Listening Circles at First UU

 Listening Circles Report & Facilitation Guide Now Available!
The Listening Circles Planning Team completed its work on March 19, 2022, submitting a summary report to the Interim Committee (Exec)  and the Board which:
  • details development and implementation of the 24 December 2021/January 2022 Listening Circles and
  • summarizes the responses of 136 First UU members and friends involved in the deep listening process.
Links to the 19-page report and the Facilitation Guide developed for our facilitators are here:
Listening Circles Report 03-19-2022   ​   ​Listening Circles Facilitation Guide 12-09-2021
 
The Planning Team would like to thank all who made Listening Circles possible:
  • 123 First UU member and friend participants;
  • 13 facilitator participants;
  • Assistant Minister Rev. Omega Burckhardt;
  • Ministers in Residence Revs. Michael Brown, Deanna Vandiver, and Kathleen McTigue;
  • Rev. Denise Graves of Unfolding Peace; and
  • Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh, UUA Pacific Western Region Congregational Life staff person.
 
Listening Circles were the first step in the journey to healing and reconnection. We look forward to First UU finding additional ways to utilize deep listening processes as we continue to heal and grow into a radically welcoming and inclusive congregation.  
With the success of this process as a tool for moving forward in 2022 and beyond, additional volunteers will be welcome. Please let us know of your interest in being involved in future Listening Circles as a participant, facilitator, and/or organizing team member by completing the Interest Form.

Returning to Community Via Listening Circles

Listening Circles: Where We've Been & Where We're Going
Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who were able to participate in our first phase of Listening Circles focused on reconnecting and healing from the past 2 challenging years. It wouldn’t have been possible without:
  • the 130 “sharing” participants (including facilitators);
  • the ministerial support of Rev. Michael Brown, Rev. Omega Burckhardt, Rev. Deanna Vandiver, and Rev. Denise Graves;
  • our wonderful facilitators (Tony Bianca, Marcia Biller, Marla English, Newt Ferris, Nancy Fisk, Andy French, Jan Garbosky, Valerie Jaques, Chris Smith, Rose Van Oss, and Les Vivian);
  • Dan Paul who made all the circle assignments and aggregated the survey responses and recorder notes for all the Listening Circles; and
  • Rev. Sarah Millspaugh, UUA Pacific Western Region Congregational Life staff person, who designed the facilitator training.
The last Listening Circle in this initial round took place on Sunday, January 23. More than 60 pages of anonymized responses from the 24 completed Listening Circles are being reviewed and analyzed by members of the Planning Team. Written responses from those who missed their Listening Circle or for whom zoom is not doable are also included.  
 
The analysis will take some time, be summarized in a variety of ways, and reported back to the congregation, the Board, and ministers (including past and future Ministers in Residence and our Developmental Minister).
 
What We Learned About the Process: We heard loud and clear from participants and facilitators in our Listening Circles that the process was powerful, affirming, healing, and transformative.
 
People commented that our Listening Circles were safe spaces in which they could speak openly and with honesty. Trust was built by invoking a covenant and by having respectful listening. There was no commenting, no affirming or correcting, and no crosstalk. One of the two trained facilitators acted as scribe and listened, took anonymized notes, and read back those notes. The speaker then had an opportunity to correct, modify, adjust, and approve the notes before the next person was invited to speak. The rest of the circle bore a few seconds of silent witness to each participant’s sharing. As we learned from participants’ surveys completed after their Listening Circle, the process worked very well. The information gained from these Listening Circles will help our Board and committees get ready to work with our Developmental Minister and, also, help Rev. Deanna and Rev. Denise with designing the direction and activities of Unfolding Peace with us through 2022.
 
Moving Forward: Turning to the future, we envision Listening Circles can be a valuable tool for our community to use with other emerging congregational life matters—bearing witness to each other through “Reimagining our Covenant” and “Becoming a Radically Welcoming Community,” as well as other important issues.

Read past updates on our Blog.
What are Listening Circles?
  • A beginning; a first step
  • A way to acknowledge what we’ve each personally experienced the past 18 months or longer
  • A means to share how we’ve been affected by the changes & challenges during that time—to express & listen to concerns.
  • A means for personal healing through sharing our individual story & for rekindling relationships & building trust through listening to those in our group
  • A time to speak from our hearts the truth from our individual experience
  • A time to listen to different truths with love, honesty, respect, & compassion & sit with discomfort
  • A 2-hour, facilitated, active listening session of no more than 8-10 (including 2 trained First UU facilitators)
 
What Listening Circles Aren’t
  • NOT a time to interrupt, dialogue, debate, or question
  • NOT a time to judge, challenge, or discuss
  • NOT a time for “cross-talk”
  • NOT a time to fix or solve problems

​Why Listening Circles
  • To turn toward each other
  • To build trust & surface issues
  • To acknowledge the need for further work
  • To help develop goals to be used in our application for a Developmental Minister
  • To help our next Ministers in Residence work with us on the healing process

Who to contact

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Jan Garbosky
Listening Circles Planning Team Member
[email protected]