Small Group Ministry

First UU Church of Nashville Covenant Group Session Plan #142
Meghann Robern, Intern Minister

February Worship Theme: Prayer/ Meditation/Equanimity

Opening Words: Clarence Skinner, The Social Implications of Universalism p12-13

But the fight for freedom is never won. Inherited liberty is not liberty but tradition. Each generation must win for itself the right to emancipate itself from its own tyrannies, which are ever unprecedented and peculiar. Therefore those have been reared in freedom, bear a tremendous responsibility to the world to win an ever larger and more important liberty.

Chalice Lighting and Covenant

Check-In and Sharing

Topic:

Clarence Skinner, The Social Implications of Universalism, p20-21:

A democratic people demand a democratic God, a robust deity who likes his universe, who hungers for fellowship, who is in and of and for the whole of life, whose sympathies are as broad as the “rounded catalog, divine, complete,”

“The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseased,
The countless (nineteen-twentieths) low and evil, crude and savage,
The crazed, prisoners in jail, the horrible, rank, malignant,
(What is the part the wicked and the loathsome bear within earth’s orbic scheme?)
Newts, crawling things in slime and mud, poisons,
The barren soil, the evil men, the slag and hideous rot.”

The Universalist idea of God is that of a universal, impartial, immanent spirit whose nature in love. It is the largest thought the world has ever known; it is the most revolutionary doctrine ever proclaimed; it is the most expansive hope ever dreamed.

Modern Unitarian Universalism has moved beyond the two Christian doctrines from which it gets its name. But there are still lessons to be learned, and stories to be told, about our current identity and the future of our faith from where we came.

What speaks to you in the passage from Skinner’s book? Even by his own declaration, he says a free religion should be constantly evolving, so he was aware that his definitions and models of theology would fall short in the future if we were truly Universalist. What in his Universalism do you think doesn’t apply to us anymore, and why? What can be adapted with some word changes, but keeping the idea intact?

Who in your life challenges the idea of Universalism? Who might you balk at welcoming into the congregation, and why? Should there be limits on who receives radical hospitality and expressions of love at all, or just adjustments to what is offered? How can we reconcile Universalism with what we know now about toxic people and relationships?

Closing Check-Out and Chalice Extinguishing

Closing Words: Clarence Skinner, The Social Implications of Universalism, p23

A universal faith demands a universal application. This vast idea cannot be confined in one human mind, or in one favored class, but escapes beyond the narrow limitations of individualism into every conceivable relation of life. It cannot be calmly accepted by one and denied to the many.

First UU Church of Nashville Covenant Group Session Plan #141
Meghann Robern, Intern Minister

December Worship Theme: Gratitude

Opening Words: Thomas Merton, adapted (Lifting Our Voices #43)

We are living in the greatest revolution in history–
a huge spontaneous upheaval of the entire human race:
not a revolution planned and carried out
by any particular party, race, or nation,
but a deep elemental boiling over
of all the inner contradictions that have ever been,
a revelation of the chaotic forces inside everybody.
This is not something we have chosen,
nor is it something we are free to avoid.

Chalice Lighting and Covenant

Check-In and Sharing

Topic:

“As you may have heard, the first film in the third Star Wars trilogy will be opening around the country this coming Friday. You may have also noticed how this is a big deal. It threads my own generation, who were the first to be captured by Hero’s quest pasted onto a space opera with verve and panache. But also it also threads together the generation following who lived into the much higher production values and rather darker themes of the prequel trilogy. And now it looks like that thread will be running through a third generation, who already knew all six of the previous films looping them as technology allowed, as many times as their hearts desired.

Many who wonder at the staying power of these films over generations have pointed to that connection to Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces, with its thesis of a great myth that plays out in culture after culture. Now I watch a third generation caught up in this story with at least as much enthusiasm as so many of us felt in May of 1977, and I find it hard to argue with Professor Campbell’s premise.”

(excerpt from a homily given by James Ishmael Ford at Pacific Unitarian Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA on 13 December, 2015)

Even if you’re not a fan of Star Wars, the idea of mythology and archtypes as fundamental to human development through storytelling is compelling. Often these stories, that are told over and over again in different iterations, are not factually true, like a historical document, but are true in what they teach us about each other and living in right relationship. They help us discern not only what is worth fighting for, but how we fight when the time comes.

What stories have informed your development as an individual? As a person in relationships with others? What stories have you discovered you interpret very differently from someone else? How did you react? Have you ever started a relationship with someone (friendship counts!) based on a shared love of a story?

What stories are precious to you, and why?

Closing Check-Out and Chalice Extinguishing

Closing Words: Rebecca Parker, adapted (Lifting Our Voices #47)

Your gifts
whatever you discover them to be
can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind’s power,
The strength of the hands,
The reaches of the heart,
the gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
bind up wounds,
welcome the stranger,
praise what is sacred,
do the work of justice
or offer love.
Any of these can draw down the prison door,
hoard bread,
abandon the poor,
obscure what is holy,
comply with injustice
or withhold love.
You must answer this question:
What will you do with your gifts?

First UU Church of Nashville Covenant Group Session Plan #139
Meghann Robern, Intern Minister and CG Facilitator

October Worship Theme: Unity & Diversity

Opening Words: UUA Lifting Our Voices worship supplement, #41 (Penny Hackett-Evans)

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 as full people,
each with 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 other lives than our own.
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.

Chalice Lighting and Covenant

Check-In and Sharing

Topic:

The Reverend Mark Morrison-Reed offered up four things for UUs to consider regarding “The Perversity of Diversity”:

1. Lighten up. Many UUs are fearful of making mistakes, of saying the wrong thing and offending someone. Our fear prevents us from forming authentic relationships. We cannot let trepidation prevent us from reaching out. We will inevitably make mistakes, but we can forgive one another’s blunders.
2. Know who we are. We can only attract those who are like us. By knowing who we are, and being authentic to who we are, we will be able to attract more people who are like us across ethnic and racial lines.
3. Appreciate the diversity that’s already within us. The more we can do this, the more we would attract others to join us. Let’s affirm and celebrate with joy the diversity we already have.
4. Understand how we are caught in a conundrum—we have a perversity to our call for diversity. We want to change, but not too much, and we want to stay in our comfort zone. We settle for looking different rather than being different. Change will come whether we want it or not, simply because the society around us is changing.

How do these ideas make you feel? Have you ever stopped yourself from doing something out of fear of offending someone? Can that stopping, that not reaching out, ever be a good thing? Why are some areas of diversity so much harder to achieve than others?

Bridging from the Sept 27 worship service, how do you reconcile your multiple identities into one whole person? How can that work you do with yourself be applied to congregational life? To life in a larger community like Nashville?

Closing Check-Out and Chalice Extinguishing

Closing Words: UUA Lifting Our Voices worship supplement, #23 (Jonipher Kwong)

Spirit of Life,

You speak to us from the East and the West
You speak to us from the North and the South
You call to us from the depths of our being
We respond with enthusiasm and fervor
We cry out from Manila to Maui
We shout from Alaska to Alabama
We proclaim your wondrous love from the highest mountain to the deepest ocean
Our voices must be heard. We shall not be silent.
Our voices must be heard.