LEADER RESOURCES
Resources to help create and facilitate your community group’s gathering.
You’ll find seasonal content, retreat content, spiritual practices and prayers.
Spiritual Practices
Connection & Everyone
Freedom & Humility
SEASONAL CONTENT:
FALL CONTENT 2023: Bless Us | Advent
December 3 – December 25+
Click image at right for content
Each year we invite our community groups to engage with the 4 weeks prior to Christmas – called Advent. This year we are centering our Advent experience around the theme, ‘bless us’.
FALL CONTENT 2022: With Us | Advent
November 27 – December 25
Click image at right for content
Each year we invite our community groups to engage with the 4 weeks prior to Christmas – called Advent. This year we are centering our Advent experience around the theme, ‘with us’.
SPRING CONTENT 2023: Earth
February 22 – April 9
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Each year we invite our community groups to engage with the 6 weeks prior to Easter – called Lent. This year we are centering our Lenten experience around the theme, Earth. Inclusive of eco-theology, indigenous wisdom, scripture and poetry.
Pdf version.
SPRING CONTENT 2022: Water of Life | Lent
March 2 – April 19
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Each year we invite our community groups to engage with the 6 weeks that anticipate Easter – called Lent. This year we are centering our Lenten experience around the theme, Water of Life. For many of us we encounter seasons where we would benefit from restoration, renewal, refreshment. We hope that wherever you find yourself, this Lenten season will be a time of great soul-hydration in all the ways that are most needed.
Content | Lent Guide 2022, pdf
FALL PARTICIPATORY LITURGY 2022: “God Is Here”
November 13, 2022
Click image at left for each station’s cards and invitations.
A station-based service inviting people to discover the presence of God beyond the traditional structure of a Sunday morning service. Inspiration drawn from Rabbi Toba Spitzer and Cole Arthur Riley.
FALL CONTENT 2022: “We Are Reservoir”
September 11 – October 9
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This Fall we will be centering our Community Group content around our Sunday sermon series called, “We are Reservoir.” This will be a 5-week series running from September 11 – October 9, that explores Reservoir’s core values of connection, humility, action, freedom and everyone.
Content includes: Mural Art, Scripture (John 4:4-42), reflection & discussion questions.
Full 5-Week Content | We Are Reservoir, pdf
For many years we have produced a Bible Guide that offers everyone at Reservoir the opportunity to engage daily with scripture, points of interest and prayer and reflection prompts. This year we have created a multi-disciplinary experience that highlights scripture and themes of water, via the pathways of poetry, visual arts and music. Our Director of Worship & Arts, Matt Henderson has written original music to accompany your Lenten season, you can find it here. Many folks within Reservoir’s community contributed to this year’s guide, as well as artists in the greater Boston area and international artists. As always feel free to utilize the components of this guide for weekly content in your community groups.
WINTER CONTENT 2022: Praying the Psalms
Psalm 4, 13, 27, 34, 67, 80, printable pdf
There’s nothing new about praying the Psalms, it is an ancient spiritual practice. It seems in fact, that these scriptures were written to be prayed (or sung!). The Psalms invite us to bring all of what we feel to God, unfiltered. As prayers, the form and words of the Psalms work within and through us, expanding our hearts and minds to experience the presence of God with us. These Psalms while often read or studied, may indeed meet their most powerful shape as prayers. Each Psalm offers the gift of letting God’s face shine upon us – a warmth, a beauty, an anchor in times that continue to shift and torment. Extra resource: Praying the Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann. *All Psalms are from the Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation*
FALL CONTENT 2021: The Table | How Jesus Gathers
This Fall we will be exploring the 2,000 year old model of gathering around a table that Jesus offers us. The gospel of Luke, (particularly after the first four chapters), becomes a story of Jesus’ meals, where we are invited to sit with Jesus at the table and bear witness to the beloved community he encourages us to grow.
We would do well to mine these invitations Jesus still sets before us and the questions that he invites us to live out; who sits at our tables? Who doesn’t sit at our tables? What is the shape of our tables? What can we (un)learn? Who is often (un)seen, (un)heard? What (un)finished conversations or formation do we encounter? What does Jesus flip, overturn and reorder at these tables?
This community group content is formed with all of those active questions in mind. As a way in to these questions, the content will utilize not only Luke’s stories, but also the wise, provocative voice of Amanda Gorman through her spoken word piece, “The Hill We Climb,” as well as story-sharing prompts, and a Communion script for receiving and sharing at Jesus’ table.
THE TABLE | HOW JESUS GATHERS
Week 1 | (un)learn
(printable version week 1, here)
Week 2 | (un)finished
(printable version week 2, here)
Week 3 | (un)practiced
(printable version week 3, here)
Week 4 | (un)safe
(printable version week 4, here)
Week 5 | (un)seen
(printable version week 5, here)
Week 6 | (un)burdened
(printable version week 6, here)
Week 7 | (un)opened
(printable version week 7, here)
Week 8 | (un)free
(printable version week 8, here)
FALL CONTENT 2020: BELOVED COMMUNITY
Content with a plug n’ play design. Comprised of Scripture, Matthew 5:3-12, commentary, story-sharing prompts, accompanying voices via Howard Thurman primarily from his book, “Jesus and the Disinherited,” as well as street artists from the greater Boston area.
Photo of mural, “Breathe Life, 1” on Blue Hill Avenue by artist Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs.
Week 1: Poor in Spirit , Week 2: Those who mourn, Week 3: Meek, Week 4: Hunger & Thirst,
Week 5: Mercy, Week 6: Pure in Heart Peacemakers, Week 7: Persecuted, Week 8: Joy
On Campus Outdoor Meditation Stations
Fall Content 2019, designed for “Mend” Retreat.
Scripture Study on the Bleeding Woman: Mark 5:24-34
Week 1: Rend
Week 2: Release
Week 3: Reorient
Week 4: Restore
Week 5: Resilience
Week 6: Reclaim
Week 7: Reorder
*COVID-19 VIRTUAL CONTENT:
The Layers of Prayers – The Prayers of Our Minds
The Layers of Payers – The Prayers of Our Hearts
The Layers of Prayers – The Prayers of Our Bodies
The Layers of Prayers – The Prayers of Our Souls
The Layers of Prayers – The Prayers of Our Spirit
*COVID-19 VIRTUAL SPIRITUAL PRACTICES/PRAYERS:
The Finding Prayer
Goodbye & Hello Prayer
I Am Not OK Prayer
Prayer of the Heart
The Lord’s Prayer *adapted
Palms & Faces Imaginative Story & Practice
The Twist & the Wrap (of goodness and guts)
Your Full Name (resurrection bearer)
Four Corners: A Night Prayer
Holy Hand Washing
Holy Ground
Visio Divina: Strength & Tenderness
A Daily Examen for Living as an Antiracist Person
When You Are Lost
Weeping & Rejoicing
ANTI-RACIST RESOURCES FOR INDIVIDUAL or GROUP:
LIBERATING THE MIND-BODY-SPIRIT FROM WHITE SUPREMACY
Integrating social science research, dynamic storytelling, playful body movement, and interfaith/no-faith spiritual practices — Dr. Cleveland presents 5 stages of BIPOC racial identity development and 6 stages of white racial identity development. For each stage, she shares research that uncovers what’s going on beneath the surface, a primary fear that keeps people trapped in that stage, a new intention to which to pivot, and a spiritual practice to support the new intention.
https://www.christenacleveland.com/ecourse
“White Privilege: Let’s talk. A Resource for Transformational Dialogue”
In partnership with the Center for Progressive Renewal (CPR) the UCC has created an online learning platform curriculum. Authors of the curriculum, John Dorhauer, Traci Blackmon, DaVita McAllister, Stephen G. Ray, Jr. and John Paddock in conversation with CPR Founder and Director, Cameron Trimble.
https://convergencecolab.org/p/whiteprivilege
Spiritual Practices & Scripture Study:
Spiritual Practices Booklet 2019
Spiritual Practice Packet 2018
Reservoir Spiritual Practices for “An Embodied Faith” Series 2018
Reservoir Spiritual Practices for “Your Faith Journey at Reservoir” Series 2018
Reservoir Spiritual Practice for “Light in the Darkness: Dreams and Nightmares” Series 2018
Training in the Studio of Love Study
Book Study: Henri Nouwen’s, “Can You Drink the Cup?”
Social Justice Scripture Study
“Let Your Life Speak”, Parker Palmer Reflection Guide
Group Reflection and Guideline Tools:
Stop Start Continue Exercise – End of Semester
Community Group Leader Semester Reflection and Assessment
Group Guidelines – Setting Your Space as Safe – Parker Palmer
An Invitation to Brave Space – People’s Supper
Application Form:
Community Group Leader Application – Google Form
Special Service Resources:
Speak Out Sunday: There is No Place for Sexual Violence in Our Future
Advent Season: Light & Darkness – Resources
On Sunday, December 4, 2016, we presented a special service format where everyone was invited to name their laments and their hopes. We’ve prepared a guide to help you lead a similar experience in your own spaces.
You can download the entire guide, or download the part of the guide relevant to the type of experience you want to facilitate, below:
Spiritual & Traditional
- Guide
- Visual Resources
- Slideshows: Lament (pdf) | Lament (pptx) | Hope (pdf) | Hope (pptx)
- Literary Resources
- Lament – Psalm 74
- Hope – Isaiah 9:1-7
- Hope – “I Will Light Candles this Christmas” Howard Thurman
- Auditory Resources
Spiritual & Modern
- Guide
- Visual Resources
- Slideshows: Lament (pdf) | Lament (pptx) | Hope (pdf) | Hope (pptx)
- Lament – “The News” mini-movie for Advent and Christmas Eve
- Hope – “Oh Light”, by Gungor featuring All Sons & Daughters
- Literary Resources
- Lament – “Advent for the Weary Soul”, Amena Brown *2015
- Lament – “Anthem”, Leonard Cohen
- Hope – “Life Goes On”, Howard Thurman
- Hope – “The Light for Another”, Parker Palmer
- Auditory Resources
- Lament – “Immanuel”, Jason Morant
- Lament – “Hallelujah” performed by Rufus Wainwright written by Leonard Cohen
- Hope – “Find the Light”, David Ramirez (audio) and lyrics
- Hope – “Saturn”, by Sleeping at Last (video) and lyrics
Spiritual & Simple
- Guide
- Slideshows: Lament (pdf) | Lament (pptx) | Hope (pdf) | Hope (pptx)
- Meditation & Scripture for leader’s own encouragement: