Three Elements:
Meta-Structure for Small Group Ministry

By

Rev. Michael McGee

There’s a New Yorker cartoon showing a woman intently watching television with her beer drinking husband standing behind her. She replies to an obvious question, “It’s a love story. Nobody’s ahead.”

That’s what covenant groups are: a love story, a place to set aside the pettiness of competition and suspicion and to open ourselves to relationship. We learn to listen to each other, to empathize with compassion, and to reach out to others with love, not only to those in the group but to the greater community of humanity.

This is the greatest challenge of being in a covenant group: to let go of our ego and step into the lives of those around us. This is how we create real community and live in the depths of spirituality.

In the words of the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke:

"I live my life in ever widening circles, each superseding all the previous ones. Perhaps I never shall succeed in reaching the final circle, but attempt I will.”

Covenant groups give us the opportunity to widen our circles of community and spirituality. The meta-structure for small group ministry is how each group expands their circle into the larger life of the church and community.

Covenant groups have great potential not only for sustaining and transforming individuals but for sustaining and transforming congregations – and even our society and world. Here are some ways your covenant group program can create a strong meta-structure:

1) Covenant groups create healthier congregations by training facilitators and participants in healthy ways to communicate and build community. When people learn how to genuinely communicate in a covenant group, they naturally bring that skill into the life of the congregation, changing the church into a more sacred place where instead of bickering and back-biting, people are enabled to live out the principles of our faith.

It begins with the facilitators. The facilitators are trained by the minister(s) and they meet with the minister(s) on a regular basis for ongoing training, support, and problem solving. Our Center for Community Values also provides training and support.

Having minister(s) intimately involved in your covenant group program provides a vital link between the groups and the larger church. By doing so, minister(s) are not only able to support these talented religious leaders in the church, but they can provide pastoral support to participants who need more than the group can provide.

Minister(s) are also able to help provide boundaries for those who need them. And minister(s) are able to spot and support future leaders in the congregation. In our church, each of the three ministers facilitates a monthly leadership group of facilitators, so that we can give that support, ongoing training and contact.

2) Covenant groups create spiritually mature congregations by providing a safe environment and encouragement towards spiritual growth. A specific covenant owned and kept visible by each group is essential in doing that.

But our covenant groups have helped us to realize the need to have a covenant for the entire congregation so that everyone can feel safe in their spiritual growth, and so we are now in the process of creating a congregational behavioral covenant.

This is one of many examples of how covenant groups can affect the larger congregation and create a safer and healthier environment. Covenants are at the heart of small group ministry, and they should be taken seriously.

3) Covenant groups create compassionate congregations that reach out into the community by having service as a part of the covenant. Service to the congregation and community is a vital way to keep groups from becoming too insular.

By working together on a service project for the congregation or community, groups develop a deeper sense of compassion. And I’ve found that this work gives groups energy and cohesiveness as well.

At the beginning of our covenant group program, groups resisted the requirement to take part in a service project, but now I find groups look forward to it. And they model for the rest of the congregation an essential part of our spirituality. As an example, there are three different covenant groups in our church that are helping with this conference as a part of their outreach.

4) Welcoming others into groups and supporting their continued growth is another way to keep connections strong with the larger church. This welcoming attitude should also be a part of the covenant. Having an empty chair in the group can be a reminder of this covenant and the need to pay attention to those who could benefit from being in a group. By continually growing new groups and adding new participants to existing groups, cliques are discouraged and true community is encouraged.

5) To build a meta-structure, it’s helpful to affirm other small groups in the church and to challenge them to accept elements of the covenant group model. Many of our committees and our board use elements of this model, and by doing so, their meetings become a more satisfying spiritual and community event. My goal is that every one of our church groups will eventually use the covenant group format.

6) I’ve found that covenant groups need to have a strong connection to Sunday morning worship. One of the problems I’ve heard in some covenant group programs is groups becoming their own mini-church, finding so much satisfaction in their particular group that they disconnect from worship and other programs in the church.

In our church, our covenant groups are based on a theme of the year that we also use in worship. The ministers preach on this theme once a month for eight months, and each group uses the sermon as the focus of their discussion for that month. The theme is also used in religious education and in other church programs, providing us with an ongoing congregational conversation about significant spiritual issues.

By encouraging involvement in worship, participants are motivated to keep connected to the congregation. And the congregation is also reminded on a monthly basis of the deeper spiritual work of covenant groups.

Our first full year of covenant groups began in the fall of 2001. The first meeting of those groups took place soon after September 11 th. The sermon and covenant group theme for that year was, “The Big Questions,” and I’ll always be thankful that our congregation had covenant groups at that terrible time when the nation and our own community was attacked by terrorists. Those in covenant groups were able to share their pain and grief and anger with each other and to move more quickly towards healing.

7) The final challenge for covenant groups is to keep moving outward: outward into the congregation, outward into the community, and outward into the world. Our long-range strategy is to develop covenant groups with two other churches in our area that we have a special relationship with, one a black Baptist Church, and the other a racially mixed Catholic Church.

Can you imagine what that will be like, to be in a covenant group with people of different races and beliefs and economic status and life styles? This would give us the incredible opportunity to create pluralistic communities that can explore together crucial personal and social issues.

A strong meta-structure is vital for the health and growth of small group ministry. As Rainer Maria Rilke writes:

"I live my life in ever widening circles, each superseding all the previous ones. Perhaps I never shall succeed in reaching the final circle, but attempt I will.”