From feeltheharmony at yahoo.ca Sat Mar 10 01:31:42 2007 From: feeltheharmony at yahoo.ca (joel fox) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 22:31:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [C*UUYAN-Chat] 8 Models of UU Young Adult Groups Message-ID: <871897.31428.qm@web43135.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Has everyone seen this site?: http://www.circlemaker.org/cdt/toc.html A friend of mine brought it to my attention a little while ago, and I'm quite taken with it. The author is so right on! She has analyzed and dissected UU culture very thoroughly and laid out issues and needs and solutions in clear, plain language. It's actually the transcribed book "Children of a Different Tribe - UU Young Adult Developmental Issues" by Sharon Hwang Colligan. Here you will find everything from Liberal Religious Young Adults: Developmental Issues to An Anthropology of UUYAN to Naming: Toward a Language of Our Own. In particular, I highly recommend, of course, 8 Models of UU Young Adult Groups. I think you will all love this. So, do go check it out. joel __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/cuuyan-chat/attachments/20070309/7582a607/attachment.html From adrian at winchell.us Wed Mar 14 04:14:49 2007 From: adrian at winchell.us (Adrian Winchell) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 04:14:49 -0400 Subject: [C*UUYAN-Chat] 8 Models of UU Young Adult Groups In-Reply-To: <871897.31428.qm@web43135.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> References: <871897.31428.qm@web43135.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45F7AEF9.7020609@winchell.us> Thank you for bringing this to light. My biggest beef with my local congregation is a persistent focus on so-called "social action" (mostly going on and on and on about helping local charities and national charities and other causes), without ever stopping to consider issues within the UU community. The last service I went to, there was even talk that sounded much like "Well, now we've figured it all out, it's time to formalize our message so we can teach it to others" - which seemed to me like a gross violation of the spirit of the church I grew up in. I think it's also rather sad that there's been almost no activity on this list since I signed up for it many months ago. Seems to me that for the most part, wherever UU Young Adults are, they're *not* looking for other UUYA's...or they'd be here, at least giving occasional "Anyone out there?" messages. The local UUYA group that I found a listing for last year was campus-only, for a school I didn't attend, and said quite specifically in its charter that "only school affiliated members would be granted voting rights". I'm reminded by all this of Robert Pirsig's description of de-accreditation, "What would happen is that the real University, which no legislature can dictate to and which can never be identified by any location of bricks or boards or glass, would simply declare that this place was no longer "holy ground." The real University would vanish from it, and all that would be left was the bricks and the books and the material manifestation." It would seem, then, that the "Cliff" described in that article is a similar phenomenon. I can't quite imagine that those of us who simply drop off from the experience of YRUU then no longer practice our spirituality, or wind up in the gutter. What I can, however, imagine is that the *real* church that we learned, the spirituality that we wanted, simply declared that the "recovering Christian" UU churches are no longer the place it calls home. That likely seems why the majority of UU congregations I've met all have a "Young Adult" gap. Some of us turn to online communities, where rampant spiritual experimentation is often the norm. Some of us wind up clumping together in our career-related conferences - or go on a several year "religion crawl" instead of a pub crawl. I tried to attend my church's path-to-membership class. It just about made me sick. Everyone else in the class was looking for a safe place to raise their children, or be with their partner. They weren't stuck in the post-YRUU Young Adult 'gap'. Most weekends, I find a walk in the park, even if no-one else's around, more socially fulfilling than a trip to church, where everyone wants to know where I'm going to college. As if that's what happens at my age - you go to college, then *poof*, all of a sudden you're coming into church with a fully-developed career, a family, and kids. At any rate, thank you so much for pointing me to this article. At least now I have a vocabulary with which to *say* the problems that I've been seeing. I've forwarded the link to a handful of people that I think need to see this - in my family, and in my church. Several of those pages were familiar enough to me to make them very hard to read. Thanks again, Adrian Winchell adrian at