Activity 2: Debriefing the Simulation (30 minutes)

This workshop invites participants to form action plans to build on their learning and insights about antiracism and multiculturalism. Action plans may include strengthening relationships that have been built between and among participants and relationships initiated in the community panel and community field trip experiences. Workshop participants set easily achievable goals as well as "stretch" goals, taking into account that actions which require the support, engagement, and participation of the larger congregation or community also require participants' commitment to helping shape the vision, goals, strategies, and actions needed to secure that support, engagement, and participation.

A few days before the workshop, remind participants to bring any notes, observations, and insights they made after further reflection on the simulation or case studies.

Before leading this workshop, review the accessibility guidelines in the program Introduction under Integrating All Participants.

This workshop will:

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  Bring closure to the series of experiential learning and reflection workshops in the program as participants develop an action plan to build on what they have learned from exploring racism, racial equity, and multicultural issues
  
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  Engage participants in planning a worship service which will invite congregational leaders to embrace the work of building an antiracist/multicultural faith community.
  

Participants will:

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  Develop an action plan for applying the learnings and experiences from Building the World We Dream About to congregational life
  
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  Set easily achievable goals and "stretch" goals
  
• 
  Understand that actions requiring the support, engagement, and participation of the larger congregation or community also require participants' commitment to help shape the vision, goals, strategies, and actions needed to secure that support, engagement, and participation
  
• 
  Plan a worship service to invite congregational leaders to join you in the work of building an antiracist/multicultural faith community.
  

Take time to reflect on your own learnings and experiences in these workshops and formulate your own action plan. What easily achievable goals will you set for yourself to support and encourage antiracist/multicultural work and action in your congregation and the wider community? To what "stretch" goals can you commit?

Workshop participants will likely look to you for some leadership in bringing learning and new practices into congregational life. Set aside time to reflect, pray, and or meditate. Discern what you are called to do and embrace the actions to which you will set your heart, mind, and spirit, going forward.

Welcoming and Entering

Materials for Activity

• 
  Sign-in sheet and pen or pencil
  
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  Name tags for participants (durable or single-use) and bold markers
  
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  Optional: Music and player
  
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  Optional: Snacks and beverages
  

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  Arrange chairs in a circle and set out name tags and markers on a table.
  
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  Optional: Play music softly in the background.
  
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  Optional: Set out snacks and beverages.
  

Greet participants as they arrive.

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  Worship table or designated space
  
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  Chalice, candle, and lighter or LED battery-operated candle
  
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  Leader Resource 1, The Destiny of Diversity (included in this document)
  
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  List of this workshop's Goals
  
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  Covenant established in Workshop 1
  

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  Practice reading Leader Resource 1, The Destiny of Diversity aloud.
  
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  Review your own notes and impressions from Workshops 20 and 21 and discuss with your co-facilitators any insights or concerns that have emerged.
  
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  Post the workshop Goals and the group covenant.
  
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  Optional: Arrange for someone to come and take a group photo.
  

Light the chalice or invite a participant to light it while you read Leader Resource 1, The Destiny of Diversity, aloud.

Invite participants to share briefly any new insights they have gained since the last workshop.

Invite your photographer to take a group photo.

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  Newsprint, markers, and tape
  

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  Title a sheet of newsprint "Group 1" and write:
  
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    What do you need as individuals and as a group in order to move forward with the work of building an antiracist/multicultural faith community?
    
  • 
    What actions do you need to take to move the work forward, and in what order?
    
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  Title a sheet of newsprint "Group 2" and write:
  
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    How can we sustain the level of commitment we have to doing antiracist/multicultural work?
    
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    What support do we need and from whom in order to move this work forward?
    
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  Title a sheet of newsprint "Group 3" and write:
  
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    What more do we need to learn? What knowledge is missing? From whom can we learn?
    
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    What additional resources do we need?
    
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  Title a sheet of newsprint "Group 4" and write:
  
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    What changes do we need to make within our congregation to make this work attractive to our congregational community?
    
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  Decide how you will assign participants to the four groups. If you did the case studies activity in Workshops 20 and 21, you might simply invite people to remain in those groups.
  
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  Make arrangements for four breakout spaces for small groups.
  

Invite participants to move into four reflection groups according to the plan you have devised. Give each group markers, one set of questions on newsprint, and several blank sheets of newsprint. Invite them to discuss their questions and list their answers. Allow 25 minutes for this part of the activity.

Ask the small groups to post their responses. Invite all participants to move around the room and read the other groups' responses. Allow 10 minutes for this part of the activity.

Re-gather the large group and lead a discussion with these questions:

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  What phrases or words are repeated from list to list?
  
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  Is there a metaphor or an overarching theme or phrase that describes what we've learned?
  
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  What story do we want to tell about our process and what we have learned?
  

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  Newsprint, markers, and tape
  
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  Newsprint lists from Activity 1
  
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  Handout 1, Planning the Worship Service (included in this document)
  
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  Pens or pencils
  
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  Copies of Singing the Living Tradition, the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook
  

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  Copy Handout 1, Planning the Worship Service.
  
