Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network Website
Community/Connections in the Search for Truth/Meaning
Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine, March 2018
Five Session Plans used at Faith Café, January 2018
Faith Cafes started as a result of a church wide social meeting Spring 2017 in which many people came, ate, and shared their ideas of what they’d like to see more at the UU Community Church of Augusta, Maine. A smaller group called Wisdom Weavers met to process the work. Three deep desires came to the fore: connection with UU identity, expanded music program and intergeneration engagement. Faith Cafe emerged as an opportunity for all ages, from infants and toddlers through our oldest community members and friends, to join to explore the meaning of this faith through food, fellowship, and FUN.
The January 2018 Faith Café, focused on the fourth principle of search for truth and meaning, was sponsored by the Pastoral Ministry Team and involved Small Group Ministry. This Faith Café combined pizza and a congregational scavenger hunt with an hour’s session built on Small Group Ministry (SGM) model. Five session plans were offered concurrently, all with the same opening words and brief covenant to set the common theme and process, with divergent topics. People signed up for a group as they arrived. This use of Small Group Ministry process and format enriched both the Faith Café itself and group process ongoing.
Following are the Small Group Ministry session plans used at Faith Café on January 12, 2018.
Meaning in Music
Winter in Maine
Pets/Other Creatures
Across the Ages
Creative Expression
These session plans can be used by the ongoing groups that usually meet for two hours. That would allow for the usually longer sharing time.
Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network Website
Community/Connections in the Search for Truth/Meaning; MEANING IN MUSIC
Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine
One of Five Session Plans used at Faith Café, January 2018
Need: Have hymnals available. (Sanctuary, in case they want to use piano.)
Opening words:
Here in the middle of the seven Unitarian Universalist Principles is the fourth UU Principles--The free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
The first Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person – including you and me. I have my values and ideas, and so do you. And your ideas and values and my ideas and values engage every time we meet! This is individualism – with the need for connections.
The seventh principle is being part of the interdependent web, or all of us are in this together. Interdependence is evident in our community.
We come as individuals, on our own spiritual journey for truth and meaning. In community, our search enriches our lives and the community itself. This is what we are doing together now!
Covenant for this session:
We value our time together and revere each person is present. We share and we are silent to accept the sharing of others. We speak from our hearts and for ourselves only, without needing to respond or give advice. We hold our sharings in confidence within our circle.
Check-in/Sharing: Because the session today is an hour rather than the usual two hours, check-in will be brief, like a few sentences.How is it with you today?
TOPIC: Meaning in Music
From the Confessions of St. Augustine
“How I wept, deeply moved by your hymns, songs, and the voices that echoed through your church! What emotion I experienced in them! These sounds flowed into my ears, distilling the truth in my heart. A feeling of devotion surged within me, and tears streamed down my face- tears did me good.”
- How do we sing in this community?
- What hymns or phrases from hymns have particular meaning for you?
- How does the music (the hymns, the choir, the instrumental music) relate to your search for truth and meaning?
Check-out/Likes and Wishes: How was the session for you? What are you taking with you?
Closing:
To worship is to work with dedication and with skill;
It is to pause from work and listen to a strain of music.
To worship is to sing with the singing beauty of the earth;
It is to listen through a storm to the still small voice within. Jacob Trapp, UU Minister
Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network Website
Community/Connections in the Search for Truth/Meaning; WINTER IN MAINE
Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine
One of Five Session Plans used at Faith Café, January 2018
Need: Suggest having winter items—skates or skis, clothing items, or pictures
Opening words:
Here in the middle of the seven Unitarian Universalist Principles is the fourth UU Principles--The free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
The first Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person – including you and me. I have my values and ideas, and so do you. And your ideas and values and my ideas and values engage every time we meet! This is individualism – with the need for connections.
The seventh principle is being part of the interdependent web, or all of us are in this together. Interdependence is evident in our community.
