The CUCC high school/young adult class meets weekly during worship.  Led by one or more adult facilitators, the class often features video and podcast excerpts related to the discussion topic.  We welcome all viewpoints and value asking tough questions more than pretending we have all the answers.

Typically, each year features a theme that is discussed at intervals.  In 2013-14, we asked:  What does it mean to be a Christian?  Do you have to believe certain things?  Be “born again?” Live in a certain way?  We concluded there are a lot of different answers to that question.  In 2014-15, we studied creation stories from different religious traditions – the two very different creation accounts in Genesis, as well as stories from ancient Greece and native cultures.  We found valuable “truths” in all of these stories even though none of us believed in the literal truth of any of them.  In 2015-16, we are reading several of the parables of Jesus and talking about what they mean for us today.

We often discuss contemporary issues in the news.  We recently watched the Twilight Zone episode The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and talked about our country’s response to terrorism.  Earlier this year, we took the Harvard Implicit Association Test to learn about our own subconscious attitudes on race and then talked about the recent police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement. We’ve watched the movie Dead Man Walking and talked about capital punishment.

As with CUCC generally, all young people are welcome in the class regardless of religious belief or practice. We’ve had students who identify as Christian and others as agnostic or even atheist. Our goal is to take the Bible seriously but not literally and to abide by Jesus’s commandment to treat each other with the respect that we want for ourselves.