Thoughts from the Lifespan Program Director:

Pardon Our Dust

Rev. Phillip Lund

If the Lifespan Program Area were an actual physical space you could visit, there’d be a sign in the entryway that would read: Pardon Our Dust, We’re Remodeling to Serve You Better. Because that’s what is going on right now with the program area—a complete remodeling of the programs and services we provide for the Prairie Star District.

The two biggest changes are moving Stonetree Spiritual Resources out of Lifespan Programs and into its own program area, and transforming the Committee on Religious Education into a Lifespan Faith Development Council to be comprised of parish ministers, religious educators, youth and young adult program directors, and lay leaders involved with adult religious education programs. These changes reflect the mission of the Lifespan Program Area, which is “to provide visionary leadership and high-quality lifespan program resources to congregations so that a majority of their children and youth will stay in the denomination.”

With Stonetree as a program area, Dawn Cooley, the new Director of Stonetree Spiritual Resources, will be able to concentrate on taking what Stonetree is already doing well — referring Sunday morning speakers to congregations throughout the Prairie Star District through www.stonetreeuu.org —and making it better.

And by transforming the Committee on Religious Education into a Lifespan Faith Development Council, we’ll be able to concentrate our energy on providing a comprehensive approach to lifespan faith development that will provide high-quality resources to Unitarian Universalist congregations in Prairie Star so that they can retain more and more of their children and youth as lifelong members of our denomination.

Here are just a few of programs the Lifespan Faith Development Council will potentially be working on: a Youth Ministry Initiative designed to solicit best practices for youth programming from congregations throughout the district; an online Center for Liberal Religious Families, intended to provide resources to strengthen Unitarian Universalist families and support family ministry programs in our congregations; and an online learning environment to offer adult religious education programs on ethics, UU identity, spirituality, faith development, and building the beloved community.

Of course many of the district resources that are currently in the Lifespan Program Area will remain, such as the District Resource Library (check out the latest additions at www.psduua.org/corecat), the Youth Adult Committee (YAC), and the Young Adult Network (YAN). However, beginning in January 2006 you’ll see some changes there as well.

As part of their effort to make Prairie Star a family-friendly work environment, the board has graciously agreed to allow me to reduce my workload by one quarter—for a one year trial period—so that I can spend more time with my wife and our new son, Henry David. In order to continue to provide the same level of district services, we’ll be searching for and hiring a youth/young adult ministry associate to work along with me to provide staff support for the YAC and the YAN.

I know that this is a lot of change, and change can be messy at times. So please, pardon our dust. Our goal is, indeed, to provide high-quality program resources to you, the friends and members of all ages who make up the almost 70 congregations in Prairie Star.

How to Update
The UU World Mail List

Congregations can now access online their list of members who receive the UU World .

Once a congregation logs into www.uua.org/congregation using their congregation id and password, there is a new link to help them with their World magazine membership list. The link is named View and Print UU World Circulation List. It generates a “live” list of who the UUA currently has listed as members of a congregation receiving the UU World.Congregations can print it out, edit it and add new members before sending it back to us via postal mail.

Online updating will be available soon.

Questions? Contact:
Merry Matera,
UUA Manager of Data Services
mmatera@uua.org