Guilford Community Church Small Groups

Our church is once again in an interim period - Allyson Platt is an interim minister - and one of the features of this period is the creation of small groups of about 10-12 people who are meeting either at the church or in people's homes. Everyone in the congregation was invited to sign up for a group, and there are about eight groups in all, I think. Ours met last Thursday, in the home of Lee and Carolyn Moore. Lee is a retired UCC minister whose primary ministry was not in a local church, but in denominational leadership of Christian Education work, mostly with teenagers, I think. He did a lot camps, retreats, trips, etc., with teens. He did have at least one parish ministry experience, early in his career, in Pinedale, Wyoming - a church Ellen and I have visited because it is the closest UCC Church to Alpine, WY, where Ellen's son, Paul, lives, though it is at least 80 miles from Alpine, so not very convenient. But we did worship there one Sunday a few years ago. Lee is also a regular member of the retired clergy group that I meet with once a month at the Dummerston Church (right now we are meeting twice a month and reading/discussing a book about Aging with Grace). There is a format for these small group meetings: we think about a question, write notes, and then share our thoughts. The questions have to do with our experience of the church and our feelings about it. I think all of this will eventually be boiled down into a "church profile" which will be used to attract a new permanent minister. People are encouraged to share both joyful and painful experiences and feelings. Right now, there is a positive feeling in the congregation - Allyson is well-liked and people are coming back who had left during Elisa Lucozzi's tenure. But it was not difficult to find painful experiences in the past. Most of our group was composed of people we know well, but there was a younger couple with a little boy in our group who started coming only this year. I didn't even know their names, but now I do. We had a good session, I think.

L. to r.: Nan Tierra, Ellen Crockett, Marilyn Moore, Kathy Lovell, Jeremy Ebersole, Rachel Ebersole, Walton Ebersole, Allyson Platt.

Standing: Lee Moore; Seated: Larry Crockett