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In
April of 1999, our congregation launched a Small Group Ministry Program
which has changed in significant ways the life of our congregation. Nearly half of our adult members are presently
taking part in this program. Our Small Group Ministry brochure
carries these comments from group members:
·
“Small Group
Ministry is the spiritual development group that I've been hoping to
find for a long time”
·
“SGM has re-connected
me to the church community."
·
“SGM has helped
me to be excited about Sunday and going to church."
·
"SGM helps me build
personal relationships."
·
SGM builds a connection
to the minister without him having to be actually present - he's reaching
out to the congregation;
·
Through SGM, we
can get to know people whom we otherwise may not have”
·
“SGM goes
beyond the coffee hour.”
·
“It's fun!”
Our Story
As I write, our membership has grown in real numbers for the
first time in years and our most recent canvass came in with a twenty-two
percent increase. There
is considerable excitement throughout our movement now over the promise
which covenant groups hold for revitalizing and growing our congregations
and societies. I will include references to material
that covers the ideas behind covenant groups in congregations. What I want to tell is what we have
done, why we did it, what we’ve learned, and why we feel it has
been successful.
The Unitarian Universalist Community Church, with a membership
of 185 adults and a church school of over a hundred children, has roots
in the Augusta community which date back 174 years.
Our present congregation is a result of the consolidation of
the All Souls Church (Unitarian) and the Winthrop Street Church (Universalist)
in 1992. I have been a
minister to this community for fourteen years, having been called to
serve the All Souls congregation in 1986.
The Meta-Church ideas began to filter into the Northeast District
in 1997. The ministers
then in the District, along with the Rev. Glenn Turner, our District
Minister, began to study the work of Carl George, a minister and church
consultant working out of the evangelical movement whose experience
and ideas on church growth are readily available in books and on videos
and tapes. Glenn’s
ideas and work on covenant groups are set out in a paper called Transforming
Our Churches With Small Group Ministry.
While I was on Sabbatical at the beginning of 1998, Glenn Turner
preached to the UUCC congregation and talked about the promise which
a small group model of congregational life might hold for a church community
such as ours. That fall, our congregation held its first
All Church Retreat at a local YMCA Camp, and the leaders wanted to invite
Glenn to come and expand on his ideas.
I was not enthusiastic. I was tired of trying to sell new approaches
to church life to the congregation, and I was skeptical of the idea
that people would commit to more meeting in their lives. It seemed to me that getting people out
to Committee meetings and church functions was already like pulling
teeth, so I could not imagine that anyone would make an open ended commitment
to come out twice a month for anything.
It turns out I was wrong.
I was wrong because I seriously underestimated the hunger in
our hearts for real community and spiritual challenge and growth.
In the fall of 1998, Glenn Turner made a persuasive presentation
at our All Church Retreat. Two
things were particularly useful, one a question and the other an observation.
Resistance To Growth
His first question went right to the nub of a conundrum I feel
we have wrestled with for years.
On the one hand, if you asked people if they would like the church
to grow, they would likely agree that it should grow. But when you really
pressed them on it, they would admit that are comfortable in the church
now, and if the congregation grew too big, they are afraid that they
would lose the sense of community and connection which they value.
Glenn posed a question that moved around this fear. He asked, “How many people are there
around Augusta who might share our view of religion, and who share the
values and goals we have in addressing society’s needs, and who
might want to be a part of a spiritual community ?”
Glenn dispersed the retreat participants into breakout groups
with this question, and when they returned I was flabbergasted. I was used to hearing people say, “Growing
ten percent might be good.”
Instead of the usually anemic percentages, people came back with
numbers ranging from 700 to 2400.
And with the Meta-church Model, Glenn summed up, you can be a
part of any size congregation, and still belong to a small group who
know you by name and know your story.
Then, with these numbers in mind, Glenn made an observation which
has become one of our guiding principles.
“People come to our
congregations seeking intimacy and spiritual growth.
And we give them committee meetings and Sunday morning worship. Neither of these adequately meets those
needs.”
