Why small discussion groups?

At times when our own light goes out it is rekindled by a spark from another. As people with a passion for a just and peaceful world we need a supportive place to nurture our visions of hope and our anxieties about the future. It’s through our relationships that our vision is widened and our strength renewed.

The TUC board endorsed a plan to develop small discussion groups called “Chalice Circles” based on the successes of other UU churches. The individual growth of each person in TUC helps strengthen our church community as well as the world-wide movement toward peace and justice. The benefits are:

• attract and keep new church members
• strengthen the relationships among church members
• encourage members to be better listeners
  
• encourage use of conflict resolution skills for church, work, family and friends
• bring skills and insights to members interested in social change

Small groups are vital to growing UU churches

• provide a way to explore the deepest understanding of life in the midst of a community of shared values — humanism and liberal religion
• to provide inspiration for people to grow spiritually and emotionally
• to challenge people to live out their Unitarian Universalist values and to take a stand, when those values are violated.
• to provide strength to live life more fully and with more meaning.
• to support TUC in ways appropriate to each group, and to the interests and skills of its members
• to provide a safe and comfortable place to celebrate joys and life’s milestones
• to cultivate friendships between people who share a passion for peace and justice
• to explore and discuss social, economic and environmental changes that will profoundly effect us, our children, and our grandchildren
• to not be a “support group” for people with longstanding and serious emotional and addiction problems

How do TUC Covenant Circles work?

• Group size is important: Each group is 6-12 people, large enough to promote group interaction but small enough to allow intimacy and equal participation. Once started, a group is not “closed” but welcomes new members as long as the group has no more than 12 people. Welcoming the stranger is vitally important to the health of every Covenant Circle.
• Meeting time and location: Each group meets often enough for group members to create meaningful connections – at least once a month. Twice a month is often helpful during the first few months. Groups meet for about two hours, long enough to follow the format and engage in deep listening. Groups are encouraged to meet in members’ homes, but TUC is also available as a meeting place. By sharing our homes with others, we share our stories and a little bit about who we are.
• Convenors: Every Covenant Circle has one or two convenors who meet with our minister Brian Covell and the other convenors. Convenors will be supported and trained in collaboration with other UU churches and consultants.
• Commitment: There is a 6-month minimum commitment, which is the time needed for a group to become comfortable with its covenant and build trust among its members. A commitment from October to June is preferred.
• Meeting format: Each Covenant Circle meeting is structured to help us set aside daily distractions and make connections with one another. The format is:
  • Opening words and lighting of the chalice or a candle (a short quote, poem, song or reading)
  • Check-in (everyone spends a few minutes saying what is currently significant in their lives)
  • Focus of the meeting (discussion of a selected topic, reading or an issue raised at the check-in)
  • Check-out (an opportunity to comment on the meeting)
  • Closing words and extinguishing the chalice
  • Singing a UU hymn or song is optional
• The covenant: Making connections with other people is easier when we understand how they like to be treated. In the second or third meeting members develop a covenant – a list of promises describing the ways they commit to interact with one another. Members also contribute to the ongoing activities of the group, such as choosing the readings and topics, hosting the gatherings, and reminding members of meeting times and places. Having clear expectations for communication and sharing responsibility for group activities ensures that all members benefit from the Covenant Circle experience.
• Community service: Once or twice a year, each group engages in service to the congregation and/or the larger community. Serving together as a group gives members a chance to get to know each other in a different way, to understand how values and actions shape each other and a chance to perform service as a group of Unitarian Universalists, rather than as individuals. For example, groups could volunteer at a homeless shelter, assist one of the TUC committees or help welcome people after our Sunday services.
• Shared ministry: One of our purposes is to learn to practice shared ministry with the members of our Covenant Circle and with our congregation as a whole. We recognize that caring for one another is not the responsibility of our ordained clergy alone, but that all of us are responsible for the continued care of our congregation. Shared ministry can be as simple as providing transportation, signing a card to an ill Covenant Circle member or taking a meal to someone recovering from surgery.
• Time commitment: Participants are expected to make a commitment for 6-9 months and make attendance a priority. Members care for one another, so attendance is vital. A group can renew its time commitment.
• Membership: Groups are open to youth (over age 14), young adults, seniors, couples, long-time members and friends of TUC. Although some groups are intergenerational, others may have more homogenous membership. A larger congregation may have focused Covenant Circles for parents of small children, empty-nesters, or people passionate about social change,peace and justice.
• Focus/Content/Topics: The focus of each meeting is any topic, reading or activity that serves as a springboard into reflection on deeper issues of who we are and what gives our lives meaning. The content of a Covenant Circle is always secondary to opportunities for deepening relationships among group members. Although some groups choose specific themes for their focus, many groups prefer to keep the content open, so that they are free to focus on whatever is currently significant in their lives. Group members may take turns guiding a spiritual practice, bringing in questions or a word to discuss or sharing an essay or poem.

Turning to One Another

(An excerpt from the first chapter of Margaret Wheatley’s extraordinary new book Turning to One Another.)

I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation. Not mediation, negotiation, problem-solving, debate, or [public meetings. simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well.

What would it feel like to be listening to each other again about what disturbs and troubles us? About what gives us energy and hope? About our yearnings, our fears, our prayers, our children?

I wonder if you believe, as I do, that this world needs changing. This book is an invitation to notice what's going on, to clarify your thoughts and experience, and to begin speaking with those around you. What do you see? What are you experiencing in your life and the lives of those you care about? What do you wish were different?

Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change -personal change, community and organizational change, community and organizational change, planetary change. If we can sit together and talk about what's important to us, we begin to come alive. We share what we see, what we feel, and we listen to what others see and feel.

We have never wanted to be alone. But today, we are alone. We are more fragmented and isolated from one another than ever before. Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes it as "a radical brokenness in all of existence." We move at frantic speed, spinning out into greater isolation. We seek consolation in everything except each other. The entire world seems hypnotized in the wrong direction -encouraging us to love things rather than people, to embrace everything new without noticing what's lost or wrong, to choose fear instead of peace. We promise ourselves everything except each other. We've forgotten the source of true contentment and well-being.

Sample conversation starters for deep empathy and sharing

• What does it mean to be spiritual within liberal religion? In other religions? Is spirituality sometimes called by a different name?
• What are your reflections on a common daily dilemma: Save the world, or savor it? What does “saving the world” mean in it many variations? How do you personally savor the world?
• What are your thoughts on the meaning of trust, courage, hope, justice, friendship, community.
• When do you feel most appreciated? Who are you with and what are you doing? Where and when do you feel most comfortable? With whom do you feel best understood?
• What are different ways to show love?
• Why did you become (or are thinking about becoming) a UU? Why did you join TUC and why did you stay? Or, why are you considering becoming a TUC member? When did you feel you truly belonged to the TUC community? Or, when will you know that you have achieved true belonging at TUC?
• If you could do anything you wanted for a day what would it be? What about for a year?
• What are you most afraid of?
• Where does your hope for the future lie? Are you negative or positive about the future and why?
• What do you want to most change about yourself or your life choices?
• What is your greatest talent, skill or gift? Is what area do you feel you can contribute the most to others?
• If you could learn a new skill what would it be?
• What does social change mean to you? What are your thoughts on the job of an activist?
• What economic, social or political issue(s) do you think about or have the strongest opinions about?
• What articles, books, or authors would you like to share with the group?

Job description for convenors

• Help the group follow the structure and guidelines of Covenant Group Ministry, including—
  -Format (opening reading, check-in, focus activity or discussion, check-out, closing reading)
  -Covenant
  -Service project
• Make sure that the logistics are attended to: location and time of meetings, e-mail or telephone reminders (or shares this responsibility)
• Contact members who missed the meeting (or shares this responsibility)
• Contact and welcomes new members upon receiving names
  from the Chalice Circle steering committee
• Inform the Chalice Circle steering committee when anyone leaves a group
• Attend convenors’ training session(s) provided by UU Covenant Group Ministry consultants
• Attend convenors’ periodic coaching group for ongoing support and training

• Welcoming and hospitable personality
• Empathy
• Good communication skills – especially deep, empathic listening
• Sensitivity to group dynamics and how group members are feeling
• Maturity
• Respect for others
• Openness
• Flexibility
• Self-assurance
• Commitment to the Covenant Group Ministry model
• Commitment to attend meetings of both his/her Chalice Circle
and the periodic convenors’ coaching group

• Commitment to the TUC community

• The UU Small Group Ministry Network, www.smallgroupministry.net
• The Complete Guide to Small Group Ministry: Saving the world ten at a time, by Rev. Robert L. Hill
• Turning to One Another: Simple conversations to restore hope to the future, by Margaret Wheatley
• The World Café: Shaping our futures through conversations that matter, by Juanita Brown and David Issacs
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion, by Marshall B. Rosenberg
• The Network of Spiritual Progressives, A project of the Tikkun Community, www.spiritualprogressives.org