Goals

This program will:

• Provide a process for a congregation to assess its current programs and ministries in order to become more inviting toward and inclusive of military personnel, veterans, and their families in the congregation
• Provide a covenanted space for sharing personal experiences with war, military service, and peace activism
• Enable congregational leadership to hear the stories of veterans, military personnel, and families in the congregation
• Engage participants in learning about issues surrounding military service for military personnel, veterans, and their families
• Foster respectful, non-judgmental discourse about the ethical and moral dimensions of peace and war
• Equip and engage the congregation to reach out to veterans, military personnel, and their families in the local community.

Facilitators

It is recommended that two people co-facilitate this program. At least one facilitator should be someone with pastoral experience and skill and an ability to care for the health of the congregation. In many cases, a minister is the appropriate person. A religious educator, or a congregational lay leader who is also a mental health professional, may also be suitable. At least one facilitator should have experience dealing with military issues as a veteran or a spouse or other family member. While informal surveys show that a very high percentage of Unitarian Universalists have loved ones serving in or affiliated with the military, some Unitarian Universalists may never have met a person in the military on active duty. It is important that at least one facilitator be able to bring stories and memories from their military experience.

Facilitator Preparation

We recommend a minimum of two months preparation to support the launch of this program in your congregation. The material itself will take time to prepare. More importantly, over the course of two months you will be alert to both explicit and subtle ways the workshop topics surface in your congregation. You will be able to plan how to effectively facilitate the program and implement its goals, and you will have ample opportunities to generate interest in the program.

Read the workshops and preview the workshop materials, including video clips. Workshop 6 uses a video clip in the Opening and another in the Closing. Workshop 3 includes a quote from President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech in 2009; if you will have Internet access and the ability to add 40 minutes to Workshop 3, plan to watch the entire speech with the group. . If your workshop will be held at a site without Internet access, you may want to download the clips you want to show the group. You will need equipment to play and project the video—for example, a projector and screen, or a large video monitor that connects to your computer.

A 23-minute video, Embracing the Unitarian Universalist behind the Uniform (Vimeo), is part of this toolkit. Preview the video and consider sharing it in your congregation to raise awareness of and interest in military ministry and to promote the workshop series. Let the voices of Unitarian Universalists involved in the military introduce an opportunity and challenge to become more welcoming toward military personnel, veterans, and their families.

The readings in these workshops draw heavily from two books you may wish to purchase from the UUA Bookstore for your congregation:

• the meditation manual Bless All Who Serve: Stories of Hope, Courage, and Faith for Military Personnel and Their Families by Matthew Tittle and Gail Tittle (Skinner House Books, 2010)
• War Zone Faith: An Army Chaplain’s Reflections for Afghanistan by Capt. George Tyger (Skinner House Books, 2013).

Both books offer many additional readings for congregational worship.

Whether or not you have military experience, you may want to read about issues that shape military ministry. Here are some recommendations:

• Off to War: Voices of Solders’ Children by Deborah Ellis (Toronto: Groundwork Books, 2008)
• A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman (Penguin, 2004)
• Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War by Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini (Beacon Press, 2012)
• AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service and How it Hurts Our Country by Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer (Harper Collins, 2007)
• War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation’s Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Edward Tick (Quest, 2005)

The Facilitator’s Pastoral Role

Anticipate that participants will be attracted to this program for a wide variety of reasons and will bring diverse experiences, concerns, and commitments. Some will come with a need for care; some will come with a need to challenge. Some may come from a great distance to engage with these issues spiritually in Unitarian Universalist community. Military veterans from different generations of war will have diverse expectations, offerings, and hopes. Non-military participants may have deep questions about the complexity of distinguishing between a war and the warrior.

Because many people may not feel safe to raise issues involving the military in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, feelings and stories that have not been previously shared in your congregation may emerge for the first time during this series of workshops. Participants may speak of trauma they experienced in military service, of their own experience with killing, or their civilian experience of violence at the hands of the military; people in your congregation who have immigrated to the United States may have direct or indirect experiences of war which they may have never had a safe opportunity to reveal. There may be participants who are anxious or grief-stricken about a deployed loved one.

Additionally, there may be participants who have experienced other traumas wherein they feared for their lives. Stories from the 9/11 attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing, school shootings, urban violence, or police shootings may come to the fore. And, it should be acknowledged that people from many segments of the U.S. population—African Americans, women, people of color, immigrants—have lived with a threat of violence in their own communities, without necessarily having experience related to the military. Whether or not they share about a traumatic event, trauma survivors who attend may be deeply affected by the stories shared by others. Survivor guilt may emerge, as well as grief over the loss of friends, loved ones, or strangers who shared the same event. Remember that while trauma is individually experienced, it is also part of our cultural experience together. The ministry we offer should hold both the individual and our society in mind.

