barrett, a UU in Pensacola, FL, was killed on the eve of his 75th birthday, by a protester as he was escorting a doctor to an abortion clinic.

Today our call towards social justice work grows louder and louder by the day. Rev. Kay Greenleaf, Rev. Marion Visel and Rev. Dawn Sangrey, UU ministers, were charged with solemnizing unlicensed marriages after they officiated same-sex marriages in 2004.

As you are reading this, our elected officials are trying to keep children in orphanages, rather than let same-sex couples adopt them. They are talking about rounding up millions of people for deportation and making it illegal for churches to give food and water to those same people, even if they are starving. As you read this, our elected officials are allowing our air and water to be poisoned by chemical companies. As you read this, hundreds of thousands of displaced Gulf Coast residents are still without homes, due in large part to the aforementioned poisoning of our air and water with greenhouses gasses.

As UUs always do when faced with injustice, we are speaking up, acting out, and taking a stand. A UU friend of mine works with Arizona UU and Presbyterian churches with the Sanctuary Movement. He drives around in the desert with a pick-up truck full of food and water to give to starving and dehydrated immigrants who would die in the desert without the help. Our own church has become a Welcoming Congregation, telling people of all sexual orientations and gender identities that they are welcomed in our community. This summer a group of our own youth will travel to New Orleans to help with relief work in the communities surrounding the First UU Church of New Orleans. Our movement is doing great work, and I encourage every one of you to join in. Write a letter to the paper, call your congressional representatives, go see An Inconvenient Truth, eat less meat, recycle, advocate for those who don’t have a voice, call a radio show to express your views, only shop at stores that support just causes. There are plenty of ways for us to live our UU values. Please help make this a faith I am proud to call my own.

Nathan Ryan, Director of Religious Education
 

June 2006

Growing up, I was a member of a small and upcoming Unitarian Universalist Society in southeastern Louisiana. It was a family-friendly church in the suburban greater New Orleans area whose minister was both dynamic and caring. In many ways it reminds me of Live Oak and is part of the reason I originally joined this church. On a recent visit to Louisiana, I found myself in conversation with a friend about the church’s history and its effects on some of its members. The conversation turned to what a kid I knew growing up, Gary, was doing.

Gary was a very kind and caring kid. His parents were very active in the UU church and dedicated their lives to the service of others. I have fond memories of Gary as we always went to Sunday School together. In high school both of us broke away from the church, mostly because of a lack of a consistent program for youth. I found a very active youth group in New Orleans and I committed myself to two hours in the car each week in order to attend. Gary wasn’t so lucky. He lived a little further away from New Orleans and spent his high school years unchurched.

Gary now works as a veterinarian and is still living in the New Orleans area. He is not, however, dedicated to the UU faith any more. He found a church that could encourage his need for religious tradition, spirituality, and theology. He is now a fundamentalist Christian and attends church weekly.

This story is all too familiar, unfortunately. We do a very good job as a church of attracting converts from other denominations, but do not do well at all at retaining our own children and youth. The UU Society I attended growing up did not have the resources to offer a solid religious education program. It left many of its children and youth with little knowledge of their UU roots, heritage, or values.

Live Oak is in a unique position. We have a Religious Education program that is the size of one at a 600-member church. It requires about 50 to 60 teachers just to sustain the program. If you are interested in helping with this very important ministry, please let me know. A solid RE program can help to change the world.

We still need:

Nathan Ryan, DRE

May 2006

Children are watching. What are they learning?

I used to work as a youth mentor at The Mountain Retreat and Learning Centers in Highlands, North Carolina. It is a year round UU facility that trains congregations, hosts retreats, educates people on social justice, and holds youth camps, among other things. It is what I hope the U-Bar-U center will become over the next ten years. At The Mountain, in every building, there is a sign that reads, “Children are watching. What are they learning?” I would like to bring that question to Live Oak.

We offer some great religious education curriculum in our RE classes. We teach our kids about respect, social justice, religion, non-violence, and democracy. The curriculum, however, is meaningless if the same lessons aren’t being taught and lived in the larger church community. Children learn the most not through what is told to them, but through what behaviors are modeled for them. Modeling is the important job of the church.

If we teach in class that you are supposed to respect all faiths, but as the child walks into the Fellowship Hall she hears a group of people bashing the Baptists, what have we actually taught her? If we teach in class that you are supposed to treat each other with respect, but the child playing on the playground sees a parent yelling at her child, what have we actually taught him? If we teach that we should always work for social justice, but when shopping with their parents they see them pass a locally-owned store to buy a pair of socks at Wal-Mart for 25¢ less, what have we taught them? If we teach that we should try and save the earth, and she sees us not recycling, what have we actually taught her?

Our church does many things right. We value religious education. We help in the community with events like Hands on Housing. We are more affirming of Christians that I have seen at a lot of UU churches. When needed, we give with more than our hearts – over $5,000 to Katrina relief, for example. My intention is not to criticize our church. My intention is to make certain we are, as a faith community, instilling in our children values both inside and outside the classroom. I would like to see our congregation truly live out a non-violent, social justice-centered, earth-friendly life. Next time you are at church, think to yourself: “Children are watching. What are they learning?”

Nathan Ryan, DRE

April 2006

It’s April and summer is quickly approaching. Families are starting to go to their kids’ end of the year con­certs and recitals. Youth are getting ready for finals. And Live Oak’s Religious Education school year is drawing to an end.

May 21 is the last day of regular RE and it has been a great year. There were many successes and I’m proud to say that our ministry has reached over 200 chil­dren and youth.

With the end of the school year comes the start of Live Oak’s Summer RE Program. Every summer we offer a program that is different from the school year’s program. Year round teachers are given a break from teaching as we ask other members of the congregation to volunteer to staff the summer program.

This summer we will teach our children about peace, and Janet Van Sickler has agreed to be our summer program coordinator. Throughout the summer there will be three rotating classes: Peace Through Art, Peace Through Music, and Peace Through Story­telling. We will also offer field days and fun activities for the kids through the year.

We cannot put on this program alone. This summer we need:

This is an exciting time and we hope Live Oak can help bring a little bit of peace to a world that is in great need of it. If you are interested in helping, please contact me at dre@liveoakuu.org.

Nathan Ryan
Director of Religious Education

March 2006

Who has impacted you over your lifetime? Was it a parent? A teacher? A friend? How much of your values have you gotten from them? Would you say they have changed your life?

I know I have a handful of people who have had such a wonderful impact on me that they will never be forgotten in my heart or my actions. I would like for you to think about who has impacted your life and made you a better person for it.

Every year at Live Oak, people make a sacrifice to better the world. This year roughly 50 people have given up time, worship services, fellowship, and much more. Their sacrifice is making sure Live Oak’s children and youth are better people and have the skills to make this a better world. These teachers are:

·         Nursery: Areen Bissar, Megan Todd-Thompson, Nisa Sharma, Cindi Arms, Sue Ayers, Kai Coney, Del Coney, Jim Gardner, Melissa McMillon, Theresa Pearson, Michelle Billet, Melissa Martinez, Kim McCollum, Bridget Giunta, Judy Snape, Karen Walk, Cris Yackle, Mark Bishop, Sara Davis

·         Pre-Kindergarten/Kindergarten: Tara de Cardenas, Diane Schultz, Kathy Bishop, Tere Kaulfus, CaseyDawn Marsalis, Juanita Moshier, Joyce Phelps, Ritamarie Loscalzo, Doug Schaefer, Courtney Havenwood

·         1^st and 2^nd Grade: Jen Bryan, Stephanie Walls, Elaina Thiemann, Ed Boissevain, Mark Walls, Stephanie Kendall, Lonnie Lepp

·         3^rd and 4^th Grade: Siboné Jacques, David Hainsworth, Kathi Lunny, Brian Winklemann, Bryan Powell, Karen Jenkyn, Mary Mirto, Jon Porter

·         5^th and 6^th Grade: Teresa Carr, Mary Pritchard, Kirby Kendall, Barbara Coldiron

·         Middle School: Pat Connor, Lauren Ingram, James Hamilton, Patty Bissar

·         High School: John Iacoletti, Mary McIntosh, Katherine Enyart, Ravi Chandran, Vince Hostak, Leah Korn

Nathan Ryan, DRE

February 2006

Starting February 21, Live Oak will offer a groundbreaking opportunity at our church. The cleverly named FRED – Fellowship, Religious Education, and Dinner – program will offer a family-friendly evening program every Tuesday night for eight weeks.

The event will start off with dinner from 5:30-6:30 pm. There is no charge, but donations to help cover the cost of food and childcare would be welcome. Dinner will be followed by a brief worship service in the Fellowship Hall. From 7:00-8:30 pm there will be various activities for the whole family.

The current structure of our church is not as family friendly as it could be. For lack of funding and staffing, most committee meetings and adult education classes do not offer childcare. For a member with kids to attend an event at Live Oak during the week, s/he must have either another parent to look after the kids or enough money to hire a babysitter. Because not all of our families have two parents or the finances to afford babysitters, many people are excluded from our church events altogether. The way our structure is now – a different Adult RE class or committee meeting each night of the week – two-parent families still feel the strain of weeknight church involvement.

FRED is an opportunity to open our church’s doors to all of those with families. Because all of our Adult RE classes will be offered on Tuesday night, we will have the ability to offer childcare for the littlest kids and religious education or activities for the school-aged kids.

FRED needs about 20-30 volunteers to run successfully. We need people to organize childcare, kids RE, adult RE, worship, etc. We need people willing to teach, cook, lead worship, and much more. Right now there are five or six people organizing this great opportunity. If you are interested in helping, please don’t hesitate to call or email me.

Sign up for the classes is in the narthex on the Adult Religious Education bulletin board. Please sign up early to make sure you have an opportunity to attend.

Nathan Ryan, DRE@liveoakuu.org, 219-9008, ext. 7

January 2006

Everyone needs to be saved. It is becoming more and more apparent in these trying times. We need salvation more now than we have in a long time. What have you done to make sure someone you know is saved? Do you think it’s enough?

We need to make sure we are saving as many people as possible. Right now, young people are being lied to about things that could kill them. They are being intentionally kept in the dark about things that can ruin their lives. Our job as a religious community is to save these youth from that fate.

In society and even in our schools, youth are not being told how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Kids are left alone to figure out most aspects of their sexuality. Some of the time these youth, lacking the resources to get the information they need, wind up making mistakes that can cost them their lives.

It is unacceptable that in the 21^st century, kids are dying due to a lack of information. It is about time we start saving these kids’ lives. They need salvation, and our church is offering it.

This January, Live Oak is going to save middle school and high school youth. We are going to offer them something they usually don’t get in their schools: information. We are going to teach Our Whole Lives, a comprehensive sexuality education class. This class covers more than sexual health and reproduction. It teaches gender identity, how to have a healthy relationship, how to avoid objectification, and much more.

Copyright ©2006, Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church.
Last edited Friday, September 21, 2007 08:41 PM by webmaster@liveoakuu.org