Ad Hoc Planning Committee
By the end of the retreat, an Ad Hoc Committee had formed to
further explore the Meta Church ideas.
The committee included some Board members and a healthy mix of
long time members and newer faces.
This committee was active for the next six months, meeting at
the church every two weeks. Someone
would bring pizza, some brought their children, we’d start at 5:30
and be headed home at 7:00.
We set out to imagine how a small group program would work in
our congregation, given our enthusiasms for the form and our dreams
for our congregation. We
wanted to understand the Meta-church model, we wanted to know how it
really worked in a local church, and most of all, we wanted to uncover
examples of Unitarian Universalist congregations which had successful
implemented these ideas.
We began with the Carl George Meta-Church material. We got his book “Prepare Your Church For The Future”,
and assigned it as reading for a couple of members who reported back
to us. Then, together we viewed portions of some
of the Carl George Training Videos that are available.
A word of caution is in order here.
These videos were very helpful to us in putting together our
program, but this process requires some spiritual maturity. Carl George is an evangelical Christian,
and he has not been making videos for religious liberals. But the theology content is not heavy-handed,
and by taking it in stride, you will discover the outlines of a covenant
group program full of experience, and wisdom, and containing a vision
which literally can transform a congregation. The Carl George material is a gold mine.
Models
Additionally, we looked for models within our association. When we began in 1998, there were covenant
group models in liberal religious congregations. One model came from the First Parish,
in Brewster, Massachusetts which has successfully implemented a church
growth program using a wide variety of affinity groups to connect people
to each other and to the life of the congregation.
And the All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma has successfully
implemented a program based on small groups which focuses on newcomers
and is organized around a curriculum.
I consulted with the ministers in Tulsa and we put lay people
in touch with lay people; the folks in Tulsa were generous with their
time and encouraging to us in our planning.
But all in all, we did not find a model that seemed just right
for us, and so we gradually created a program that we felt would fit
our needs.
A Name
One of the first important decisions we made was deciding on
a name. Meta-church is a mouthful, and doesn’t
readily describe anything. And though the name Covenant
Groups is distinctive and in common use, it did not quite suit us.
We settled on Small Group Ministry.
This grew from a change which had been forming in our congregation for several years now. We had begun to perceive and more widely
preach the idea that everyone is called to ministry, maintaining that
the call to faith is a call to ministry, whether lay or ordained. I had trained and the congregation had
invested a number of lay Ministerial Associates, who have been trained
to help in the pastoral ministry of the church.
From the beginning, we envisioned our groups as a way that we
could better care for one another.
People would be connected at a deeper level than is possible
Sunday during the Fellowship Hour, and there would be the opportunity
to pursue some of the deeper spiritual questions which in our lives
we so rarely take time for. But these groups would also form the framework
in which we could reach out to one another in caring and support, where
we could be present in each others lives in the forms that describe
ministry.
Considering and discarding Meta-church, Covenant and Small Groups,
we arrived at the name Small Group Ministry, and we stuck with it.
Congregational Involvement
During the time that the Small
Group Ministry Ad Hoc Planning group met, we pursued two strategies
in regards to the congregation.
First, we kept our work in front of the community, through articles,
Minister’s and President’s Columns in the newsletter and with
references, announcements and sermons on Sunday mornings.
Every newsletter reported or referred to our work.
Then, we shaped our work to the formal structure of the church. Even though the President and two members
of the Board were a part of the Ad Hoc Committee, we reported regularly
to the Board We brought
an initial and then a final proposal to the Board, asking that the Small
Group Ministry Program be formally endorsed by the Board and reporting
that action out to the congregation.
All of this resulted in continuous curiosity and conversation
within the congregation and with the members of the Ad Hoc Committee,
conversation of the kind that we all know is a powerful shaper of opinion
and action in any group, but particularly the life of congregations.
