Finding Heart Ministries
Comments By The Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
October 2, 2005
This beautiful floral centerpiece came from Jenny Munz and David Neal’s wedding last night. It’s fitting that it grace our altar today because Jenny and David met and fell in love through their Finding Heart Group. As my colleague, the Rev. Ned Wight, put it in the wedding ceremony, they literally found heart in their Finding Heart group. What a wonderful thing to happen!
Finding Heart groups are also known as Covenant groups in other UU congregations, and are part of the small group ministries which larger congregations need to offer to ensure that their members and friends can connect in meaningful ways with a more intimate number of people. They are not singles groups and they are not support groups, but as you can see, lasting relationships do result and people do find support among these weekly gatherings of eight to ten.
Finding Heart is about your ministry, though. Your ministry. What does that mean, you might ask?
I’ll start with an example from the Board retreat yesterday. We were working on the mission statement of the Board, and someone, I think it was David Greene because he was leading our process, told us that he had read somewhere that individuals can have mission statements, too. I wonder, do any of you have a mission statement for yourself? Do you have a purpose in your life?
If we consider that our sense of purpose in life can be a mission, we can also see it as a ministry. Think a minute about something that is really important to you. If you have been doing your spiritual homework, you will know what it is, and those of you who have to think a long time about it can put it higher up on your contemplation list. What do you really care about?
Now consider why you care so deeply about that. Usually, there is one incident or many experiences that have led you to care deeply about something. When you become aware of it, and of how it has influenced the choices you make in your life, you are close to recognizing your ministry. When you know what you care most deeply about, your heart, and find the courage, or the heart, to work to bring that about in the world, then you are engaging in ministry.
This is the work of the Finding Heart Groups. Each of you has a guiding passion and that is your heart. The groups help you to recognize it and to consider the ways your life is in line with your passion, or not. If not, the groups can help you find the heart to make some changes in your life so you live with integrity and a sense of the power of your ministry.
Each person in a Finding Heart group is encouraged to explore and express their passion or heart or ministry through creating a small-group worship experience in their group. Worship is a word with some negative connotations for some of you, but when you take it to its roots, it means “worth-ship” or applying worth to something. Worship is saying “This is important.” That is what I do when I’m creating worship. I’m saying something is important to me, or to some of you, or to our community, or to our world.
The altar or centerpiece of worship is a physical or concrete expression of your heart. This altar here is a community altar. You might not really have thought about the items up here that you see most Sundays, but they carry meaning even subliminally. The chalice is the most obvious symbol of our faith, with roots to the basic fight for freedom and most especially, religious freedom. There are many meanings when you start to consider them.
The offering bowls are both functional and symbolic of the fact that our religious community depends on the generosity and commitment of all of us, and reminds us as well of the needs of the larger community and our responsibility as citizens to do what we can. The flowers are a focus of beauty, as is the painting over the altar which we commissioned from the artist for this exact spot and our constant contemplation. What role does beauty have in our religious lives?
The cloth on the altar isn’t just a white cloth. It was made by Unitarian hands in Transylvania, and connects us with a long heritage, as well as serving to remind us of those connections today. What does Unitarianism mean to people who have lived with it for five hundred years?
The bell is maybe just a bell. Or it is a reminder to stop and pay attention. It was a gift to me from a colleague at my ordination and reminds me of the power of ritual.
This altar represents our community and can change from week to week, or not. When you make an altar for your small-group worship in the Finding Heart group, you will choose those items that have meaning for you in your ministry, even as you find the words or the stories or the songs to express your heart.
These are important experiences for each of us to have in a religious community. We don’t just come here to be told what to believe. This community expects you to take responsibility for your spiritual growth – how is that put in our Purposes and Principles? We “affirm and promote…acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” Hey! Now’s your chance. (The rest of the Purposes and Principles are listed near the front of your hymnal).
I’ll tell you more about how to join the groups a little later in the service, after we’ve heard some testimonials from people who have been in them. For now, I invite you to contemplate your heart during the meditation which follows the offering.
The offering will now be given and received.
Getting Involved:
* Sign up for a Finding Heart Group on the sign-up sheets here in the sanctuary, and during the next few weeks in Goldblatt. Some of the groups will start in a few weeks, and others start after the beginning of the year.
* It is a commitment to attend a group for six consecutive weeks, and then as a group decide whether to continue and how often for the rest of the year. Your commitment, though, is for the first six weeks, because that is how long it takes for a group to jell, according to small-group studies.
* You agree to disband the group in the month preceding the start up of groups next year. People tend to fall in love with their Finding Heart groups and since we are not about creating cliques within the congregation but rather about creating connections across ages and interests and faith orientations, etc, we make you sign in blood that you will disband.
* There is a sheet for those of you interested in applying to be a facilitator to let us know that. We will want to explore with you your experience and skill in leading groups before you are invited to lead one, and facilitators must also have been a member of a Finding Heart group at some point.
* There is also a sheet for those of you interested in being in a Finding Heart group but who are unable to find one with a compatible meeting time or date.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson