New curriculum, due in June, will fit with youth mission projects

A new curriculum for use with youth service projects and mission trips is coming soon from the United Church of Christ.

“Understanding Our Mission” will be available in PDF format the week of June 5. It’s free.

Its target is youth of high school age, said the Rev. Trayce Potter, who led the curriculum’s development. She is minister of youth and young adult engagement with the UCC’s Faith Education, Innovation and Formation team.

The ‘why’ of mission

Potter said the four-part program is flexible enough to fit with any kind of youth mission project in a local church. She said it promotes “team-building centered in Christian beliefs, understanding the ‘why’ of mission and helping to process next steps and what learnings have occurred.

“It is designed to be done over the course of four gatherings. Depending on the congregation, this can be done over four days leading up to the mission project or over the course of the weeks leading up to the project.” The PDF will include links to additional elements, such as suggested ways to use social media.

The program is also “easily adaptable” for younger people, such as those of middle-school age, she said.

Soon available for download

“Understanding Our Mission” will be available for download from UCC Resources. Interested people can look for it there after June 5 in the “Curriculum” section.

It’s a new kind of resource, Potter said, and similar ones are on the horizon. “To my knowledge we have not released a curriculum around mission,” she said. “The exciting thing is that this is the first of many that will be released by Faith INFO.”

---

Content on ucc.org is copyrighted by the National Setting of the United Church of Christ and may be only shared according to the guidelines outlined here.