Using the covenant group model in young adult and campus groups

By Michael Tino

I believe that the covenant group model holds great promise for use in young adult and campus groups. While your group’s covenant will certainly work and read differently than those of other groups, the processes of developing a covenant and running a covenant group have great promise for use in young adult groups.

First, they are based on caring, listening and respect. Covenant group rules allow everyone to talk and ask everyone to listen. A trained facilitator should help keep things at an appropriate level of sharing, allowing all to feel comfortable opening up in the group. Members get to know one another and form a deep community, allowing them to care for each other even outside of the group.

Second, they are flexible and responsive to group needs. Not only is the covenant the entire group’s product, but it is designed to meet the needs of the group members. If it’s not doing that, it can always be changed. Curricula for covenant groups are written with this flexibility in mind, and with the hope that your group will take them and mold them to meet your needs best.

Third, they foster real closeness that is unavailable or uncomfortable in larger groups. Working in a large congregation and taking worship courses in seminary, I learned a lot about how some people react to attempts at intimacy in a large, public worship service. Even shaking hands with the stranger beside you is uncomfortable to some people. The sharing of personal joys and concerns in our services, as meaningful as it might get, does not generally allow for a real community response to the emotions presented. Covenant groups offer a way to build community bonds with people with whom you might not have a lot else in common. They allow their members to share at progressively deeper levels, creating real intimacy based in mutual ties to the group.

Fourth, they offer the opportunity to explore meaningful topics in depth for measured periods of time. I know some groups in our congregations that formed 20 years ago and are still discussing the same topics. I don’t think that young adults are particularly drawn to such groups. Covenant groups can use topic-based curricula for a while, be non-topical for a while, and come back to another, completely different, curriculum. They also allow for groups to open themselves up to newcomers on a regular basis, helping to alleviate the formation of closed cliques.

Finally, they’re familiar in some ways to other experiences common in Unitarian Universalist congregations. Many people who have been a part of a Unitarian Universalist youth group know the importance of “touch groups” at youth conferences. Touch groups allow people to touch base with one another amidst the hustle and bustle and mega-communitybuilding that goes on at those cons. Covenant groups do a similar thing— consider them life touch groups. At each meeting, covenant group participants have the opportunity to check in and let others who care about them know what’s going on in their lives. They allow us to admit when we’re going through a rough patch, and to support our friends when they are.

I hope that you, too, will find this model well suited for forming and leading groups in your congregation or on your campus. We are truly blessed to have as our manual this wonderful resource created by Rob Cavenaugh, to which I’ve added a few sections from my own experience. I trust that it will become your companion in introducing covenant groups to your community.

-- Michael

Michael Tino was the Director of the UUA's Young Adult and Campus Ministry Office