We took this part of our planning effort seriously because we
believed that we were exploring a program which offered a different
paradigm of congregational life, and which held out the prospect of
transforming our church. If
it was to be successful, we would need to bring as many people as we
could along with us.
The Facilitators Role
Small Group Ministry facilitators
facilitate the life of the group. They make sure that the group starts and
stops on time, or they delegate someone to make sure. They remind people of the next meeting,
or delgate someone to do so. they
contact group members who miss a meeting to let them know they are missed,
or they ask someone to make that call.
At the meetings, they read from the Session plan and, if necessary,
guide the discussion, or they
delegate that responsibility.
There was some apprehension around the role of the facilitators,
and we were not sure just what it would entail until our groups had
begun to meet. Small Group Ministry is neither therapy
nor a course in religion. While
the process is of sharing one’s story and concerns in an atmosphere
of trust is clearly nurturing and healing, these are not therapy groups,
and the facilitators do not need advanced degrees or training. Good commonsense, which is actually pretty
common in our congregations, is the strongest qualification.
And while our Small Group Session Plans invite people into conversation
on bedrock topics of religion and faith:
such as worship, loneliness, loss, idealism, transcendence, sin,
prayer, fear, healing,
and others, the facilitator does not need to be an expert or an authority. The topics lend themselves to discussion
and the sharing of life stories, and the discussion and sharing lends
itself to learning. The
facilitator guides with a gentle hand, and often does not even lead
every meeting.
An additional and vital role of the facilitator is to maintain
the connection of the group with the Small Group Ministry Program and
the congregation. The facilitators
meet with me as a group once a month.
We consult on questions which arise from time to time. The acilitators encourage a sense of ministry
within their group, keeping people informed of events or concerns, and
encouraging expressions of caring.
And, with appropriate permission, they alert me to situations
where my presence or attention as minister might be needed.
Training Facilitators
The
first six small group facilitators were all members of our Ad Hoc Planning
Committee, and thus had taken part in the planning and envisioning which
had taken place.
Their training started with a single evening. I put up newsprint and asked them what
their fears were. We put
those on the newsprint, and by the time we finished talking about them,
none of them seemed overwhelming.
We then discussed a covenant of mutual support and support for
the vision of the Small Group Ministry Program.
I thought, and events bore me out, that we wouldn’t really
know what questions we needed to ask until we began meeting with groups.
Subsequently, leaders have come, for the most past , from within
the groups, both identified assistant facilitators and others. I meet with prospective facilitators for
two hours, go over the history of our program and the concepts of the
covenant groups, share material and answer questions.
But the real training takes place after the new facilitators
begin to meet with their groups.
I arrange a follow-up conversation, but the most valuable instruction
takes place during the monthly Facilitators meeting.
I invite a check-in and take items for discussion. But the real work is in the sharing:
stories tumble out, people relate exciting or discouraging moments,
compare notes on particular Session Plans.
The more experienced leaders share tips, and we reflect on what
we have learned and what seems to work best.
The facilitators role does not require advanced degrees, this
is not therapy. I say,
and it may be true, that the most important responsibility is to start
and to stop on time. If that does not happen, people will not
be comfortable in an open ended, long-term commitment.
Beyond that, the facilitator keeps people connected, remembers
to bring the book with Session Plans, shares responsibilities, reminds
people of our goals for ministry, and helps to make sure everyone gets
a chance to speak.
And at every meeting I remind people that this is a ministry
of the congregation, their ministry within the congregation, which has
the potential to sustain and transform lives and the life of the church.
Apprentices
In
the small group model we adopted, each group has both a facilitator,
and a facilitator in training, sometimes called an apprentice. In our initial enthusiasm to get our program
off the ground, we failed to apprehend the importance of apprentices
in the small group process. Some
groups had apprentices, some did not, some had them in name only. But the apprentices are particularly important
in two ways. First, groups
are made up of regular human beings, and people’s situations change.
Not only will the membership change due to the circumstances of peoples
lives, but with groups that continue over months, circumstances in the
lives of the leadership will change as well..
