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A Church of Many Communities
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Roger Fritts
on September 15, 2002
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
A few years ago I was attending a conference for ministers called
"The Pastor as Professional Leader." The leader of the conference told a
story about the organizing of new congregations in Texas. The
storyteller did not name the denomination, but he is a Methodist, so I
assumed that was the denomination to which he was referring.
It was back in the 1950s and 1960s when the suburbs around cities
like Dallas were growing at a rapid pace. A new congregation organizer
was sent into start churches. He began by putting ads in the newspaper
inviting people to come to a meeting at a local hotel. The gatherings
would attract about ten or fifteen people, not enough to start a church.
The organizer gave the groups some basic materials such as some hymn
books and encouraged them to start by gathering in each others homes
Sunday mornings, and talk to each other about the issues they were
facing in their lives.
Using this method, eventually the new congregation organizer created
dozens of small groups that were meeting in each others homes. When a
certain geographical area had about ten groups, the denomination brought
in a minister, who was assigned the task of calling the ten or twelve
groups together to form one church. They would rent a hall and begin to
worship together, and eventually they would buy land and build a
building. Several churches were organized in this way.
Some of the new ministers were very effective at bringing these ten
or twelve small groups together and integrating them into one
congregation. They mixed people up so they got to know each other. They
had lots of potlucks. They held all church retreats where everyone got
to know each other. They preached about community and about love, and
they forged a new church identity as people got to know each other. When
denominational officials visited these new churches, they praised the
ministers for the good work that they were doing.
On the other hand, some of the ministers were not very effective at
creating one church out of ten or twelve small groups. They tried to mix
people up, but when they held potlucks, people sat with their old small
groups, and did not make much effort to get to know the other people in
the other groups. They tended to sit together with their old friends
from the small group and only talk to their friends at coffee hour. The
ministers preached sermons about how they were all now one community,
and one church, but members resisted the idea. When denominational
officials visited these new churches, they heard complaints about the
minister and they got the feeling that people had not really come
together.
Time passed. And about ten years later, an observant denominational
official who had been part of the process from the start noticed an
interesting pattern. The churches where the ministers had been
successful in bringing people together into one congregation all had
about one hundred twenty adult members, about the same number that they
had when they first were integrated into one happy church family. The
churches, where the ministers had failed to bring people together into
one community, had gradually gotten bigger and bigger, so that now they
had seven or eight hundred adult members, or even more.
This story illustrates one of the realities of Protestant Church life
in the United States and Canada. Healthy small congregations tend to be
made up of one big happy community. Healthy large churches tend to be
made up of many, big, happy communities. Put another way, healthy small
churches are like single cell organisms, and healthy large churches are
like multi-cell organisms.
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church has always been a multi-cell
church. We have always been a church of many communities. Today we have
dozens of small communities within this church. There are: Dinner
Discussion Groups, Adult Education Programs, Aging Support Groups, the
Alliance, the Quilters group, the Bridge Group, Cedar Lane Stage, the
Choir, the Wednesday Morning Group, Journey women, the Singles Group,
Science and Religion, a Men’s Group, and twenty-one Adult Education
classes this fall. We have about thirty committees, which also served as
small communities within the church, including the Religious Education
Council, the Social Justice Council, the Flower Committee, and many,
many others.
Personally, when I became deeply involved in a church it was because
of a small group. I was a freshman in high school. My parents had taken
me to the Unitarian Universalist church for years. However, the really
powerful connection came that year when I was fourteen. In September I
went to the first meeting of what was then called the LRY, or Liberal
Religious Youth, because of over crowding, it was held in the minister’s
office. I was very shy and I did not say anything. For a month I did not
go back.
But then one of the other kids in the group, a high school senior,
called me and invited me to come to their fall retreat. I said yes, and
over those two days I got to know people, and some of them became my
closest friends. I liked the minister of the church, I liked the
theology of religious liberalism, but if I were asked to give one reason
why I was so involved in that church, I would say that it was because my
closest friends, my best friends at that time of my life, were the other
kids in that high school youth group. We talked about some of the things
that mattered most in our lives, about issues of war and peace, about
the use of drugs, about the purpose of our lives, and the existence of
God.
These issues are discussed sometimes in the many small groups that
exist at Cedar Lane today, and their existence explains why we have such
a healthy church. However, to remain healthy we are always looking for
new ideas, looking for what is working in other Unitarian Universalist
congregations and seeing if it will work for us.
A grassroots movement has spread in Unitarian Universalist Churches
during the last five years. Some of us call this movement "small group
ministry." One Church in Tulsa calls their small groups "Circles of
Hope." Here a Cedar Lane our name is "Covenant Groups." We are starting
new covenant groups this fall. To quote from our Adult Programs
Brochure:
The Covenant Group Program is designed with the intention of
deepening your spiritual journey. Groups of six to twelve members meet
regularly for four to nine months once or twice a month; groups are led
by trained facilitators.
Groups meet once a month or more. A meeting starts with a simple open
ritual, such as a reading from a Unitarian Universalist source such as
our hymn book. This is followed by an opening check-in. Each person is
asked to briefly state her or his answer to a question such as: What’s
on your mind today? What seems most important to you these days? After
the check-in there is a discussion and sharing based on a chosen topic.
The focus is on how the topic affects the lives of those present. We
want to provide you with opportunities to talk with others about your
journey of life, opportunities for discussion of what is most important
to you.
The word, covenant, in the name covenant group refers to the
promises, the commitments that people in the group make about how they
intend to relate to one another. In the context of a group of twelve or
fewer, with a facilitator and a covenant of behavior, trust and mutual
respect can grow between people.
What is the difference between covenant groups and other small groups
within the church? In my experience, we human beings organize ourselves
into groups for three basic reasons.
First are the task-centered groups. These include the Board and
most church committees. At these gatherings people may over time become
close friends, but the main focus of the group is to accomplish the
task, such as planning the church budget, or organizing our religious
education programs, or organizing our social action projects.
Second are the education-centered groups. These include our
religious education classes for adults and children. Much of the Sunday
service is an education centered group. The modern Sunday sermon was
invented by Martin Luther as a lecture about the Bible, modeled after a
university lecture. Our church field trips and our retreats are also
often education centered groups.
Third are the relationship-centered groups. These include our
men's group, Journey women, and singles gatherings, aging support groups
and dinner discussion groups. The purpose of the group is to rid
ourselves of the anxiety that we feel when we are alone.
The first serious book about human nature I had picked up when I was
a teenager. It was The Art of Loving, by Erich Fromm. After I got
over my disappointment that the book was not about what I thought it was
about, I took another look at the book. Fromm wrote that the deepest
need of human beings "is to overcome our separateness, to leave the
prison of our aloneness."
Covenant groups are a form of relationship-centered groups. They
exist for the specific purpose of helping us overcome our separateness,
for us to leave the prison of our aloneness.
If you decide you would like to sign up for one of these groups,
there is more information and sign up cards on the table below the name
tags in the back of the church. Rev. Douglas Taylor is the minister on
the covenant group committee, and can answer questions about the
details.
Small groups like this explain the enormous growth of a liberal
Buddhist movement in Japan. In Rissho Kosei-Kai congregations of
Buddhists break into small groups of about ten people who meet weekly
following a worship service. They sit in a circle on carpeted floors.
Under the leadership of one person they talk about problems of human
life, share joys and sorrows, and discuss Buddha’s teachings. Because in
many ways Japan is a private society, this structure of small group
sharing is a major breakthrough from traditional Japanese culture.
Rissho Kosei-Kai has grown to be the second largest organized religion
in Japan with an estimated eight million members. They have the largest
membership of any religious group that is apart of the International
Association for Religious Freedom, an organization founded by Unitarians
over 100 years ago.
Southern Baptist churches have become the largest Protestant
denomination in the United States by encouraging members to attend adult
Sunday School each week, in addition to the worship service.
I attended a Southern Baptist church a few years ago. Following the
service, instead of coffee hour, I was invited to join a group of about
twenty adults in a comfortable basement room. The group was led by a
layperson. All newcomers to the group were invited to say their names,
tell a little about themselves, and were welcomed into the group. The
leader led us in a discussion. A regular member of the group was away
because her mother had died. A sympathy card was circulated and signed
by all of us.
Although the theology was different than that of Unitarian
Universalism, I did not see anything in the organization or structure of
these small groups that was incompatible with Unitarian Universalism.
The emphasis on the regular meeting of groups of adults gives people a
feeling of being a part of a small caring community within the larger
church. It is a key to the success of many Southern Baptist
congregations.
So this is why I believe in strongly encouraging the development of
small groups in this congregation. In the nine years I have served as
your minister I have encouraged the establishment of men’s groups,
singles’ groups, Sunday evening worship groups, and aging support
groups. Some of those groups have continued. Some groups have succeeded
for awhile and then came to an end which happens when we are willing to
experiment with new ideas, when we are willing to risk.
Now we are experimenting with yet another new idea: that of Covenant
groups. I believe that when a small group of Unitarian Universalists
meets together regularly with a facilitator and a format that encourages
listening and the sharing of feelings and ideas, people will experience
a deeper sharing of self, through discussions of values and theologies,
and through feelings of caring.
We are a big congregation. Many of us are strangers to each other.
Our society encourages us to learn the skills of achievement,
production, and recognition. We are at home in this structured
environment. Our weakness is that we are less at home at building
friendships. Yet our yearning for friendships is a big part of what
brings us into a religious community. The structures of a covenant group
give us simple, open, relaxed ways that can pull us gently away from
tasks of producing, achieving, and gaining status and bring us together
in ways that are caring.
On the eve of Yom Kipper, I think of the Jewish Philosopher, Martin
Buber who wrote that "the principle of human life is not simple but
two-fold, being built up in a two-fold movement which is of such kind
that the one movement is the presupposition of the other." Buber calls
"the first movement 'the primal setting at a distance.'" He is talking
about our need for individuality, and we do that well in Unitarian
Universalist churches with our love of people like Thoreau, and his book
Walden.
However to be human, Buber said, after we stand at a distance we need
to be able to enter into relationship without losing our individual
identity. He wrote, "one can enter into relationship only with a being
which has been set at a distance, more precisely, has become an
independent opposite. . . ."
This is a goal for this church: that we provide here opportunities
for each of us to define our separate identities, to define ourselves.
And that after standing at a distance we have opportunities to turn and
to move into relationships with others. Again in Buber’s words,
"Distance provides the human situation; relation provides our becoming
in that situation."
Office@CedarLane.org
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