from Transforming Our Churches With Small Group Ministry

By the Rev. Glenn H. Turner

Opening Words:

Each of us brings a separate truth here,

We bring the truth of our own life, our own story.

We don’t come as empty vessels...

But rather we come as full people -- people who have our own story

and our own truth. We seek to add to our truths and add to our stories.

This room is rich with truth, rich with experience.

All manner of people are here: needy...joyful...frightened...anxious...bored...

We all bring our truth with us.

May we all recognize the truth and the story in everyone’s life.

And may we hear and honor the truths that we all bring as we gather together..

Together we have truths.

Together we have a story.

Together we are a community.

Penny Hackett-Evans

Check-in/Sharing

Topic:

A community is made up of people who enjoy and are ready to participate in mutual helpfulness. Not that they are busybodies always prying into one another’s affairs. They are not conscious "do-gooders," but they know how to be helpful without making a big thing of it."

-Harry Meserve

Questions: How do we want to be in community? How do we

want others to be? What do we experience as helpful?

What do you need to know about me; and what do I need

to know about you?

Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

And now we take our leave.

Before we gather here again - may each of us bring happiness into another’s life;

may we each be surprised by the gifts that surround us; may we each be enlivened by constant curiosity;

and may we remain together in spirit ‘til the hour we meet again.

-Barbara Cheatham

Opening Words:

We gather to affirm the potential we all share: for building community, for undertaking constructive change, for engaging in mature growth, for achieving greater humanity than we have known.

May our meeting together be a time of reflection on possibilities untried. May it help us on our perilous ways during the week ahead.

-adapted from Harold Babcock

Check-in/Sharing

Topic: "Whether or not we soften the sense of "sinners" to what Eugene Kennedy calls "mistake makers", the fact remains we are not and never can be perfect. This is not to say we are condemned to making the same mistakes over and over. If we learn from past mistakes, we shall have the joy and sorrow of making some entirely new ones and learning from them as well. That is learning. That is growth. That is what being alive is all about."

- Glenn Turner

Possible Questions: What have we learned from our mistakes or our

failures? How do we make imperfection a wise teacher?

Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

We receive fragments of holiness, glimpses of eternity, brief moments of insight. Let us gather them up for the precious gifts that they are, and, renewed by their grace, move boldly into the unknown.

-Sara Campbell

Opening Words:

from the UU Hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, use selection 646 by Wendell Berry

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity: Create a religious time line. Divide a line into sections, one for each of your decades of life, plus the decades you expect to live. Draw pictures for each decade representing how you understood God or felt about religion during each of those periods, plus how you hope to experience your religious life in the decades to come (20 minutes). Then share. (Materials: appropriate paper & crayons or colored pencils)

Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

"Take courage friends. The way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are high.

Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth. You are not alone."

Wayne Arnason

Opening Words:

"Ancient as the home is the temple. Ancient as the workbench is the altar.

Ancient as the soldier is the priest. Older than written language is spoken prayer; older than painting is the thought of a nameless one. Religion is first and last -- the universal language of the human heart. Differing words describe the outward appearance of things; diverse symbols represent that which stands beyond and within. Yet each person’s hunger is the same, and heart communicates with heart. Ever the vision leads on with many gods or with one, with a holy land washed by ocean waters, or a holy land within the heart. In temperament we differ, yet we are dedicated to one august destiny; creeds divide us, but we share a common destiny. Because we are human, we shall ever build our altars; because each has a holy yearning, we offer everywhere our prayers and anthems. For an eternal verity abides beneath diversities; we are children of one great love, united in our one eternal family." -W. Waldemar & W. Argow

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: This session is on the experience of worship. These are questions you might use:

What kinds of worship can you think of? (newsprint might be helpful)

What is worship for?

Share an experience of memorable or moving worship.

What makes worship meaningful for you?

How do you prepare yourself for worship?

Likes & Wishes

Closing Words:

"Take courage friends.

The way is often hard, the path is never clear,

and the stakes are high.

Take courage.

For deep down, there is another truth.

You are not alone."

Wayne B. Arnason

Opening Words:

From the UU Hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, use selection 614 by Black Elk

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion: Ask the members of your group to share an experience of loss that has been a significant part of their life journey. Introduce the sharing with this reading:

"I have journeyed to a place of great sorrow and there did I cry from the very depths of my soul. For days you thought I might never return, but I have come back to you: stronger, richer, with greater knowledge of myself. The crack in my heart will remain forever -- its purpose no longer to let grief out, but to let greater love in." Myrriah Osbourde (from Life Tapestry, UUA Curriculum - used there by permission of the author from Mourning 1989 copyright)

Some questions to ask:

Was your journey a meandering route or a straight line?

Where were the dark places?

Where were you lonely?

Where did you have a companion?

How has it shaped you? Your faith?

What strength has it given you?

Likes and wishes

Closing words:

"Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.

Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you."

Nancy Wood

Opening Words:

If you knew how I felt inside, you would not act that way outside.

But most likely,

If I knew how you felt inside

I would not mind so much the way you act outside.

Why don’t we try

turning ourselves

inside out!"

Edward T. Atkinson

Check-in/Sharing

Discussion:

"We cannot let the world’s wounds destroy our spirits. We cannot let our

hurts and betrayals destroy our capacity for growth and caring. That there

will be judgment and, perhaps, justice, is necessary. That the violence be

confronted and, if possible, contained is essential. But, most important is

our capacity to nurture a loving heart, to affirm and not to curse, to forgive

even when we cannot completely forget." - Glenn H. Turner

Some Questions to ask:

How do you respond when you are wounded?

How do you feel toward the person who has hurt you?

How long do you carry your anger and how does that re-sentment (feeling it

again and again) continue to hurt you?

Can you forgive and break the cycle? Can you understand the other?