Our first difficult passage came when a group leader resigned
and we did not have an apprentice in place.
The transition was harder than it had to be, and we learned some
good lessons: to have apprentices ready and to be thoughtful in making
the transition.
The second reason the apprentices are important is that they
are the key to the expansion of a small group program.
New groups require leadership, and the people who understand
the promise and the process of Small Group Ministry are the people in
the groups. As new people become intrigued and ready
to join a group, an apprentice graduates to be the facilitator for a
new group, or stays with the existing group while the facilitator pulls
a new group together.
And it might be that one or two of the existing group goes along
with the facilitator or apprentice to the new group just to help form
a core of ministry. But
we wouldn’t call it splitting a group.
Sessions
The
Ad Hoc Planning Committee at some point turned its attention to the
content of group meetings. We
wanted a form which would invite intimacy and allow for serious and
engaging conversation on religious and spiritual topics.
We were looking for a balance of the personal and the thought
provoking. And they needed to be easy to use, require a minimum of preparation
and, from my point of view, have a form which would become a ritual
in itself without becoming unnecessarily limiting.
The Session Plans are simple:
Opening Words: Gather people in, help to settle folks
down, serve to remind participants of the special opportunity of the
gathering, and often reflect the topic of the evening.
Check-in/Sharing: Each group develops its own customs
as to length or responding immediately
or waiting until everyone is finished. Groups expand this from time to time when
circumstances call for it.
Discussion: A paragraph or two lays out a topic and
presents questions which will elicit thoughtful participation and significant
reflection. A group may
stay with a topic for several
weeks, or be done in an evening.
Likes and Wishes This is a positive format for feedback
using a brief go around the room, e.g. “I like how we approached the topic this
evning, but I wish we had moved through the sharing a little more quickly”
Not every group does this at every
meeting.
Closing Words: These bring the formal session to an end.
Those who wish to can leave while others may stay to chat.
Each Facilitator receives a loose-leaf notebook with a couple
dozen different Session Plans.
All the groups work from the topics in the notebooks, although
they can take them in whatever order they choose, and can linger several
meetings on a particular topic if it pleases them.
The Sessions are not a curriculum; they are questions on religious
and life issues presented in such a fashion as to elicit sharing, exploration,
and growth. The Sessions are designed as a door or
a path towards intimacy and spiritual growth.
I write the Session Plans, often on topics requested by groups
or individuals. It is an
appropriate use of my time and training as minister, so that the questions
are asked in ways that encourage a deeper sharing.
Sometimes individuals wish to write up a topic and in that case
we collaborate to put them into a workable form and add them to the
Sessions Book so that they are available to all the groups.
The question arises, why can’t each group just decide on
its own topics? We came
to our system from experience.
In groups which are sharing at the level of intimacy elicited
through small groups, there is a natural tendency towards disconnection
and separation; no other group could be as special as our group has
become, people begin to say. While that level of trust and caring is
admirable, this tendency leads away from, not towards, a sense of ministry
and even real spiritual growth.
It is a reason we include service as one of the components of
our Small Group Ministry.
And when groups work on Session plans which they know others
are tackling in other groups, the sense of connection is deepened and
strengthened.
That said, here is a sample Session:
Small Group Ministry Group Session Plan 21 Opening Words “Spirit of life and love, that lives
in us and in all people, be present with us this day. Help us to be grateful for all that we
have, grateful for this time of connection, grateful for these friends,
and for all who enrich our lives.
Spirit of life, be present with us as compassion, that we may
open our hearts, listen with care, and be truly present with one another. Spirit of life, be present with us as
a generosity of spirit, that we may meet the world with good will. Be present with us as vision, so that
we may see beyond this moment and beyond the limits of our own day to
day concerns, and remember, once again, that we are a part of a larger
world, and all that lives therein.
