WEAV Training for UU Congregations: Restorative and Deepening UU practices For Educating to “Create Just and Sustainable Communities that Counter Oppressions”
Educating to “Create Just and Sustainable Communities that Counter Oppressions”(“ECO”) is a core goal of Starr King’s M.Div. and M.A.S.C. degree programs. In the ECO Core course SKSM M.Div. and M.A.S.C. students work together to form a framework for counter-oppressive spiritual leadership. It has been noted by SKSM alumni serving in congregations that a similar course is needed for UU congregations. WEAV is the curriculum designed for UU congregations for building spiritual community that involves counter-oppressive spiritual engagement.
It incorporates 1) education of systemic injustice, 2) resilience and self-care practices, as well as 3) restorative process for mending and revitalizing spiritual community when and where harm has occurred.
WEAV is a two-semester commitment. The Fall semester 1.5-unit course takes participants through the actual 10 sessions of the WEAV training for UU congregations with an additional pre and post session class, Fridays Sept. 6-Dec. 6, 2024 9:40am – 12:30pm. This experience of engaging WEAV with time for Q&A after each session and weekly reflections lays the foundation for participants to then facilitate and lead the training. It is expected that anyone enrolled in the Fall 2024 WEAV training will then lead the WEAV training in their own UU congregation during the Spring 2025 semester while enrolled in the WEAV Fieldwork 1.5-unit course.
The Fieldwork course is designed to support you as a community of leaders to incorporate learning from your own reflections on the process, joys, and challenges of facilitating and also to learn from other religious educators’ and leaders’ experiences.
Every participant will need to schedule the 10 session WEAV training in the Spring of 2025 independently with their own UU or faith community. (Each of the Fieldwork WEAV sessions is 1.5 hours in length and can be done weekly over a couple of months, or 2 sessions per weekend for 5 weeks, or however it works to schedule WEAV that allows everyone to attend all 10 sessions). The 10-session fieldwork experience must occur during the SKSM Spring semester of 2025 between the beginning of February and the end of April 2025 within your home spiritual community.
We will ask:
Who are UU’s and What is it to be UU?
What is Embodied UU?
What is the Advocacy of UU?
What is the UU Vision?
With two rounds of exploring W, E, A, and V while learning restorative practices participants learn how UU congregations can respond to the multiple and intersecting realities of injustice, suffering, and oppression in our lives and our world. What models of justice organizing and sustainable community invite our commitment? Drawing on the wisdom of SKSM alumni and educational, restorative, and Small Group Ministry processes, WEAV prepares UU congregants for deeper engagement to be bridges from the realities of UU towards the ideals of UU.
Requires weekly participation, mini reflections, and online posts, and a Final Integrative Project and Final Reflection Essay.
Relates to SKSM Thresholds: 2) Prophetic Witness and Work, 5) Spiritual Practice and Care of the Soul, 7) Educating for Wholeness and Liberation, 8) Embodied Wisdom and Beauty, as well as MFC 4) Social Justice in the Public Square.
This course has a special focus on deepening UU resilience practices, identity and vision, and embodied justice and advocacy work through a restorative framework.
Enrollment max: 20. Auditors excluded.