winchell.us joel fox wrote: > Has everyone seen this site?: > > http://www.circlemaker.org/cdt/toc.html > > A friend of mine brought it to my attention a little while ago, and I'm > quite taken with it. The author is so right on! She has analyzed and > dissected UU culture very thoroughly and laid out issues and needs and > solutions in clear, plain language. It's actually the transcribed book > "Children of a Different Tribe - UU Young Adult Developmental Issues" by > Sharon Hwang Colligan. > Here you will find everything from > Liberal Religious Young Adults: Developmental Issues to > An Anthropology of UUYAN to > Naming: Toward a Language of Our Own. > In particular, I highly recommend, of course, 8 Models of UU Young Adult > Groups. I think you will all love this. > So, do go check it out. > > joel > From adrian at winchell.us Fri Mar 16 04:05:19 2007 From: adrian at winchell.us (Adrian Winchell) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 04:05:19 -0400 Subject: [C*UUYAN-Chat] Small Group Ministries and Covenant Groups Message-ID: <45FA4FBF.7090401@winchell.us> I gotta question. Seems my local congregation focuses pretty heavily on covenant groups. And is thoroughly unable to describe them properly. I've been hopping about to various sites about them, and get this...I dunno, sorta "icky-cliquey" vibe from the descriptions I'm reading. Either that or an "extroverts support group" :P Some of the stuff I've reading also suggests making decisions about "When do we close people out? When do we tell people they haven't been here enough to come back?" - now, I've read stuff from the Foundation for Community Encouragement, and understand the necessity of this - but it still seems worded awfully coldly. Maybe I just like cycles and coping mechanisms rather than closed doors, but it seems that the questions "how often do we want to reopen and reform the group?" and "How do we handle someone who is falling away from the group?" would be more productive. Anyone done this sorta thing? Have any recommendations? Horror stories? Celebrations? Reassurances? Tips? Thanks in advance, Adrian (PS: CUUYAN-Chat is set up so that replies will come only to the sender you're replying to - you'll need to add the cuuyan-chat address to the sender list on the reply if you want the entire list to see it.) -- Adrian Winchell adrian at winchell.us From slippery_modem at hotmail.com Thu Mar 15 14:16:14 2007 From: slippery_modem at hotmail.com (Andrea Anderson) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:16:14 -0000 Subject: [C*UUYAN-Chat] 8 Models of UU Young Adult Groups In-Reply-To: <45F7AEF9.7020609@winchell.us> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/cuuyan-chat/attachments/20070315/d1bec426/attachment-0001.html From atkins.timothy at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 11:17:28 2007 From: atkins.timothy at gmail.com (Tim Atkins) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:17:28 -0000 Subject: [C*UUYAN-Chat] Small Group Ministries and Covenant Groups In-Reply-To: <45FA4FBF.7090401@winchell.us> References: <45FA4FBF.7090401@winchell.us> Message-ID: <4d397d270703160830y5b9dcd39j1e9ab50f83b7018b@mail.gmail.com> Howdy - I started up a 20s/30s Chalice Circle about a year and a half ago, and now it's grown into three full blown 20s/30s covenant groups. Our entire congregation [UU Congregation-o-Atlanta] is moving into a small group model as well. It's a great experience, both as a facilitator and as a participant. I was *extremely* worried about becoming a clique, and there were times when I saw the group moving in that direction, and took steps to prevent it...hence the current 3 covenant groups. At our group, there were members who did not want to change the group or let other people in. I pretty much told them to deal with it (how very democratic of me, I know) and they did, and they were happy we did it in retrospect. You just need to have a facilitator/leader who is willing to look out for it. When it was clear our group was getting big and the clique mentality was setting it, we had a huge, open house pot luck. About 30 people from our 20s/30s group came to it, and we had a great dinner. Then we split up into three different groups and had a shortened small group session. At the end we asked if they liked it, and if they wanted to join a group. Every person who attended did. Some wanted a non-age-group-specific group, so we hooked them up with the other ones that were forming. It was a pretty great night. Small Groups are an amazing experience. You hear things you'd never had thought about. You'll share things you didn't even know you believed. There will be tears. You will get to know your other participants on a whole other level. I put up a blog post about my small group experiences that went into more in depth stuff over at http://kinsi.wordpress.com/2007/01/17/the-power-of-small-groups/ I *highly* recommend