Amen” Check-in/Sharing Topic/Activity Human prayer is as old as the oldest evidence
we have of human activity. Prayers
come in many different forms: communal, personal, ritual, civic, petitionary
(other......?). And we
come with different experiences, different expectations, different attitudes
towards prayer. Share your
understanding of prayer, the experiences which have gone into that understanding,
and if you have a prayer practice, what that is like, or if you were
to have a begin a prayer practice, what you imagine that might be like. Likes & Wishes Closing “As we leave this place
and this company, may the fellowship of this circle carry us forward,
remind us of that which we hold to be most sacred and encourage us in
every hour, until such time as we meet again.
Amen”
People New To The Congregation
As
we planned for our program, and I came to better understand the promise
that it seemed to hold for us, I thought at first that it held the most
promise for new people. I
imagine being able to say to people as they walked through the door,
“Welcome, we are glad that you are here, and we have a wonderful
program which will help you to assimilate into the life of the congregation.”
It has not worked out that way, exactly. It has been members who have been around
for a awhile who make up the bulk of the group members. And, interestingly enough, the SGM, well
represented in the newsletter, has actually brought a number of people
back to the church. People
who we have been seeing less and less, but who were still getting the
newsletter. I would get a phone call asking about
the groups, saying that the small group experience was just what they
had not found at the church before.
People who are new move towards participation in a group more
slowly, on the whole. My
observation is that it takes people a certain amount of time just to
begin to feel oriented in the congregation: getting the children to
R.E., what the customs are for worship, who to speak to at Fellowship
Hour, what UUs do for Christmas, etc.
So, we enclose a brochure on Small Group Ministry in each letter
of welcome, Membership
committee members mention small groups when, as is our custom, they
give newcomers a welcoming call. and we speak of small groups at the
Board Reception for Newcomers night we hold twice a year.
But few people move right to small groups. Most want to feel
oriented to the congregation first, and after a few months they begin
to ask about joining a group.
Growing New Groups
A
part of the vision we first had for small groups, based on what we learned
from the Meta-Church material, was that when a group grew beyond ten,
then the group would split, with the apprentice or assistant facilitator
taking one group and the facilitator the other.
The Ad Hoc Planning Committee was very committed to this idea,
seeing in it both the means whereby our congregation would be encouraged
to grow, and as a way to re-energize groups over time, as new members
were added and assimilated, a ‘new’ group would be formed.
As groups initially formed, shared and bonded, in a manner, quite
frankly beyond our best hopes, the idea of splitting these now close
knit and comfortable groups quickly became anathema. And participants were emphatic in telling
us so.
I just let it go, figuring that this idea would sort itself out
in time. Frankly, I figured
that people would begin to think maybe they knew the members of their
own group pretty well, maybe even too well, and that maybe it would
be nice to get to know another group of people and expand their circle
of sharing. And to some degree, this has begun to
happen.
But, our groups have grown by another direction. Listening to some instructional tapes
by Carl George, it became apparent that a strong sense of connection
develops in groups whatever their theological orientation. In practice, it is easier to “graduate”
leaders from a group than it is to split a group.
So, I stopped talking about splitting, which made most people
nervous. Instead, from
time to time a member of a group steps forward to become a leader and
form new a group. Then, when a new person fills their space
in their first group, that group also grows and changes.
Adding New Members To Groups
Small groups, in Carl George’s
Meta-Church Model, are always open.
There is always an open seat and members are encouraged to bring
along a friend. This is how the faith is shared and how
a church can grow. And in our planning, we wanted to incorporate the
sense of openness and welcome of that model.
However, as our groups initially bonded, many participants were
nervous about the effect of adding new members, or even having visitors
to try out a session.
So it was with some trepidation that I first assigned new members
to a group, I did not need
to worry, as it turns out. That
first group incorporated the newcomer in a pretty seamless fashion. And as the months have gone by,
there has been a steady rate of turnover, for one reason or another. Every group has welcomed new members and
bid farewell to others. It
is rarely a problem, though the common sense rules of group life apply: transitions are easier if people have
advance notice and a chance to say goodbye.
The Minister’s Role
The
participation and support of the minister has been essential to our
introduction of Small Group
Ministry into the life of the congregation.
