“What is the magic behind the Innovative Learning Circles?”  “How can I start one in my area?”  I get these questions more and more as word is getting out about the success of Innovative Learning Circles.

 

The purpose is to bring innovative leaders together to spark, inspire, and cross-pollinate each other.  Let’s be honest.  Being an innovator can be isolating and lonely.

 

Innovative Learning Circles is a cross between small group ministry, video conference, and case study. We meet monthly at a consistent time for an hour and a half by video (if you do not have a camera for your computer you will receive one in the mail.)  The regular agenda looks like this:

• Chalice Lighting
• Check-in
• Shared Case Study
• Reflection and/or feedback
• Take-Away (What nugget of wisdom or observation are you taking away)

Each group has a question they explore. Some of the questions the Innovative Learning Circles I shepherd are exploring are:

 

• How can leaders navigate challenges to plant Unitarian Universalist communities that meet the needs of the 21st century?
• What experiments might be replicable in other Unitarian Universalist settings?
• How can campus ministry programs reach beyond their identified UU group and make an impact? How can Campus Ministry impact area congregations?
• How can leaders adaptively shift congregational systems to break open and make way for concepts in the Faith Formation 2020 (John Roberto) training?
• How can small congregation focus on health and lower their walls for bigger impact in the world?
• How can prison ministry programs reach beyond their identified UU group and make an impact? How can prison ministry impact area congregations?
• How can leaders use worship to shift congregational systems to meet the needs of the 21st century?

 

So, if you were gathering your own circle, what question would you like to explore?  Who within your community or perhaps in the surrounding, larger community would you like to learn with?  This is a great opportunity to meet your counterparts or peers from other UU congregations in your cluster.

 

What kinds of challenges could you explore together?  This is the outline for the first meeting:

• Chalice Lighting
• Check-in
• What you need from this group? This experience?
• Sharing: What are challenges we deal with that other positions/leaders just couldn’t understand.  What do we wish the board/minister/UUA/<fill-in-the-bland> understood? What are challenges we might explore together?
• Reflection and/or feedback
• Take-Away (What nugget of wisdom or observation are you taking away)

 

Those questions about challenge are where the gold is.  Those will be where the “case studies” come from. Each participant takes turns giving a “case study,” which is a story or description about a challenge related to your ministry.  It’s almost always about an adaptive challenge – one that won’t go away. Some guiding questions:

• What is the current situation? Where do I want the situation to be?
• Who else is involved? What are our roles and responsibilities in this situation?  What part have I played?  Not played?
• What is within my control? Outside of my control?
• When things change a bit, what happens to the rest of the system?
• What do I need to learn?
• What do I need to let go of in order to embrace something new?
• Who else needs to be involved to make possible adaptations stick?

 

The group listens with pastoral and wondering ears, not “fix it” ears.  It takes great vulnerability and trust to reveal a challenge one isn’t sure about.  And that is where the real learning happens.  It is an affirming process.

 

An Innovative Learning Circle lasts between 7-9 months.  There’s an opening circle, a case study session for each participant (between 5-7 people is recommended), and then a closing circle.

 

In the closing circle, the final session, we take time to capture the over-all, meta-learnings from our sharing. Were there patterns in each other’s stories? Is there feedback we need to give to our regional staff (or other resource people) about what we’ve learned?  Might a workshop or training come out of anything you’ve learned together? The final go-around is gratitude from each other. Hold up each person and allow circle members to tell then what they’ve learned and appreciated from their presence.

 

This model is still in beta.  I use a virtual model, because of geographic challenges, but a face-to-face format would be lovely.  What makes it an Innovative Learning Circle is the guiding question, the gathering of innovators, and the sharing of the challenge stories. Feel free to experiment! And let me know what works for you. I’d love to hear from you!

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 Tandi Rogers facilitates eight different, virtual Innovative Learning Circles during the third week of every month. At the end of every Innovative Learning Circle she bursts out of her office and says, “These may be the most important thing my office does for growth! Wow! That was amazing.”