becoming part of one. And if you don't have a facilitator who's going to watch out for the clique mentality...becoming a facilitator yourself :-D -Tim On 3/16/07, Adrian Winchell wrote: > > I gotta question. Seems my local congregation focuses pretty heavily on > covenant groups. > > And is thoroughly unable to describe them properly. > > I've been hopping about to various sites about them, and get this...I > dunno, sorta "icky-cliquey" vibe from the descriptions I'm reading. > Either that or an "extroverts support group" :P > > Some of the stuff I've reading also suggests making decisions about > "When do we close people out? When do we tell people they haven't been > here enough to come back?" - now, I've read stuff from the Foundation > for Community Encouragement, and understand the necessity of this - but > it still seems worded awfully coldly. Maybe I just like cycles and > coping mechanisms rather than closed doors, but it seems that the > questions "how often do we want to reopen and reform the group?" and > "How do we handle someone who is falling away from the group?" would be > more productive. > > Anyone done this sorta thing? Have any recommendations? Horror stories? > Celebrations? Reassurances? Tips? > > Thanks in advance, > Adrian > > (PS: CUUYAN-Chat is set up so that replies will come only to the sender > you're replying to - you'll need to add the cuuyan-chat address to the > sender list on the reply if you want the entire list to see it.) > -- > Adrian Winchell > adrian at winchell.us > _______________________________________________ > CUUYAN-Chat mailing list > CUUYAN-Chat at uuyan.org > http://lists.uuyan.org/listinfo/cuuyan-chat > > To unsubscribe: Go to the URL listed above, enter your e-mail address in > the field at the bottom of the page, and click the "Unsubscribe or Edit > Options" > button. > On the page that comes up, click the Unsubscribe button. > > Then, check your e-mailbox for the unsubscribe confirmation e-mail, and > reply to it to confirm your unsubscription from this list. > > -- Tim Atkins I support John Edwards for President in 2008 Tomorrow Begins Today http://johnedwards.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/cuuyan-chat/attachments/20070316/d8547baf/attachment.html From addesso at ufl.edu Fri Mar 16 11:23:28 2007 From: addesso at ufl.edu (Karla Addesso) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:23:28 -0000 Subject: [C*UUYAN-Chat] Small Group Ministries and Covenant Groups In-Reply-To: <45FA4FBF.7090401@winchell.us> References: <45FA4FBF.7090401@winchell.us> Message-ID: <45FAC763.6020709@ufl.edu> Adrian, I've been the facilitator of a CG for nearly three years. I also facilitate a CG for teens at my Fellowship. Some thoughts on your email, though I'm not really sure what your question is... It appears to me that only people who've never been in CGs think of them as cliquey. We have ~270 members at our fellowship and MANY more friends, we also have about 12 Adult CGs and 2 Youth CGs and I doubt many non-CG members would even know which of their many friends are in one (unless they sing their CG's praises often). I don't know what size your congregation is, but there reaches a point where you cannot and will not know, see, or speak to every other member and friend that walks through the door. CGs are ways to build relationships within the larger community and there are many different ways of using them. In some congregations the CGs are temporary (that is they only meet for 6 mo-1 year and then scramble so you can meet and get to know new people). We have just set up a 'new member' CG that centers around defining new member's personal gifts and interests. It is a way to get new members immediately involved with the Fellowship, have contact with established members, and identify what interests they have that match the spiritual, social and service aspects of our congregation. It is a 6 month program only. New members can then join open CGs if they desire. Even in permanently established CGs, new people move in and out over the years. We've had a dozen or more people come and go through mine, mostly people who've moved away to other cities and new members who took their seats. As for the word 'closed' we use the word 'full' because it's less aggressive and also implies that when we become un- full, we will once again accept new members. If you've never been in a CG it is difficult to explain why this is important, but I'll try. A CG is NOT a discussion group. That is point number one. It includes discussion, yes, but it is not an 'open to anyone who walks in and wants to analyze the latest Iraq poll or Climate Change publication' kind of discussion. The topics are not cerebral but emotionally meaningful. If we talk about Jesus, I don't care if you went to seminary school and can quote every theologian's ideas of who that man might have been. I want to know your