I recognize the irony here.
I was skeptical of this whole idea at first, and was brought
along by the excitement of the lay people in the congregation.
This circumstance continues to bring strength to our program; those who worked to create the program
see it as their own.
There is irony as well in the role of the minister in the approach
which we adopted. The Meta-church
material that we studied comes from a tradition which is much more hierarchical
than most UU congregations. As
we considered how the program might work, and what we wanted to accomplish,
we discussed the balance of authority and autonomy in the life of our
congregation, and the strength and weaknesses of different arrangements.
All in all, the
program we envisioned calls for more ministerial authority than Unitarian
Universalists are usually comfortable with, and it has worked well so
far. I choose, train and meet regularly with
the facilitators. I
assign members to groups; facilitators check with me on recruits or
member inquiries. I write
the sessions which guide the meetings, using my ideas, facilitators’s
suggestions, or the ideas which arise in groups.
I meet with groups from time to time, to arbitrate or to help
in adjusting to change- for instance, during a difficult change in leadership,
or as questions arose on choosing topics and setting the tone for a
particular group.
And
as important as any other thing, I am the chief cheerleader and vision
caster. Through
the newsletter and from the pulpit, by recognition and encouragement, I
keep people in mind of the fact that we are all called to ministry,
that the small groups have revitalized the life of the congregation,
that there is always room for new participants, and that the work of
the small groups is the work of the church.
All
of this takes time, of course, but Small Group Ministry is how we do
church now; this is a ministry of the congregation.
It is the expectation of the board and the congregation that
a significant portion of my time will be directed to guiding and supporting
this ministry, and that I will let other things go in order to do this.
Changes in the Minister’s
Role
It took me awhile to get to this point, and it is probably worthwhile
to digress a bit, and to speak of the changes in ministry which are
required in order for a program of shared ministry to be successful. In recent years I have come to understand
that the pastoral model
of ministry which I had observed growing up and in which I had been
trained in at seminary, has significant limitations.
It limits the size of a congregation to the number of people
that one person can, by exhausting themselves, provide direct pastoral
care to, and it suggestes that professional training and advanced degrees
are somehow required for the kind of human caring we think of as ministry. This limits the participation of the members
of the congregation, while at the same time relieving them of responsibility
for the quality of the life of the congregation.
The leaders of the congregation and I explored this, and began
to change roles and expectations.
They began to take more responsibility for administrative and
organizational work. I began to attend fewer meetings, and
concentrated more on my own spiritual life and the worship and spiritual
life of the congregation.
And, I trained and the congregation installed our first Ministerial
Associates, who began to assist in the pastoral work of the church. And through sermons and the newsletter,
we shared with the congregation our changing understanding, that all
people of faith are called to ministry and the professional minister
plays a part, but not the only part, in the ministry of the church.
This new perspective led eventually to the congregation’s
commitment to the covenant group process, and dictated our strong identification
of these as ministry groups. Small
Group Ministry is the way that people in the congregation come to know
and care for one another at a significant and intimate level. The pastoral life of our religious community
is now centered in our small groups, and everyone is now empowered to
do ministry.
Which brings me to the grieving.
A change like this requires that the professional minister give
up something which is dear and close to the heart. Not that I have no role in the life of
the small groups, not at all!
But there is grief in letting go of the pleasures and the satisfaction
of the pastoral role. As
ministers, we do not often speak of this.
But those of us who pursue the ordained ministry are, by and
large, people who care, and who take satisfaction in the appreciation
which comes with caring. We want to know what is going on, we want
to reach out and touch, we want to use our skills, we are enlivened
by the intimacy of ministry.
For many of us in parish ministry, both our training and our
inclination impel us towards pastoral care.
To give that up a part of that, to share the work of ministry
with others is to move into a new form of ministry which requires the
death of an old and comfortable form.
