What We Offer Through the Lifespan

We provide children, youth, young adults, and adults an opportunity to explore, reflect, and learn in a nurturing spiritual community. Unitarian Universalist religious education programs offer all ages, inspiring:

  • Ethical growth – internalizing enduring values like justice, equity, and compassion, and gaining tools to act on them in everyday life.
  • Social growth – connecting with peers and people of all ages on a deeper level. Finding acceptance among people who see beyond the superficial.
  • Spiritual growth – feeling a connection with the sacred within, among, and beyond us.

Youth ministry programs include more than classes. On a Sunday you might find the preschoolers singing songs about kindness, the 2nd graders engaging with a story about loss and bereavement, the 5th graders talking with a Muslim couple about Islam, the 7th graders learning about responsibility and leadership, and the high-school youth raising money for the Friday Night Dinner or local garden called the St. Pete Youth Farm. Many programs incorporate social justice activities, worship opportunities, service trips, fellowship, and fun.

“Through the quiet of meditation, or through joyful expressions of dance in youth worship, young people can
connect with the divine and with each other in ways that bring out the power from within and create personal transformation. Without giving form and substance to the spiritual self then a full realization of one’s self culture cannot take place.”Looking to Our Past to Find Our Future: Foundations of Unitarian Universalist Youth Ministry, Tera Little

Our teachers and volunteers are here to help keep the light of the child-like learnability and apply it to their spiritual development. 

Students join in the sanctuary for service and depart after the “Time for all ages” segment. When they enter their youth ministry, they will have the opportunity to share the chalice lighting, bring in items to share and discuss, and expand their knowledge in faith traditions. For the group discussions, the children and youth will be split up, according to their age groups, to return together at the end of service. 

We invite you to explore these pages and contact re@uustpete.org to get connected.

Join us on Facebook!