Introduction to Deeper Joy

Deeper Joy is a Map of Community Building activities that help groups of any age and ability mingle, bond, stretch, heal and repair. These are games with purpose. These are spirit lessons.

You’ve probably noticed the way play and joy nourish you, and your community, and leave you connected in new ways. Youth know this in their bones. In the late 90s and early 2000s, UU youth created a compendium of community building and faith formation strategies centered in play and joy and called it Deep Fun. Now, we’re building on this legacy and calling it “Deeper Joy.”

The desire for belonging is universal — people of all ages from the youngest to our eldest want to know that they matter and that their contribution is important. And, if we have more deeply joyful adults in our communities, if we have adults who are willing to learn from the strategies our young people have honed on how to build community, perhaps young people will be more likely to stay around when they transition from one life stage to another.

Explore Deeper Joy, you might just find you like it and it is a fit for your community.

Orientation to the Community Building Map

Deeper Joy exists. because we need practical ways to thicken our connections for when the going gets tough. We need concrete practices that help us access that sense of divinity in each of us. That aliveness, depth and joy that “American Dreamism” strips us of. And, as Audre Lorde points out, once we feel it and know it, out of “self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.”

Each location on the Community Building Map to Deeper Joy represent different “features” of a community based on what the group experiences together. A leader or facilitator has a number of choices to make about what experiences they want to offer the group to shape the desired features.

In the Bonding Harbor, we learn that the first step in building community is to identify some cohesiveness and a very low stakes sense of contributing to the collective. The Opening Up Beach is where we share low risk or non threatening stuff about ourselves and our lives. The Forest of Affirmation is the place we offer gratitude for each other and the group and celebrate our differences and our gifts. But watch out for the jagged borders of the Cliffs of Exclusivity that actively or inadvertently keep others out instead of drawing the circle wider. The agreements we make with one another at the Covenant Lighthouse guide our way like a red and white striped beacon in rough waters. Repair, amends and recovery at the Healing Springs are vital on the journey to Deeper Joy. And while it might be tempting to endlessly paddle around in the Tepid Bay because you’re a safe distance away from everything, after the sun sets, it’s kind of lonely out there. Trials, problem-solving opportunities and challenges in the Stretching River can all bring a group closer to each other. And with the right conditions and preparation, groups can support each other in the depths and heights of their spiritual growth by visiting the Canyons of Deeper Sharing.

Philosophy of Deeper Joy

We believe community building is non-linear and responsive, meaning you’re going to meet your group wherever it’s at and then you’re going to take them where they need to go. You may visit the same location on the map multiple times and there’s no predetermined final destination, where you “have arrived”.

Deeper Joy is a way of experiencing HOW we teach UUism. “How we teach,” that’s pedagogy. And the pedagogy of Deeper Joy is play! Play is how we learn how to be human with each other. Play & practice are intrinsic to faith development & community building. Playfulness & fun are good for you. They’re good for your wellness and good for your community’s vitality.

It can be hard to find joy in times like these, it may even feel frivolous to seek it out. But, a tenet of Deeper Joy is that joy is a medicine that fortifies and repairs, joy is what helps us build thicker connections with one another. And those thicker connections are the foundation of resilient communities. So many of us, within and beyond a congregation’s walls or meeting time, are seeking that kind of resilient community. Ask yourself, what brings you joy? How do you cultivate joy? What gets in the way of joy?

Doing joy in the way Nick Montgomery and carla bergman define it in their book Joyful Militancy means “building the capacity together to get more free.”

Principles of Deeper Joy

1. Play is how we learn how to be human with each other.

Play & practice are intrinsic to faith development & community building. Playfulness & fun are good for your wellness and good for your community’s vitality. Play is a pedagogy, games are spirit lessons.

2. Joy is building capacity together to get more free.

It takes more time and work than we usually allot to do things accessibly and inclusively. It’s worth it. Do less, but better. Joy is medicine that fortifies and repairs. Joy is resistance to the forces of colonial-capitalist-white-cis-hetero-patriarchy that keep us small. Thicker connections are the foundation of resilient communities, which is how we build new worlds.

3. Cohesive community is grown, not created overnight

Joy is a metric of impact. Community building is non linear. The tactics of community building amble to meet the moment. Community building must be responsive & iterative. The Community building Map to Deeper Joy helps you find resources based on where your group is at and where you want them to go next.

4. Belonging is something people of all ages crave

Centering young people in community serves everyone. Religious education is for everyone, not just children and youth. Worship and spiritual practice is for everyone, not just adults.