Given that many of us are isolated in locations without a large A/PI population, online covenant groups make a lot of sense as a way to build community.

Resources on Covenant Groups can be found online here.

The idea of an online covenant group first began in 2001 as a spin-off from the UU-Community email list which was becoming too large for any sort of in-dept connection that some of the members craved. The Church of the Larger Fellowship has also created online covenant groups for their members who are scattered all over the world. In August of 2004, A/PIC began its first online covenant group for A/PI UUs and Allies. The group is now ready to spin off a second group for A/PI UUs only. If you are interested in participating in an online Covenant Group, please complete the online feedback form and one of the group moderators will contact you.

The structure and format of an online covenant group is not much different from those of a real-life covenant group. Instead of having a real-life meeting once a month (or at some other frequency), an online group runs in cycles. Our first A/PIC covenant group runs in cycles of one-month, with a rotating schedule of one facilitator for each cycle. I recommend that groups can begin as soon as there are 8 people who are interested in participating and that each group be not larger than 12 people.

There should be one person in each group who is in charge of starting an email list and making sure that everyone is subscribed to it and able to post and receive messages. This person is responsible for the administrative part of the group including list management.

Prior to the start of the cycle, the group needs to do some organizational and administrative work:

1. The group leader creates an email list (using yahoogroups is simple and straight forward) and subscribes everyone to it.
2. Send out a test email and request response from everyone.
3. Send out contact information (phone number, email addresses and snail mail addresses) to everyone.
4. Each person posts a short introduction to the list.
5. The group creates a Group Covenantal Statement (see sample below) by consensus.
6. Group leader runs a random number generator (using Excel being the simplest) to decide on the order of facilitators and have everyone's agreement to this schedule.

Here's what each cycle would typically look like:

· Day one: Post Opening Words and Group Covenant (see sample below)
· Week one: check in (everyone must do a check in without fail)
· End of week one: the facilitator will pick a topic of discussion and open the discussion.
· Week 2 and 3: discussion - everyone agrees to participate by sending emails to the group. No lurking* is allowed. If one is too busy during a cycle, posting a short note to the group stating so would be very helpful.
· Beginning of Week 4: Closing Words.
· The rest of the month: make a report to the larger community of any significant ideas or insights that the group wishes to share (this is the closest to the "service" portion of a real-life covenant group.)

Sample Group Covenant

We covenant together to give one another support as we each work on our own spiritual growth. We strive for compassionate and non-judgmental listening through sharing our feelings, experiences and ideas in an intentionally-created safe environment. To this end, we promise one another to participate without lurking, to speak with honesty from our own experiences, to keep our sharing confidential, to stay in community through disagreement, and to assume good intention from all. We empower the facilitator of each cycle to remind us of our covenant and to remind us of our commitment to participate.

Other nuts and bolts

• There are only TWO ground-rules: each member must use a personal email address not shared with other members of the family (unless both are in the same covenant group); there shall be no lurking.
• Each group shall contain at least 8 and not more than 12 people.
• Each group promises to stay together for the duration of at least 8 months and not more than 1 year.
• Each person in the group takes turn to facilitate each cycle of the covenanting period (to last one month).
• At the end of the covenantal period, the group shall split into two groups through choice. Each group will select its leader. At this point, members can decide whether or not to continue participating in covenant groups.
• Additional members are then recruited from the apiuu-general list.
• Should one of the two resulting groups decide to continue using the original email list, the list manager must delete all archived materials before adding new people to the list and deleting old ones in order to begin with a fresh slate.