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  Post a sheet of newsprint and begin a list of congregational leaders and other key people to invite to the worship service the group will plan. Include congregational staff members, governing board members, committee chairs and liaisons, youth group leaders, small group ministry facilitators, religious education or social justice leaders, music leadership, people from the community with whom you have—or wish to grow—a relationship, and others whose support will help move the work along.
  

Introduce the activity using these or similar words:

We are going to plan a worship service to share our stories and learnings from Building the World We Dream About with key members of our faith community, inviting them to help us move the work along. In worship, we will speak of the spiritual journey we have all undertaken as part of this program. We will demonstrate connections between antiracist/multicultural work and Unitarian Universalist spirituality. We will want to tell our stories in such a way that non-participants in Building the World We Dream About will understand, while at the same time, honoring our own deep experiences.

Point out the list you have created of invitees and brainstorm additional people. Ask for volunteers to agree to invite particular people and put initials of the inviter next to the invitee. Ask for a volunteer to transcribe the list and distribute it to all workshop participants within a few days. Allow ten minutes for this part of the activity.

Post the lists the small groups generated in Activity 1. Lead the group to choose a list of learnings to share with invited guests as a worship handout. Allow 15 minutes for this part of the activity.

Distribute Handout 1, Planning the Worship Service. Explain that you will begin the planning with some reflection time. Invite participants to take ten minutes to reflect on the questions in silence and jot any notes on the handout. Invite them to consider which questions resonate most deeply with their own experience and the story they would like to tell about their participation in this program.

After ten minutes, refocus the group together on the order of worship suggested on Handout 1. Work together to plan the service. Invite volunteers to agree to prepare in advance two- or three-minute reflections. Some should address individual experiences and others express the group's experiences. Some reflections might focus on particular workshops or activities that were particularly meaningful. Engage other volunteers to select the music and prepare to lead it or recruit someone to lead it. Invite others to plan and set up the worship table. Take careful notes about who accepts which responsibilities, and tell participants you will send out a task list to remind them of their commitments before the next workshop. Allow 20 minutes for this part of the activity.

Closing (5 minutes)

Materials for Activity

• 
  A copy of Singing the Living Tradition, the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook
  
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  Taking It Home
  

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  Download and adapt Taking It Home. Copy it for all participants or plan to email it to the group.
  

Distribute Taking It Home. Share "To Be of Use" by Marge Piercy, Reading 567 in Singing the Living Tradition. Extinguish the chalice.

Take a few moments right after the workshop to ask each other:

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  What went well?
  
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  What didn't? Why?
  
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  What do you think was the best moment of the workshop? Why?
  
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  Did anything surprise you?
  
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  Do we need to make any changes in the way we work together?
  

Set aside time to prepare your part of the worship service for the next workshop.

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  What stories do you wish to tell as individuals? As a group?
  
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  What practices did you use or create during the Building the World We Dream About that helped you learn and grow? How could you incorporate those methods into your worship?
  
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  What music, readings, film, poetry, etc. inspired you over the course of the workshops?
  
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  Have you written journal entries that exemplify your journey?
  
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  What wisdom or strategies do you want to share with your congregation?
  
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  How has your journey transformed how you think about yourself? Your congregation?
  
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  What new commitments are required as a result of what you have learned?
  

Unitarian Universalists have a role to play as healers and repairers of the broken world we have inherited from our ancestors. Our congregations have a role to play as places to practice—to rehearse—Beloved Community for the benefit of future generations. — Taquiena Boston, Director of Multicultural Growth and Witness, Unitarian Universalist Association

A hymn that speaks to the journey you have undertaken and will continue. Possibilities from Singing the Living Tradition include "I'm On My Way" (Hymn 116) and "Guide My Feet" (Hymn 348).

Choose three or four people to briefly share a two- or three-minute reflection on their experience.

A hymn that acknowledges how challenging this work has been and will be, and expresses a promise to continue—a quieter, more meditative hymn, such as "Spirit of Life" (Hymn 123) or "There Is More Love Somewhere" (Hymn 95).

Choose three or four people to briefly share a two- or three-minute reflection on their experience.

A hymn that speaks to how joyful and soul-enriching this work has been and will be. Possibilities include "For All that Is Our Life" (Hymn 128) and "I've Got Peace Like a River" (Hymn 100).

Choose three or four people to briefly share a two- or three-minute reflection on their experience.

Invite workshop participants and guests, as they are moved, to voice a prayer or hope for the congregation and to light a candle.

Choose an upbeat hymn that expresses hope, such as "We'll Build a Land" (Hymn 121), using the alternate words from Workshop 11, Handout 5; "Love Will Guide Us" (Hymn 131); or "One More Step" (Hymn 168); consider replacing the word "step" with "move" to fully include people with mobility limitations.

If you are who you were,

and if the person next to you is who he or she was,

if none of us has changed

since the day we came in here—

we have failed.

The purposed of this community—

of any church, temple, zendo, mosque—

is to help its people grow.

We do this through encounters with the unknown—in ourselves,

in one another,

in "The Other"—whoever that might be for us,

however hard that might be—

because these encounters have many gifts to offer.

So may you go forth from here this morning [afternoon, evening]

not who you were,

but who you could be.

So may we all. — by Erik Walker Wikstrom (used with permission)