thoughts, feelings, memories of Sunday school, what you were raised to believe and why you don't or DO believe it anymore. It is not about what you know but how you feel about it. That is a very difficult distinction for most people to make. It is not easy to tell people in an honest voice how you feel about sensitive subjects. It takes trust. Bottom line is, I feel comfortable crying in front of my CG if I am so moved. You cannot build that kind of intimate trust with 20 people in the room or with individuals that rarely show up. In addition, CGs have a very particular format in which each individual speaks and everyone else stays silent and listens. If you give even 5 minutes to each person, you soon find that 10 people has got you at close to an hour and we haven't even gotten to the discussion yet because no one is permitted to comment on what someone else said yet. Add to this 2 minutes per person for a check in, 1 minute for check out, a chalice lighting and extinguishing ritual and you are left with about 15-30 minutes (for a 2h CG) for any type of meaningful crosstalk. You may not want to use the word 'closed' but it amounts to the same thing, you can't PRACTICE small group ministry if there are too many people in the room. I also don't think CGs are for extroverts. I have several good friends who are in CGs. They are often the last to speak and speak only once or twice. They are also the type of people that have difficulty sharing their thoughts in large groups, hence CGs allow them to say things they would normally stay silent about. As for monitoring those who aren't coming, I have never found this to be a problem with my group. We make a covenant when we form saying we will be here at this time on this day as long as we are not dead, ill or in another part of the world (not literally, but you get the idea). It's just like saying, I'm taking a class or going to work, that time is slotted for this activity and that is what you have committed to do. Most of the time, when people are not coming to a CG it is for a legitimate reason. It is up to the facilitator to discover that reason and respond appropriately. My fiance found that he had to teach a college class on Monday nights for an entire semester and would not be able to come, so he took a hiatus. We have one member who is chronically ill and another member checks up on him to see if he is strong enough to attend, and if not, we get a report on how he is doing. If someone doesn't want to participate anymore it is better to ask them about their attendance and give them the opportunity to bow out gracefully. If there are more people who want to get into CGs and they can't commit, believe me, they will understand. That is what the Covenant in covenant groups is all about. I'm not sure if I addressed your many questions. I hope so. On one final note I'll tell you this. My CG has members ranging across the map in ages. When the group began I became the facilitator. At the age of 25, I was the youngest member of the group. We have members in their 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's. Not to be ageist, but this is genuinely the only opportunity I have to seriously discuss life events with men and women 3x my age. I don't hang out with these folks on Friday nights. I probably wouldn't know half of them if they weren't in my CG and I feel blessed for being given the opportunity to know and learn from them. That's all I have for now. Karla Adrian Winchell wrote: >I gotta question. Seems my local congregation focuses pretty heavily on >covenant groups. > >And is thoroughly unable to describe them properly. > >I've been hopping about to various sites about them, and get this...I >dunno, sorta "icky-cliquey" vibe from the descriptions I'm reading. >Either that or an "extroverts support group" :P > >Some of the stuff I've reading also suggests making decisions about >"When do we close people out? When do we tell people they haven't been >here enough to come back?" - now, I've read stuff from the Foundation >for Community Encouragement, and understand the necessity of this - but >it still seems worded awfully coldly. Maybe I just like cycles and >coping mechanisms rather than closed doors, but it seems that the >questions "how often do we want to reopen and reform the group?" and >"How do we handle someone who is falling away from the group?" would be >more productive. > >Anyone done this sorta thing? Have any recommendations? Horror stories? >Celebrations? Reassurances? Tips? > >Thanks in advance, >Adrian > >(PS: CUUYAN-Chat is set up so that replies will come only to the sender >you're replying to - you'll need to add the cuuyan-chat address to the >sender list on the reply if you want the entire list to see it.) > > -- PhD Candidate University of Florida Entomology & Nematology Dept. P.O. Box 110620 Gainesville, FL 32611 No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.