SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP AND SMALL GROUP MINISTRY
by Peter Bowden, UU Small Group Ministry Network
www.smallgroupministry.net

Small group ministries in our congregations have many names, norms and cultures. Regardless of the size of your groups or the design of your leadership structure, or the source of your session topics, your small group system presents a wonderful opportunity?the chance to support and encourage the spiritual development of your members and friends.

Most small group ministries and covenant groups follow a very similar structure including opening and closing ritual, a time for sharing and listening, and a core topic to explore. This basic structure and the general principles of maintaining it have proven to be of great success in our congregations. What we have seen less of is the emphasis on spiritual development and intentional leadership development that makes small group ministry thrive in Christian communities. In adapting a Christian model to our Unitarian Universalist communities our congregations need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Let us not throw the spiritual leadership or mentoring out with the Bible.

Take a moment to review both our principles and your congregation’s mission statement. Your congregation, if you are a member of our association, has covenanted to affirm and promote spiritual growth. We do a wonderful job of affirming spiritual growth as a value in our congregations, but how do we actively promote it? This is what small group ministry is for!

Promoting Spiritual Growth
In order to fully utilize your Small Group Ministry (SGM) as a means for promoting spiritual growth, we must make a shift from having group leaders who facilitate to facilitators who are spiritual leaders. We need to be intentional. Most Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to avoid concepts and terms such as spiritual teachers, gurus, shepherds and hierarchies. In their place we have our democratic process, mentors, and shared ministry. When we adapt small group ministry for our UU communities we need to replace the notion of shepherds and spiritual teachers with something that is in line with our values. We need to cultivate facilitators or leaders who display spiritual leadership.

Spiritual Leadership
What is spiritual leadership? In the context of a small group ministry we might call it the act of leading (or helping, mentoring, supporting, facilitating) a person's or group's spiritual growth and development. If you call your group leaders “facilitators” you do not need to change their label in order to promote spiritual growth in your groups. Group facilitators can display strong spiritual leadership regardless of what you call them, it is a matter of how you train, support, and mentor them that makes the difference.

Basic Training and Support
To appreciate how spiritual leadership can transform your small group ministry we need to establish what the norm is for training and support. Many of our congregations take people interested in facilitating a group and have them participate in a series of training sessions. These vary greatly in length. After completing this training and having been through a “model” small-group experience, the new facilitators start with a group of their own. For ongoing support all group facilitators meet at monthly coaching/support sessions with either the minister or a lay leader. These sessions often focus on checking in on how each person’s small group is going, offering advice and training on different skills as needed, and working on the cultivation of an apprentice facilitator. This will minimally sustain a Small Group Ministry system.

Relationships and Spiritual Leadership
In many Eastern traditions it is commonly accepted that without a mentor, teacher, or model we tend to plateau in our development. Being around people who are more developed spiritually than we are can encourage us to turn our attention to our own growth and development. Does this always happen? No.

If we see someone who is in great shape it may make us think of exercise, but doesn’t necessarily get us to the gym. We may even spend a great deal of time with them and still, no trips to the gym. However, if we get to know the person well, reaching a point where it is obvious he or she cares about you, and that you return that care, and then you are asked to GO to the gym, that is an entirely different story!

When a person we trust and care about accepts us for who we are, encourages us to grow, and offers to mentor us through a growth process, we have a very real opportunity to be transformed.

Picture a congregation where each person is accepted, encouraged, and mentored by a person who is in turn being accepted, encouraged, and mentored. That is a beautiful picture. But how do you create such a thing? What does it actually look like? Where do you start?

Where to Start
Start with your minister. A Small Group Ministry is a system of relationships, with each person being connected to a peer group and a mentor. If the entire system is being encouraged to grow spiritually, then the minister is the most logical and qualified person to be the first mentor. In the absence of a minister, such as in a fellowship, a lay leader will have to serve this function. Your small group ministry, with an emphasis on spiritual leadership, should start with this first set of relationships and work its way out slowly.

Mentoring, Coaching & Growth
It is common for most small groups to have between eight and ten members. When a group gets larger than ten to twelve, intimacy is lost, and there are too many relationships to maintain. If you have embraced Small Group Ministry as a means of building and sustaining the primary relationships within the congregation, the leader of each group is not only responsible for facilitating the group’s sessions, he or she is taking on responsibility for the group’s experience in the community.

It takes a great deal of effort to build relationships and help people integrate into the life of the congregation. Though it is often said that the most people one individual can care for is ten, the number is far lower for active mentoring. It is therefore essential that the leader have an apprentice in the group. Though the leader is ultimately responsible for the full group, from the start the apprentice can be given half the responsibility or relationships to maintain. This both reduces the burden of the facilitator and creates the relationships that may form the core of new groups as the parent group grows and divides.

When a group divides, the facilitator of the original group may serve as the mentor of the new group leader, the former apprentice. If this is done, one who is skilled in growing healthy groups and the birthing process will eventually have a number of group leaders being mentored. When a mentor (often called a coach) has five group leaders being mentored, that person should stop facilitating a small group and pull the five mentored leaders together in a new coaching group. The coach will then be moved to a regular meeting of other coaches, also a group of five. Between the peer coaching group of five and the mentoring group, the total number of relationships remains close to ten, though the emphasis has shifted.

It is important to keep focused on the relationships as groups grow and divide. Some may want or need a relationship to be maintained. Other relationships will need to be severed in order for growth to continue. There will also be new relationships formed as apprentices are cultivated. For example, an apprentice who is clearly skilled and ready for more leadership may be invited to join coaching sessions, thereby establishing a relationship with the coach. This may be essential if the leader of the apprentices group is not interested in mentoring additional people or is leaving the group for one reason or another.

Speed
Speed kills a system of relationships. Grow too fast and the participants do not develop the trust, the community, and experience a strong, healthy group life long enough to successfully mentor others. When you launch your small group ministry let it be known that your community is starting to build a new system of relationships and that new groups will be formed only as quickly as strong relationships can be formed. Fortunately this happens quickly in a small group!

It is essential that it be made clear from the very start of the first group that the intimacy members are going to experience results from the small group ministry structure, that the system is going to be expanded as needed to include all who are interested, and that the system is built on mentoring others in the art of spiritual leadership.

The Intimacy Trap
People who have never experienced an intimate, stable, long-term small group before will be amazed at how quickly relationships are formed. They will also tend to attribute this intimacy to the particular group members. If you do not explain from the start that the intimacy they are about to experience is a result of the structure and content of the group, and remind them along the way, they will want to keep the group intact and not grow. On the other hand, if it is made clear that it is the norm in small group ministry and that it should be shared, then it is more likely that the group will keep open to growth and evangelism.

Placement in System
When you embrace spiritual leadership and mentoring as the primary focus of your system of relationships, you look at each and every individual as being capable of growth. How you place people in such a system includes a number of factors, including where they are in their spiritual development and growth, their ability to lead and grow a group, and how integrated they are in the life of the congregation.

Spiritual Leadership and Established Programs
If you have an established Small Group Ministry that has not emphasized spiritual growth, spiritual leadership, and mentoring, you can easily take steps to shift toward this model. Take a look at your coaching or training sessions. What is the focus of these sessions? If it is entirely on how the groups are going, try exploring the spiritual life of the group leaders. Ask some questions. What spiritual disciplines are they involved in? How are they involved in the life of the community outside of their group time? Once you get to know them better, turn your attention to mentoring and the nature and quality of the facilitator/apprentice relationship. Group leaders will need to spend a fair amount of time with the apprentice outside of the group.

More Learning
For more resources like this one, please visit www.smallgroupministry.net, the home of the Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry Network.