CG for Me?
Exactly what is a “Covenant Group”?
Covenant Groups are a unique and powerful opportunity for people to connect and grow together. A Covenant Group meeting is not a worship service, nor an adult education class, nor a committee, and it’s not therapy. A group consists of 6 to 10 people who may share an interest in a particular topic or activity or they may simply want to have a focused time for deeper conversation with others who share their values. The group decides where, how long, and how often they’ll meet – usually at a member’s house, or in a “homey” setting at church, and usually twice a month.Each group has a trained facilitator who provides the only “required” structure for a meeting: an opening and a closing, each with a UU-related reading and a brief check-in/check-out by members. Otherwise the majority of a Covenant Group meeting consists of discussion of the group’s selected topic..
Some “small groups” like to have one empty chair in the room or circle, symbolizing that the members welcome others, showing that they are not a clique. On the other hand, experience shows that groups “max out” at 10 people. When attendance approaches that level, plans should be made for an eventual spin-off of members as the core of a new group. Frequently, the “parent” group has included an alternate (or apprentice) facilitator who will be prepared to lead one group or the other. (Despite the closeness that members may have developed, a group should not be “closed” to new members or resist change.)
Members set their own procedures or rules. And, a person who will miss a meeting should always notify the facilitator or another member.
Finally, many churches believe that each group should carry out at least one service project each year, whether inside the church or outside. It might be as simple as doing the greeting, ushering, and coffee service on a Sunday, or it could be working as a team on Operation Paintbrush.
What is a facilitator’s role?
After training, volunteers are matched with Covenant Groups and the themes that church members have indicated they want. A group’s facilitator takes care of the logistics of meetings, in conjunction with any hosts. He or she is responsible for the opening and closing of each session.
A facilitator is not a chairman or team leader; he/she is a guide, not a director. The role calls for ensuring that all group members participate to the extent they wish to. He/she sees that the group’s rules or customs are observed, and that no one dominates a meeting. (Some have remarked that their most important function is starting and ending the meetings on time.)
Facilitators learn from their groups, of course, but also from each other by having monthly meetings, along with the minister.
What are the subjects of Covenant Groups?
Depending on the desires of the group members, the overall focus of the group may be spiritual or “religious” in their emphasis. However, the topics at their cores may be almost endless. Some are formed around some aspect of overt spirituality – the quest for meaning, our personal journeys, zen or yoga, good and evil, meditation, etc. Some groups center on issues of peace, humanism, or social justice. Others have a practical bent: cooking, computers, quilt-making, woodworking, parenting, etc.
UUC members and friends determine what their Covenant Groups will do. After joining a group, the members decide the range and emphases of their joint interests and the topics they will deal with. Established groups will be able to describe to prospective members what they do, so new people can make a choice according to their desires.
So why us, and why now?
A growing number of UU congregations (perhaps 75%) are utilizing covenant groups. The reason is that they work – they are effective in providing their members with something they were lacking in a “typical” church environment. The term “small group ministry” recognizes that we can all “minister” to each other – a facet of what UU theologian James Luther Adams called “the priesthood of all believers.”
At a General Assembly a few years ago, a minister gave one reason why he became an advocate of small groups. He spoke of a member of his congregation who told him, on her deathbed, that she felt she was a failure because she had never had the opportunity in her UU experience to discuss the things that mattered most to her.
The officially appointed minister of a congregation, can do only so much. Especially as a church grows in size, there are opportunities for members to help each other, to fill niches that might be overlooked. There are a number of stories illustrating how the bonding achieved in small groups has resulted in effective ways of solving problems or assisting members in crises. After all, we don’t join a church in order to turn our backs on people.
,p> Another reason for the popularity of small group ministries is their effectiveness in cultivating people’s gifts for leadership. Most people enter into the life of the church on a personal spiritual journey, looking to deepen and enact their faith in meaningful ways. By connecting with a diverse group of companions in an atmosphere of both support and challenge, participants discover unique ways in which they can make a difference in other people’s lives. Thus, small group ministries attract not only current members, but are very appealing to newcomers, as well.What will a Covenant Group do for me?
To use a cliché, it depends both on what you put into it and what you want out of it. For some people, their contribution may sometimes simply be their presence at a meeting; there is no compulsion to speak or comment. Others may find opportunities that never existed – to broaden their knowledge; to talk about things they’ve wanted to explore; to learn about others’ experiences….who knows?We hope that when you join a Covenant Group (and you’re not limited to just one) you’ll be able to commit to it for the rest of the church year (until next May). Then we’ll do an assessment of the entire CG experience, based on everyone’s input. Then there may be a re-grouping, with an “open season” of enrollment.
Also, if a group falters, starts over, or even stops, it’s not a failure. Groups can re-focus, or play out. On the other hand, churches with long experience have found that one out of three groups lasts for 10 years or more.
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