YouthSpirit is where our children grow spiritually with fun, friends and fellowship on Sunday morning. Our hope and mission to give families “more in life” (to glean a phrase from Robert Fulghum) begins on Sunday when WellSprings’ children engage in meaningful activities designed to encourage faith practices and spiritual awareness.

Enthusiastic WellSprings members serve as YouthSpirit Mentors and lead interactive classroom experiences and spiritual workshops designed to be integrated into life beyond Sunday morning, becoming a part of family life – in conversations, in more intentional time together, and in practices that sustain meaningful daily living.

Deeply rooted in WellSprings’ Core Values and Beliefs, YouthSpirit meets in Sunday morning groups from September to May. In summer, YouthSpirit fellowship time provides outdoor fun, arts and crafts, and SpiritFlix for Kids in a large group setting.

Beginning September 2011, YouthSpirit is delighted to offer five children’s groups for toddlers through 8th graders every Sunday morning, at both the 9:30 AM and 11:00 AM worship services. YouthSpirit Nursery and Pre-K is the fun place where babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers come together for fun and creative play with two loving caregivers each week. This fall WellSprings’ Kindergarten and First Grade, Second and Third Grade, and Fourth and Fifth Grade groups join in fellowship and journey together in “Celebrating Our Abun-
dance;" and the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Grade group enters adventurously into “Spiritual Survivor.”

There’s lots of fun in store in YouthSpirit this year, and we’re excited to offer a place where our children “feel the rapture of being alive,” (Joseph Campbell). Join the fun and reach out to Becky McAndrews, YouthSpirit Director, at becky@wellspringsuu.org or 610-280-3797 to learn more about WellSprings' YouthSpirit and YouthGroup.

In the words of the late Rev. Forrest Church, “The time we waste on wishful thinking or regret detracts from the time we might devote to being grateful for all that is ours, here and now, to savor and embrace.” These words, weighty in intellectual capacity, challenge us, as adults, to pause. They ask us to stop wishing for what isn’t, and be grateful for, and actually savor, the abundance that is here and now.

Daunting? Yes, it can be, should we endeavor into this spiritual practice alone. We are blessed, though, with some intelligence; and, even more blessed to be in spiritual community where we can “unpack” these words, and lovingly hold each other to their promise.

YouthSpirit “Celebrating Our Abundance,” offered from September through January this con-
gregational year, creates a place where our YouthSpirit kids can unpack “being grateful for all that is ours, here and now” lovingly and together, and explore a spiritual journey in grati-
tude for the gifts we have. “Celebrating Our Abundance” offers both traditional classroom and spiritual workshop experiences in the course of nineteen weeks, where our faith will come to life within our children’s sacred community. Together, we’ll journey into faith practice, and discover real ways to tap into and fill our kids’ “God-shaped holes” and deepest yearnings.

YouthSpirit is committed this 2011-2012 program year to develop true and achievable faith practices with our kids. Did anyone ever ask you what it means to be Unitarian Universalist? Or, just ask you if you go to church, and what your church is about? You can bet our kids have similar experiences, and we wonder just what their answer might be. Each week this year, our Sunday YouthSpirit sessions will open with a regular ritual that is designed to give our kids simple language to define our faith, and we’ll nurture regular spiritual practice through engaging in age-appropriate periods of stillness.

Regularly grounding ourselves in community spiritual practice, we’ll enjoy fun and meaningful classroom activities interspersed between “Celebrating Our Abundance Workshops” in October and January. In class, we’ll practice presence each week, sharing our own spiritual gifts; and build community, nurture friendships, create the freedom to be ourselves, and engage in group activities that help us fill our growing hearts. Spiritual Workshops, designed to build on a child’s natural affinity for play, creativity and spirituality, provide free-space for YouthSpirit kids to express themselves, and their faith. Here, we’ll tap into our kids’ capacity for soulful experience through music, creative cooking, dance, art, drama and exploring the natural world.

And so our journey begins this year, with hope and prayers for exciting and meaningful sessions with our YouthSpirit kids. We know where we’re starting, with a road map in one hand, and faith in the other. We can only imagine, in the realm of what is, what our kids will glean along the way.

At WellSprings, one of our Core Values is “Living with Integrity.” We listen deeply to ourselves and to the world around us. Humbly, and openly, we evaluate where we are in the hope of going where we are called to be. Grown-ups ponder these words, and practice mindfulness toward fulfilling them. Middle School age kids, in the realm of pop-culture and youthful optimism, are just beginning to develop discernment between what’s right and what’s wrong, and gain some autonomy in making their own decisions.

“Spiritual Survivor” is about meeting today’s challenges with the courage and integrity to make spiritually healthy choices. In the 2011-2012 congregational year, YouthSpirit for 6th-8th grade kids is designed to tap into kids’ capacity for soulful experience and “God-shaped holes” and share the necessary spiritual tools to survive in today’s complex world. Week-to-week, we’ll identify our own strengths, and set weekly goals that build toward acceptance where everyone stays on the virtual island. “Spiritual Survivor” promotes compassion, kind-
ness, forgiveness, and courage in the face of peer pressure, test-stress and ever changing, readily available electronics.

Regularly centering in contemplative practice, we’ll enjoy fun and meaningful classroom activities interspersed between “Spiritual Survivor Workshops” in October and January. In class, we’ll practice presence each week, discern our spiritual strengths; and build com-
munity, nurture friendships, encounter challenges, express gratitude for spiritual friends, and determine, together, what makes a "good" choice. Spiritual Workshops, designed to build on personal creativity and spirituality, provide free-space for kids to write their own story, in faith, through creative writing and drama.

Our passage begins this fall with hope and prayers for a cool and meaningful adventure with our YouthSpirit Middle School kids as we grow together toward spiritual depth, faith practice and learning to live well.