4. The Second Hour Church
Midwest UU Leadership
Online Workshop
September 14 & 16, 2010
Rev. Phil Lund and Nancy
Combs-Morgan
5. Is Your Congregation…
Looking at new ways to experience
Sunday mornings?
Exploring a new understanding of
multigenerational worship?
Considering a lifespan faith experience
that involves all ages?
6. What is the Second Hour Church?
At the heart of the “Second Hour Church”
is the goal for congregations to experience
worship with adult, youth and children on a
regular basis
The concept of the Second Hour Church
has been emerging in Unitarian
Universalist congregations in the last few
years due to an intentionality to be more
multigenerational
7. Some examples of UU congregations who
have become Second Hour Churches:
Emerson UU Chapel, Ellisville, MO – Rev.
Krista Taves and Lauren Lyerla, DRE,
their 3 years of experiencing the Second
Hour church was shared in, “Making
Worship A Part of Kids’ Lives,”
Interconnections, 3/1/10.
8. The Flow of Sunday Morning at Emerson
At Emerson UU children and youth come
to every worship for the first ½ hour. They
experience hymns, prayers, the offertory
and a story before they depart for a ½
hour children’s chapel.
In the second hour, children, youth and
adults take part in religious education
classes
9. First Jefferson UU Church, Fort Worth,TX
First Jefferson UU Church, Fort Worth, TX
– Jenn Nichols, District Director for LFD,
Southwestern Conference of the UUA, has
shared insights from their experience and
states… “A congregation has to have a
clear vision that it is their responsibility to
start creating lifelong UUs. If we don’t
teach them our songs, our theology, our
readings, no one else will.”
10. Sunday Morning Flow At Jefferson UU
The hour preceding worship is a
multigenerational religious education hour
for adults, youth and children.
Worship begins with everyone, and
children ages 4-8 stay in service for 20-30
minutes. Children 8 and above stay for
the full hour of service. Children under
age 4 have children’s activities outside of
worship.
11. Steps to Consider
The key leaders and religious
professionals in your congregation MUST
be on board with such a transition
With this representing a substantial
change in UU congregational culture,
Rev. Taves recommends having a
congregational vote
12. Further Steps to Consider
The Minister, Director of Religious
Education and, perhaps, members of the
Committee on Ministry have “buy-in”
leadership group meetings, in a focus
group format. To hear leaders concerns
and to address some of the scheduling,
format and space use issues.
13. Impact on Visitors and Newcomers
The experience at Emerson UU and First
Jefferson has been that newcomers are
engaged and fully welcomed in the
“Second Hour Church” format.
Newcomers are invited to Adult Religious
Education classes, and their children are
welcomed and invited to participate in their
RE classes as well.
14. Positive Results
Rev. Taves states that the results have
been “nothing short of transformational.”
Families are expressing a positive
outcome in their Sunday morning
experience.
It has “raised the bar” for
multigenerational worship
The experienced has deepened
intergenerational relationships
15. Some Challenges
At first congregational adults expressed
that they could not imagine every worship
service with children and youth
The Emerson UU youth group at first
expressed that they would NEVER adapt
to this new multigenerational format
16. Some Challenges
Both Emerson UU and First Jefferson are
congregations who have one worship
service and have approximately 100 or so
in worship and RE each Sunday.
For congregations with 2 worship
services, Rev. Taves suggests having the
RE Hour between the services.
17. The Multigenerational Congregation
Lifelongfaith.com is committed to
helping congregations develop lifelong
faith formation for all ages and
generations, increasing the capacity of
leaders and communities to nurture faith
growth for all ages and generations.
Faith Formation 2020 — an ecumenical
project to envision the future shape of faith
formation
18. Creating a Multigenerational
Culture
Michelle Richards, Credentialed Religious
Educator and DRE from South Bend, IN,
is author of “Come Into the Circle:
Worshiping with Children.” She states…
“since worship is at the heart of what we
do…then finding ways to incorporate
children into the worship service is one of
the best ways to (create multigenerational
culture).”
19. The Second Hour Church and Family
Ministry
“If your congregation is serious about
welcoming families with children…
you must intentionally create a multigenerational culture.” (M. Richards)
Families have choices. The Second Hour
church allows them to choose to worship
together and/or to solely come for the RE
hour. The choice is theirs, but the majority
of families (at Emerson UU) do take part in
worship.
20. Thoughts to consider….
How much time should a congregation devote to
this transition to having “Second Hour” church
How can the transition to becoming an
intentionally multigenerational congregation be
reflected in changes in worship and religious
education, i.e., do you HAVE to be a Second
Hour church to be truly multigenerational?
How will a Second Hour Church transition effect
attendance, and how do you evaluate your
success?