We come as individuals, on our own spiritual journey for truth and meaning. In community, our search enriches our lives and the community itself. This is what we are doing together now!
Covenant for this session: We value our time together and revere each person is present. We share and we are silent to accept the sharing of others. We speak from our hearts and for ourselves only, without needing to respond or give advice. We hold our sharings in confidence within our circle.
Check-in/Sharing: Because the session today is an hour rather than the usual two hours, check-in will be brief, like a few sentences.How is it with you today?
TOPIC: Winter in Maine
Let us not wish away the winter.
It is a season to itself, not simply the way to spring.
When trees rest, growing no leaves, gathering no light, they let in sky and trace themselves delicately against dawns and sunsets.
The clarity and brilliance of the winter sky delight.
The loom of fog softens edges, lulls the eyes and ears of the quiet, awakens by risk the unquiet. A low dark sky can snow, emblem of individuality, liberality, and aggregate power. Snow invites to contemplation and to sport.
Winter is a table set with ice and starlight.
Winter dark tends to warm light: fire and candle; winter cold to hugs and huddles; winter want to gifts and sharing; winter danger to visions, plans, and common endeavoring—and the zest of narrow escapes,- winter tedium to merrymaking.
Let us therefore praise winter; rich in beauty, challenge, and pregnant negativities.
Greta Crosby, #543 Singing the Living Tradition
- What do you like about winter, and what are the challenges?
- How is winter for you spiritually? Or what meaning does winter hold for you?
- How is winter changing for you with the ecological changes?
Closing: When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels. Author Unknown
Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network Website
Community/Connections in the Search for Truth/Meaning: PETS/OTHER CREATURES
Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine
One of Five Session Plans used at Faith Café, January 2018
Need: Animal puppets or stuffed animals. Invite people to select a puppet for the session.
Opening words:
Here in the middle of the seven Unitarian Universalist Principles is the fourth UU Principles--The free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
The first Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person – including you and me. I have my values and ideas, and so do you. And your ideas and values and my ideas and values engage every time we meet! This is individualism – with the need for connections.
The seventh principle is being part of the interdependent web, or all of us are in this together. Interdependence is evident in our community.
We come as individuals, on our own spiritual journey for truth and meaning. In community, our search enriches our lives and the community itself. This is what we are doing together now1
Covenant for this session: We value our time together and revere each person is present. We share and we are silen to accept the sharing of others. We speak from our hearts and for ourselves only, without needing to respond or give advice. We hold our sharings in confidence within our circle.
Check-in/Sharing: Because the session today is an hour rather than the usual two hours, check-in will be brief, like a few sentences.How is it with you today?
TOPIC: Pets and Other Creatures
Everyone needs a spiritual guide: a minister, rabbi, priest, therapist, or wise friend. My wise friend is my dog. He has deep insights to impart. He makes friends easily and doesn’t hold a grudge. He enjoys simple pleasures and takes each day as it comes. Like a true Zen master, he eats when he’s hungry and sleeps when he’s tired. He’s not hung up about sex. Best of all, he befriends me with an unconditional love that humans would do well to imitate.
So my dog is a sort of guru. When I become too serious and preoccupied, he reminds me to frolic and play. When I get too wrapped up in abstractions and ideas, he reminds me to exercise and care for my body. On his own canine level, he shows me that it might be possible to live without inner conflicts or neuroses: uncomplicated, genuine, and glad to be alive.
Rev. Gary Kowalski, Unitarian Society of Burlington, Vermont,
Questions for group reflection
- Introduce the puppet or stuffed animal and share why you selected it. You may speak through the puppet or stuffed animal, if you wish.
- "And God said to (Adam and Eve), Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Genesis 1:28)
How do you feel about humans having "dominion" over every living being?
What does that mean?
Check-out/Likes and Wishes: How was the session for you? What are you taking with you?
Closing: How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network Website
Community/Connections in the Search for Truth/Meaning: ACROSS GENERATIONS
Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine
One of Five Session Plans used at Faith Café, January 2018
Need: Church picture directories, other pictures of people of all ages.