You may observe participants who are anxious. Perhaps they are worried about a deployed loved one, or they are considering how to hold, or how to share, a war-torn past. It may be helpful for the group to include someone who can be a caring, nonanxious presence (possibly a member of the congregation’s caring committee) and simply sit by an anxious person during the program.

At times, as the facilitator, you may need to back off. While a participant sharing their most painful stories can enrich the group’s experience and support the storyteller’s healing, such sharing can be difficult. If a veteran has learned to carry the burden of war in a way that allows them to function and maintain relationships, it may be unwise to ask them to re-arrange that burden and share more than they are comfortable with. However, if you sense that a storyteller has emotionally integrated the pain of their experience, you can help them explore the learning or the good that has come from it.

You will need to take care of individual needs while protecting the health of the group and the congregation. It is likely that people will share deeply personal and sometimes emotional stories and commitments. Challenging, even divisive issues may arise. Be prepared to respond pastorally in the group setting, while at the same time being ready to determine when someone can benefit from referral to a professional health care provider or service agency. Familiarize yourself with local psychological, emotional, and social support resources including the nearest Vet Center, American Legion post, or Veterans of Foreign Wars post. If you are near a military base, reach out to the Military Base Chaplain and the unit Family Readiness Officer for active personnel and families. You may also wish to recommend resources and support available through the CLF military ministry program.

For veterans of combat, violence is part of warfare and can become a cultural norm. The feelings and events that combat vets have experienced are far enough outside most civilian experience that they may be reluctant to share them for fear of not being understood. As a spiritual community, we may not be able to completely understand a veteran’s stories and experiences, but it is still important for us to hear those stories and honor their witness. If it seems appropriate while facilitating, acknowledge the value of carrying traumatic events together. It might also be helpful to remind veterans that many other people who have experienced non-military trauma face a similar challenge. An essential point of this program is that healing from trauma, especially the very communal traumas of war, requires community support.

Implementation

The Workshops

The program includes six one-hour workshops. The first four invite deep conversation among participants. The final two workshops provide tools for inviting the whole congregation into the conversation about military ministry:

• Workshop 1: Individual and Family Messages Received about Military Service
• Workshop 2: Assessing Your Congregation’s Approach to Military Service
• Workshop 3: Philosophical and Ethical Questions about War and Peace
• Workshop 4: The Impact of War and Military Service on Families
• Workshop 5: Inviting Engagement through Congregational Worship
• Workshop 6: Next Steps

Scheduling

Schedule the program for the convenience of potential participants. You might consider, for example, meeting weekly or biweekly after worship or on a weeknight. Or, you might offer the first four workshops, two at a time, on two Saturday mornings. The program asks participants to spend some time in reflection and processing, between sessions. Therefore, it is not advisable to offer more than two consecutive workshops on a given day.

Workshops 5 and 6 are planning workshops. In Workshop 5, the participants plan a congregational worship service and in Workshop 6 they choose their next steps in military ministry. If you wish to use the worship service to inspire additional people to join you for Workshop 6, Next Steps, allow enough calendar notice to make that possible.

If the Group Is Very Large

The program must allow adequate time for personal sharing. If your group has ten or more participants, you may want to schedule workshops for 75 minutes, or 90 minutes with a short break. Plan enough time so you can close each meeting in a caring way rather than rushing to end on time. Ensure that you finish the time together on a hopeful, relaxed note.

May this Military Ministry Toolkit enrich and deepen your congregation’s ministry. May it help you provide important, sincere outreach to military personnel, veterans, and their families in your congregation and in the broader community.

Origin and Development

This toolkit was originally conceived by the Reverend Lt. Seanan Holland, a Unitarian Universalist minister and a Navy chaplain. With the support of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), Chaplain Holland worked with others to implement a Military Bridge Builders program at various UU congregations in response to several perceived needs. Congregations were asking for adult religious education programs on military-related issues. Unitarian Universalist military chaplains felt a need to share their experiences and observations with ministers, lay leaders, military personnel, and veterans. Members of the military asked for Unitarian Universalist worship services and showed interest in our faith.

While he was a CLF ministerial intern, Chaplain Holland developed, field tested, and revised the Military Bridge Builders program with the support and input of several UU military chaplains, lay leaders, and congregations. The program was then revised and prepared for online publication by the staff of the UUA’s Faith Development Office to make it more widely available to our congregations and their leadership. The authors of this expanded version are the Reverend Dr. Monica L. Cummings, Program Associate for Ministry to Youth and Young Adults of Color and a former military serviceperson, and Gail Forsyth-Vail, Adult Programs Director and a daughter of a U.S. Army veteran.