One story: I heard,
after the fact, that a young woman’s father died. I quickly questioned my informant: it was two months ago; the young woman
had been upset; members
of the congregation had gathered round; she was doing fine. I was devastated. First, I felt inadequate. How come I did not know about this? Did they assume I didn’t care? Then I was annoyed. Why did no one let me know? Then, I was hurt. I wanted to be the one who was there for
her! I wanted to be the
minister!
Then, finally, I became grudgingly appreciative. This young woman had been tenderly held
in the ministering embrace of the congregation. The ministry of our congregation goes
on in circles beyond my participation, beyond the limitations of my
time and attention. This is a circumstance which is to be welcomed and
celebrated.
The firmly established pastoral model of ministry is a dance
that both the congregation and the minister step to.
And to change that dance requires changes all around. The congregation needs to have a wider
vision cast for them, and they need to move forward towards that vision. And it requires of the minister some honest
reflection on how his or her own needs may keep a self-limiting model
in place.
Sharing ministry requires a letting go, and the sorrow in that
letting go is not always
acknowledged. But the difficulty of that transition
is more than overshadowed by the energy and the enthusiasm which has
been unleashed in the congregation as we have embraced a wider vision
of the ministry of a liberal religious community,
and adapted this form, Small Group Ministry, by which that vision
can be made manifest.
Service
From
the first, it was our intention that the idea of service be woven into
the fabric of Small Group Ministry.
We ask that every group, over time, take on some kind of service
in the church or in the community.
This can be simple; a group might provide the hands for a potluck,
show up for a workday, help somebody move, take on all the volunteers
positions on a Sunday morning, sign up together for the Soup Kitchen,
or provide food at a District gathering.
Small Group Ministry includes service for two reason. One is to offset the natural tendency
of small, intimate groups to become self absorbed and disconnected.
And second, because a necessary component of a life of faith is service.
This expectation of our program is challenging. Many participants are already active in
the church or elsewhere, not everyone sees the link of spiritual growth
and service, and many appreciate the minimal demand for participation:
mostly you just show up and have a nurturing evening.
But this challenge remains.
We have a Session Plan which addresses service, and most groups
find a way to participate. One
group rejected it out of hand, but they shared a valuable discussion
in the process, and I advised the facilitator to take them back to it
in six months or so. Where Our Strength Lies
I
try not to accept invitations to speak about Small Group Ministry if
I cannot have a lay person come along to speak as well, because I know
that I did not create or initiate this change,
though I have worked to make it successful. I believe the strength of our program lies in the intentional collaboration
and shared vision of the lay and ordained leadership. So, the next three sections are the words
of participants and facilitators, to convey some of their stories and
their insights into the program.
Small Groups As Ministry Comments from Small Group Ministry Facilitators
at UUCC
Ministry Groups are coordinated - they provide an interconnection
throughout the church. The
purpose of Small Group Ministry is ministry - to be the church with one another. There’s a sense that every Ministry
Group is one part of the whole church - interconnected. Small Group Ministry represents a different
level of commitment. There’s a covenant that goes with it to create
a safe space in which to explore
issues that are spiritual.
The intent is for Ministry Groups to provide ongoing ministry
to its members and to provide an ongoing connection
with the minister. This creates a true, church-wide ministry, that the
minister him or herself could never
hope to create alone while still maintaining responsibility for
the groups, which can really
help to sort out any difficulties that may arise;
Small Group Ministry provides members an opportunity to share
our spiritual development with each other.
The small groups tend not to be intellectual, as so many other
groups or meetings can be. It’s
a place to explore spiritual questions.
Facilitators Speak Facilitator: Being
a facilitator has been an enriching experience for me this year. I have
enjoyed keeping a group of wonderful people connected with one another.
I would feel much more comfortable if others in the group would share
in leading meetings so I could be more of a participant.
Facilitator: I followed the development
of the Small Group Ministry with interest for a long time before I felt
moved to join and lead a group. My group has only met six times, so
far. I am really enjoying getting to know everyone
better. I love the security
and commitment I feel in our group and within our monthly facilitator’s
meetings. Both groups
have felt like safe, supportive spaces to share some of my fears and
frustrations as well as my hopes and joys.”
