Are you different in a group than when you are alone? Something happens when two or more are gathered together. We come face to face with how we want to live out our values, and with how to best support our own needs as well as the needs of the group. When two or more are gathered we face our own desire to be accepted, seen, heard, and understood and the gamut of emotions that prevent us from taking the risk.

There has been much study about the way that human beings behave in a group: the compromises we make, the way we can be supported and strengthened to be more of who we are, and the synergy that can occur. Many groups however, are stuck in groupthink. Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. I have often said that we cannot be Unitarian Universalist alone. We need a religious community to hold us accountable to act out our values as we profess them to be. We need a place to test, analyze, and evaluate our beliefs.

There is such a place. There is such a process. It is in the small groups of this church. Come and explore with me how you might try on a new process for being with one another.