Opening words: Here in the middle of the seven Unitarian Universalist Principles is the fourth UU Principles--The free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
The first Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person – including you and me. I have my values and ideas, and so do you. And your ideas and values and my ideas and values engage every time we meet! This is individualism – with the need for connections.
The seventh principle is being part of the interdependent web, or all of us are in this together. Interdependence is evident in our community.
We come as individuals, on our own spiritual journey for truth and meaning. In community, our search enriches our lives and the community itself. This is precisely what we are doing together!
Covenant for this session: We value our time together and revere each person is present. We share and we are silent to accept the sharing of others. We speak from our hearts and for ourselves only, without needing to respond or give advice. We hold our sharings in confidence within our circle.
Check-in/Sharing: Because the session today is an hour rather than the usual two hours, check-in will be brief.How is it with you today?
TOPIC: Across the Generations :Allow time to look at the pictures or the Directories.
“A Poem from a 14 Year Old Boy” (on website of Afshine Emrani MD@afshineemran)
Our generation will be known for nothing
Never will anyone say
We were the peak of [humankind]
That is wrong, the truth is
Our generation was a failure
Thinking that
We actually succeeded
Is a waste And we know
Living only for money and power
Is the way to go
Being loving, respectful, and kind
Is a dumb thing to do
Forgetting about that time
Will not be easy, but we will try
Changing our world for the better
Is something we never did
Giving up
Was how we handled our problems
Working hard
Was a joke
We knew that
People thought we couldn’t come back
That might be true
Unless we turn things around
(Read from bottom to top now)
- What have you learned from people of other ages? What have you given others?
- What do various age groups bring to our faith community? How do we honor all ages within our congregation?
- How are we helping to make our faith community strong for all ages?
Check-out/Likes and Wishes: How was the session for you? What are you taking with you?
Closing: We Need One Another George E. Odell #468 Singing the Living Tradition
We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.
Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network Website
Community/Connections in the Search for Truth/Meaning: CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS
Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine
One of Five Session Plans used at Faith Café, January 2018
Need: writing paper, drawing paper, pens and markers, table space
Opening words:
Here in the middle of the seven Unitarian Universalist Principles is the fourth UU Principles--The free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
The first Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person – including you and me. I have my values and ideas, and so do you. And your ideas and values and my ideas and values engage every time we meet! This is individualism – with the need for connections.
The seventh principle is being part of the interdependent web, or all of us are in this together. Interdependence is evident in our community.
We come as individuals, on our own spiritual journey for truth and meaning. In community, our search enriches our lives and the community itself. This is what we are doing together now!
Covenant for this session: We value our time together and revere each person is present. We share and we are silent to accept the sharing of others. We speak from our hearts and for ourselves only, without needing to respond or give advice. We hold our sharings in confidence within our circle.
Check-in/Sharing: Because the session today is an hour rather than the usual two hours, check-in will be brief.How is it with you today?
TOPIC: Creative Expression of Truth and Meaning
“It's Not Always Easy to be a UU Kid!” UUA REACH, Fall 2000, Rev. Anne Orfald,
My church taught me that Jesus was a good man and a good teacher, but he was not God. And my church taught me that there was no place called hell, where God sent those who were bad, to burn forever and ever. And my church taught me that God was not a person -- not a Father like so many believed, but that God was a spirit of Love, which is deep inside of us, like a bright light. Maybe sometimes that light is a bit dim, but it is in each of us, no matter what our religion. My church also taught me that we don't have all the answers -- not about God or the universe, or about life and death. I was taught that there are things we don't know for sure.
Well, when that's the kind of teaching you get, that we don't have all the answers and that there are some things we aren't certain about… it's not easy! It doesn't always feel lucky to be a UU kid. Have some of you had experiences like that? How does it feel for you? Even for adults, it isn't always easy.