Unitarian Universalist Leadership School

Unitarian Universalist Leadership School

Pacific Central District

August 2nd – August 8th, 2008 (Saturday - Friday)

Camp Tuolumne Trails in Groveland, CA

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Curriculum

Worship Design
Religious Heritage and Identity
Community Building:
          Conflict Resolution
            Leadership Styles
            Group Process
Faith Centering

Photos by Jim Hodges

Worship Design

Many Leadership School graduates have said that creating and sharing the daily worship services was a surprisingly rewarding and liberating aspect of their week together. Surprising, because many came in with unpleasant memories of worship from other traditions; Rewarding, because the experience of celebrating life together held unexpected joys; And liberating, because the act of ascribing worth to existence (which is what the old English word "weothscipe" meant) required not doting subservience but an active willingness to open eyes and ears and appreciation to what is around us always. It is this endeavor that we'll accomplish together throughout the week.

Groups will be created from participants and each group will be responsible for developing and conducting one of the daily worship services. Each service may be 15 to 30 minutes long and may be held anywhere on the grounds of the conference center. Each group is encouraged to explore what excites, inspires and intrigues them, utilizing the basic principles of worship and group dynamics which will be taught during the week, to create a service which will draw others into their experience.

Each day we will participate as a group in examining those elements that really worked and those that could work better with some degree of alteration. You can expect to reap from this experience not only learning but also satisfaction, renewal and joy.

Religious Heritage and Identity

The past so wonderfully forms and informs the present. Exploring the trends, dips, and glides of history can so deeply invigorate us as we live our lives today. The ancestors of our past offer us an inheritance of universal love, religious freedom, and ongoing commitment for a better world.

For this section of our coursework we will explore the movings of our religious history and how time has shaped who we are today. We will construct a general picture of our past exploring the shift from creed to covenant and then three primary liberal religious practices: love, freedom, and service. In so doing, we'll call on several exemplars from Universalism, Unitarianism, and Unitarian Universalism who have made these themes so very real in the world.

We'll combine song, image, lecture and conversation to help make this all happen. By the last day, we'll each offer a short statement before the rest of us that expresses our sense of Unitarian Universalism to whomever asks, "So what is Unitarian Universalism anyway?"

The goal of these sessions will be less to give you an in-depth, factual history of our faith than a thematic tour with people's lives as touchstones on the journey. You will come away with a tangible sense of a living history that inspires you, challenges you, supports you, and nurtures you in your ongoing path of leadership.

Community Building

Community Building is an educational process that teaches individuals to work together more effectively and efficiently (or play together more creatively) in order to reach mutually shared goals. Through the Community Building process, human resources are continuously identified, allocated and expanded in ways that make these resources more available and thereby improving the organization's problem solving capabilities. The basic objective of Community Building is the development of self-renewing, self-correcting systems of people who can continuously organize and relate to one another so as to maximize the creative use of human resources within the organization.

Our UU statement of principles and purposes calls us "to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person," to accept one another and to encourage spiritual growth within congregations. Our movement is both congregational and democratic in structure and organization. Our concern is to involve our membership meaningfully, both in terms of meeting individual needs for acceptance and growth and in terms of setting and achieving shared organizational goals. This entails learning to set aside the "I win – You lose" competitive patterns and adopting processes that incorporate an "I WIN – YOU WIN" attitude.

Key Concepts:

Understanding your personal leadership style and how it fits into the situation at hand.

Understanding conflict as necessary for growth.

Improving communication skills that will build trust, clarify differences, and make it possible to solve problems.

Increasing awareness of group process that attends to the needs of people while allowing tasks to be accomplished.

Learning techniques that facilitate a group's ability to set goals, plan action, make decisions and evaluate outcomes.

Method:

All the above is best learned through experience and practice. Each day, after a brief lecture and discussion period, small Community Building groups practice group process and communication skills. At the end of each morning, we will reconvene in the larger group plenary sessions to share our experiences and learning.

Faith Centering

In the Faith Centering Groups, we will have an opportunity to examine and express the most fundamental tenets of our personal faith and journey from introspection to community. Through community, we gain strength and inspiration. By sharing and listening with an open heart and mind, we are drawn to the common ground of our Unitarian Universalist religion. It is that center which ultimately gives meaning and purpose to our daily life.

Each day, we will use a specific focus question from the day's curriculum in small groups to explore the story of our faith journey. Because we will use Wisdom Circle techniques, the emphasis will be on how we may learn to listen to one another with deep appreciation. When we so share in loving small groups, we are enabled and encouraged tell our own story in the best way we can. It is in the speaking and hearing that we often find a sense of belonging and of common mission. It is in the speaking and hearing, that we may find intention for our personal ministry and our religious communities.