What does forgiveness mean to you?

Likes & Wishes

Closing Words:

"May the Love which overcomes all differences, which heals all wounds, which puts to flight all fears, which reconciles all who are separated, be in us and among us now and always."

-Frederick E. Gillis

Opening Words: "Why should we live in such a hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived. I do not wish to life what is not life, living is so dear, nor do I wish to practice resignation, unless it is quite necessary. I wish to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. I want to cut a broad swath, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. If it proves to be mean, then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or it is sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it.

Henry David Thoreau

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity (materials: pen and paper) Many of us would like to live more simply, to simplify our lives. But not many of us are likely to follow Thoreau’s example and build a cabin in the woods. Take ten minutes to answer these questions: What are the demands in my life that keep me too busy? What needs or forces in me keep me busy? What do I push aside? What would I be willing to give up? Take time to share. Ending question: What one thing are you willing to try in the next weeks (until the group meets again) that will move your life closer to your goals for a simpler and more meaningful life?

Likes & Wishes

Closing Words:

"May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous vision that we seek. May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of the world. Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move."

- Kathleen McTigue

Opening Words:

From the UU Hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, use selection 490, "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity: Mary Oliver says, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." What do you love? Tell a story of when you first encountered one of your loves. How does it feel: doing or being with the thing you love? How do you feel when your are apart from it or unable to do it? Are you at peace with the things that you love to do or be? What would you have to do to "let" yourself love what you love? How could we help each other achieve that?

Likes & Wishes

Closing Words

"As we leave this community of the spirit, may we remember the difficult lesson that each day offers more things than we can do. May we do what needs to be done, postpone what does not, and be at peace with what we can be and do. Therefore, may we learn to separate that which matters most from that which matters least of all." Richard S. Gilbert

Opening Words:

"Who can make an accounting of gratitude?

For the universe we give thanks, an expanse of life to stretch us with wonder...

For the earth we give thanks, fragment of the stars that is our home...

For life we give thanks, the burning of stars ordered and tempered here allowing us life and breath...

For growth we give thanks, for the heritage of the spirit, for all the forces past our knowing, power past our control...

For the ages which follow us, for the eternity of days, in which life is ever renewed and fulfilled, we give thanks."

-adapted from Kennneth Patton, Hymns for the Celebration of Life

Check-in/Sharing

Topic: There are things in life that just sort of hang there: like free floating guilt

and angst. But, what about a sense of gratitude? Doesn’t that well up at times and

demand expression? A blessing, a song of praise, a shout, a loud HURRAH! I’m

talking about a sense of gratitude that goes beyond just what another person does for you. I’m talking about the fiery sunset, the smell of the rose, the very existence of the artichoke and the giraffe. It should take our breath away. And our breath, oxygen - yes, thank you!

Questions we should answer:

How do you cultivate a thankful heart?

How do we stay aware of that in Life which is sheer blessing?

Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

"God, may our ears be open to little birds who are the secret of living,

may we take time to see flowers and people for the beauty they are,

may be make room in our lives for one another."

-Richard F. Boeke

Opening Words:

From the UU Hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, use selection 615,

"The Work of Christmas," by Howard Thurman

Check-in/Sharing

Topic: (use following selection as a responsive reading)

The relatives have gone. The harvest season passed with Thanksgiving. Even as

we bought our turkey, the Salvation Army bells jangled our nerves toward Christmas.

THE DECORATIONS OF CHRISTMAS ARE HUNG IN OUR TOWNS AND CITIES. WE HAVE LEFT-OVER TURKEY SOUP AND ( ? ) MORE SHOPPING DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS.

This is the advent of peace and goodwill, songs to be sung, choirs to do their Messiahs. There will be Christmas Teas and office parties, Christmas Fairs, and hot rum toddies.

BY THIS WEEK WE SHOULD HAVE OUR CARDS IN THE MAIL, GREETINGS TO A HUNDRED FRIENDS ALL OVER THE WORLD, EACH WITH A LETTER TELLING ALL THAT WE DID FOR THE YEAR. LAST WEEK OUR PACKAGES SHOULD HAVE BEEN MAILED. WHEN IS THERE TIME TO GO SHOPPING?

Giving gifts takes more time than we have. Sitting in the endless traffic, hustling and bustling through the stores, lining up in the Post Office behind the man with six packages all going overseas, all to be insured, all to be registered.

SOON WE’LL BE EATING AND DRINKING MORE THAN WE SHOULD. ANXIOUS, UNEASY, WE MAY MISS THE SPIRIT WE SEEK. WE PAUSE,CENTER DOWN, AND REFLECT ON THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS.

What shall we celebrate? A closeness with family and friends, a warmth in the chill of winter, a birth - what shall we celebrate?

THE YULE LOG, THE FEASTING, THE GIFTS - THE CARDS, THE TREES,

AND THE WREATHS ALL POINT TO OUR FEELINGS OF CLOSENESS, DECLARE OUR NEED FOR A CARING COMMUNITY.

The winter is cold, the snow will lie on the ground, soon are the snowmen and skating, hot chocolate, skiing, and singing - all that this season is bringing.

THERE MUST BE SPACE FOR THE SINGING OF ANGELS, BRIGHT LIGHTS

OF BEAUTY AND MEANING. THERE MUST BE A PLACE UNDER THE

STARS TO CHART A COURSE THAT IS OURS TO OUR OWN

BETHLEHEMS.

- Glenn H. Turner

Some questions to ask:

What are you feeling as we move into another Christmas season?

What do you dread?

What do you look forward to?

What rituals keep you focused?

If your tradition is not Christian (i.e. being Jewish, Muslim....) how do you experience this season?

Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

"Give us a child’s heart, that we may be filled with wonder and delight."

- Sara Campbell