Facilitator: I have learned how to be a group member,
even as I am a facilitator. Watching
my group members grow to take more responsibility for the running of
the group has been great!
Facilitator: Very positive. Facilitating is not a burden. Still allows me fully participate in the
group topic. I do feel responsible to ensure that all people are heard
and that all who wish can take part in the conversation, but I don’t
experience that responsibility as a burden. I have witnessed the promises
of SGM manifest themselves: e.g. opportunities for spiritual development,
closer relationships, deeper commitment to the church, people finding
what they were looking for when they joined the church.
Facilitator: Energizing! Allows me to make real bonds with others.
Rewarding to be part of building a caring community.
Facilitator: My experience facilitating
a small group has been very positive.
I had been a member of my small group for nine months when our
original facilitator left in February, and I was asked to step in. I was nervous at first and also afraid
that I would lose something in the role change: time to probe my own
feelings, ponder, and process.
This has not been the case. As
facilitator, I arrive at meetings with more focus than before.
(More adrenaline, too, but maybe that's what makes it work).
I find that my ability to take in what
others are saying and develop my own responses has NOT suffered--and
can only hope my fellow group members would agree.
I feel lucky that I got to know most of the people in my group
before I began facilitating; from my first meeting as a facilitator,
I felt I was among friends. Our
group is very supportive. We
are all invested in the group's success, and in that sense we are all
"facilitators." When I can't be at a meeting, another
long-time member takes over. We
decide together which topics to tackle next, and in general are very
democratic. Within the
past four months, we have welcomed three new members, and so far, assimilation
has gone smoothly. I am
impressed with how well our small group works, and from what I've heard,
our group's experience is the rule, not the exception.
Participants Speak Participant: “The small group has been important
in my life. As a new member it helped me to learn more about Unitarian
Universalism in general, and the people of the congregation. Early on I felt more connected to the
church quicker that I would have just going to church on Sundays. Also, while the groups aren’t therapy
sessions, by sharing our concerns and joys it eased the difficult time
I going through with the divorce.”
Participant: It’s
been wonderful to get to know the people in my small group. We support each other well, and enjoy
good company. We’ve
learned a lot about our strengths, weaknesses, opinions, beliefs, travels,
histories, families, friends, heartaches and joys. It is a wonderful
program that is developing better people, and a stronger and larger
community of UUs.
Participant: This
has meant fellowship and insight to me.
Every two weeks I anticipate a time to experience intimacy and
nurture my spirituality.
Participant: I have been satisfied with and have enjoyed
participating in small group.
After years of being part of the church I finally actually know
important things about some wonderful folks.
And, they know some important things about me. The fellowship has filled a great void
in my life; also, the topics
are stimulating and thought provoking.
We are very fortunate to have this opportunity in our lives.
Participant: I have found myself able to talk frankly
regarding my own feelings, something I do rarely within my family.
I am also impressed with the ability to LISTEN demonstrated by
all the members and the confidence of each person that the group is
truly listening to them.
Participant: These are positive experiences; sharing
life stories and sharing views, with quite different philosophies on
the topics in many cases.
Participant: When I come to church, it is not to sit
in the sanctuary for Sunday morning worship--I come to work. For over 20 years I have been a Director
of Religious Education, an exciting and rewarding job, but it does not
necessarily leave me spiritually nourished at noon on Sundays. My morning is filled with making sure
that our program runs smoothly, all teachers are present, appropriate
supplies are in the classrooms, and everyone’s needs are being
met. So when do I get my spirit fed, get a
chance to share my thoughts, fears, concerns, joys? Small Group Ministry has given me exactly
the right place to do all that.
Meeting twice a month with eight other adults whom I have grown
to know and care for on a deeper level, as they have me, has given me
new incentive and motivation to work for the children, youth and RE
facilitators in our wonderful, caring church community, as well as given
me a safe place to be nourished spiritually.
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