Hello and welcome to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Hudson Valley’s Religious Exploration community! We are happy to have you with us.
Here at the UUCHV, we offer a safe space where children and youth can ask big questions, where curiosity and wonder are encouraged and the ideas of children and youth are valued. It is here where our children begin their life-long process of spiritual discovery. It is here where our children discover the meaning of beloved community.
I look forward to getting to know you and welcome your questions as you seek a spiritual home for your family.
In beloved community,
Jane Podell
Director of Religious Exploration
Our philosophy for Religious Exploration
for Children and Youth
We value our children and youth because of their own innate worth as people and because they are the future of our community and our world.
As Unitarian Universalists, we do not seek to provide our children with ready-made answers to life's questions in the form of a fixed creed or doctrine. Instead, we seek to provide our children and youth with an environment in which they may grow up with a strong sense of values, morals, religious understanding and identity as set forth in our seven UU values.
To this end, we are committed to offering a Religious Exploration (RE) program which will enrich the lives of our children and youth, helping them to recognize and realize their full potential and build firm foundations for meaningful, ethical lives, always with a holy curiosity.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
You cannot help but be in awe when you contemplate the mysteries
of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if you try to merely comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein
Our UU values in children’s language
These values can be in any order, but JETPIG offers us an easy way to remember them by spelling out their name using the first letter of each value.
Love: Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our values.
Justice: We show up for justice, inclusion and democracy. We dismantle racist systems and build Beloved communities.
Equity: We respect and value everyone and we act to ensure that every person has the right to flourish with worth and dignity.
Transformation: We learn and grow as the world changes
Pluralism: We celebrate that we are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience, and theology.
Interdependence: We honor the web of life, protect our Earth and all beings from harm and exploitation.
Generosity: Generosity is an expression of compassion and loving kindness. It includes giving of ourselves, our hearts, our humanity, and our service.
Worship in Children's Chapel
The word “worship” is derived from the Olde English word “woerthship,” meaning “worthiness” or “worth-ship.” In its simplest concept, worship is to give worth to something.
When you hear us speak of “worship,” we speak of “that which is of worth,” giving the children a sense of community, a feeling of at-oneness with each other and the world, an affirmation of what we believe and a feeling of inspiration, wonder and awe.
The children begin their Sunday morning experience in the worship service with their families for about the first 15 minutes. In the worship service, the children ring our Tower Bell 7 times to honor our 7 values. After participating in music and meditation, they are sung out to their Religious Exploration session in Morehouse Hall. Here the children light their own chalice, share “joys and sorrows,” hear stories related to questions of importance, followed by discussion and art projects or music.
Watch this 2 minute video of our children participating in a chalice lighting during the pandemic:
our curriculum for Religious Exploration
Kindergarten through 6th Grade -- Soul Matters
We are part of a wider theme-based ministry network called Soul Matters. This group of over 150 Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country follows the same monthly themes. The themes are shared in worship, music, children's programming and in small group ministries. Bringing us into deeper connection, we are companions traveling a new journey together each month.
Listen to the Soul Matters playlist for this month's theme here.
Our Monthly Themes
How do these values offer us both challenge and comfort? What might it mean to place them at the center of our living and loving? What promise do they hold for us individually as well as collectively? These are some of questions that will guide and bless our journey in the year ahead.
Soul Matters 2025 ~ 2026
Monthly Themes
September: Building Belonging
October: Cultivating Compassion
November: Nurturing Gratitude
December: Choosing Hope
January: Practicing Resistance
February: Embodying Resilience
March: Paying Attention
April: Embracing Possibility
May: Awakening Curiosity
June: Flourishing Together
Coming of Age for Middle and High School Teens
As youth leave childhood and enter their teen years, we honor this transition with the Coming of Age (COA) program. COA is a 2 year program which focuses on helping middle school youth identify their guiding values and unique spiritual beliefs. Rather than asking young people to affirm a creed, we ask them to think carefully about what they hold to be true, and the principles that guide their choices.
The participating youth will be supported on this journey by our minister (Rev. Daniel), Director of Religious Exploration (Jane), and volunteer facilitators and members from our congregation.
Across religions and cultures, people honor the transition from childhood to youth with ritual (for example, Confirmation in the Christian faith and Bar/Bat Mitzvah in the Jewish faith). We honor this transition with a Coming of Age ceremony.
Social Action
One of the hallmarks of Unitarian Universalism is social activism. That’s because UUs have always believed we must apply our faith to the world we live in. The Religious Exploration program is designed to encourage our children and youth to become involved in social action within our community and the world at large. Social Action is integrated into our R.E. program throughout the year. See some of the good work our children and youth do in the photos below.
Interfaith Prison Partnership is a community-based interfaith non-profit organization that exists to increase awareness of the inherent value of incarcerated individuals. We created "release bags" for prisoners who will be released shortly. As we come togehter to demonstrate a shared humanity, we will remind ourselves that we are all better than the worst thing that we have ever done. We all deserve grace. We all deserve love.
Two of our youth are pictured above,
writing notes of inspiration to be placed in every release bag.
Annual Easter Can Hunt
We donate cans of cat & dog food to the Westchester SPCA
Annual Mitten Tree
We collect brand new winter accessories that are given to those in need.
Food prep for Midnight Run
Our kids work for racial justice
PRIDE in NYC
PRIDE in Yorktown
The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds irresistibly upon the young,
but to stir up their own;
Not to make them see with our eyes,
but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own;
Not to give them a definite amount of knowledge,
but to inspire a fervent love of truth;
Not to form an outward regularity,
but to touch inward springs.
~ William Ellery Channing
Religious exploration newsletter
Each Friday members and friends receive a preview of the coming Sunday's programming for children and youth. Check out what the kids have been exploring recently:
A Plain and Simple Beauty - June 13, 2025
Won't_You_Be_My_Neighbor ~ May_25,_2025
Little Rock 9 ~ May 18, 2025
We Continue Our Tradition ~ April 18, 2025
Esther the Wonder Pig ~ April 11, 2025
Wanna Know What Our Middle School Youth Did on Friday Night? ~ April 6, 2025