Religious Exploration (RE) Guide, Middle School focus (hourly)

Position Overview

Grounded in San Gabriel’s mission and vision, the Religious Exploration (RE) Guide facilitates meaningful, engaging religious exploration experiences with a primary focus on middle school youth (6th-8th grades), in collaboration with the Director of Religious Exploration (DRE). 

San Gabriel’s Religious Exploration program is rooted in relationships, curiosity, community, and the freedom to explore. Our program prioritizes children’s agency, emotional regulation, authenticity, and meaningful connection over behavioral compliance. We value mixed-age community experiences while also recognizing that middle schoolers benefit from opportunities for deeper discussion, growing independence, and strong peer relationships.

We are seeking a Guide who genuinely enjoys working with middle schoolers, can inspire thoughtful conversation and engagement, and is comfortable facilitating experiences that are flexible, responsive, and shaped by the young people present. 

Our Approach to Religious Exploration

Our Religious Exploration program nurtures social-emotional, spiritual, and interpersonal growth through practices that encourage self-awareness, cooperation, empathy, and community connection. We draw from diverse religious, philosophical, scientific, and cultural sources. 

We seek Guides who affirm neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ children and youth. Our approach is nervous-system-aware, autonomy-supportive, and respectful of each young person’s identity, privacy, and developing sense of self. We center relationship, choice, and trust. 

Meaningful participation takes many forms. Guides offer thoughtful invitations, follow young people’s curiosity, and recognize that a consistent, caring presence can be as valuable as a planned activity. 

Guides do not need to identify as Unitarian Universalist but must be comfortable embodying the Fellowship’s values and supporting children and youth as they explore their own questions, beliefs, and understanding the world. 

Specific Responsibilities

• Facilitate wisdom stories, thoughtful discussions, hands-on activities, games, and opportunities for peer connection tailored to middle school youth, responding flexibly to their interests, needs, and choices. 

• Support youth in choosing how to engage, whether through middle-school-specific offerings, mixed age projects, games, or unstructured social time. 

• Participate in our shared RE community, including opening and closing circles, with flexibility as our program grows and evolves. 

• Build trusting, supportive relationships with middle schoolers and foster an environment where each young person feels valued, respected, and included. 

• Collaborate with the DRE and other Guides to respond to changing attendance, group dynamics, and staffing needs, occasionally supporting younger age groups when appropriate.

• Maintain a safe, welcoming, affirming environment grounded in community over compliance. 

• Communicate comfortably and respectfully with caregivers during Sunday pickup and with the DRE regarding program needs. 

Curriculum and activities are selected and provided by the DRE, ready for facilitation during Sunday RE. 

Eligibility & Church Membership

Paid staff belong to this community through their employment rather than through formal membership. For that reason, this position isn’t open to formal members of the Fellowship, which includes everyone in a member’s household. We don’t permit resigning membership in order to apply. Visitors and newcomers who have not joined are permitted to apply, understanding the trade-off: upon hire, a staff member and everyone in their household are members of this community, but are all ineligible for formal membership in the congregation for the duration of employment. This policy prevents conflicts of interest and protects clear employment accountability and pastoral responsibility. Staff and their households belong fully to this community; what the policy intentionally restricts is participation in formal governance.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Experience engaging, mentoring, facilitating, or working with middle school-aged youth in educational, recreational, community, or other settings. 

• Ability to lead engaging activities and facilitate thoughtful, age-appropriate conversations while remaining responsive to young people’s interests and needs. 

• Commitment to neurodiversity-affirming, LGBTQ+-affirming, and autonomy-supportive practices. 

• Comfortable working in a flexible, collaborative environment where attendance and group needs may vary from week to week. 

• Commitment to child safety, appropriate boundaries and congregational safety policies. 

• Ability to successfully complete a criminal background check. 

  
  

Employment Terms

• Start Date: November 2026, or as soon as possible thereafter.

• Initial Employment Term: Through June 2027, with continued employment anticipated based on mutual fit and congregational needs.

• Schedule: Approximately 2-3 hours on Sunday mornings.

• Compensation: $25 per hour, paid as W-2 hourly wages. 

• Additional Hours: Occasional paid opportunities may be available for special events and child-care during congregational meetings

About San Gabriel UU Fellowship

Our Mission: We are a congregation that welcomes all, promotes personal and spiritual growth, and works for a just, peaceful, and sustainable world.

Our Vision: Together we are building beloved community where all are valued. 

San Gabriel UU Fellowship is a growing congregation that values children and youth as essential members of our community. We are deeply committed to providing a Religious Exploration program that honors their individuality, nurtures meaningful relationships, and gives them room to grow. 

Unitarian Universalist Values:

In 2024, Unitarian Universalists voted through a democratic process to describe Unitarian Universalism through a set of inseparable and deeply interconnected shared values, all centered around LOVE.

• LOVE AT THE CENTER: our deepest faith is in the power of love: to guide, to heal, and to co-create a just, peaceful, and sustainable world.

• Interdependence: We honor the interdependent web of all existence and acknowledge our place in it. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it. We work to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.

• Pluralism: We are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience, and theology. We learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.

• Justice: We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all feel welcome and can thrive. We work to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. We support the use of inclusive democratic processes to make decisions within our congregations, our Association, and society at large.

• Transformation: We adapt to the changing world. We collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically. Openness to change is fundamental to our Unitarian and Universalist heritages, never complete and never perfect.

• Generosity: We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.

• Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion. We use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.

  
  

How to Apply

We are hiring now for a November 2026 start. Applications will be reviewed as received, and the position will remain open until filled. To apply, please email a résumé or brief summary of relevant experience, along with a short introduction sharing your interest in the position and what you enjoy about working with middle school-aged youth. 

Send applications to minister@sangabrieluu.org with the subject line “Middle School RE Guide Application.” References will be requested during the hiring process.