Covenant is a verb disguised as a noun. It’s like the Zen koan:the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The written covenant, whether it’s a page, a poster, or a neat list on the website, is just the finger. The actual covenant is the lived, relational, commitments we make with each other to continue acting out of love. How we choose to create our covenants shape the people tasked with keeping it. The method one chooses can reveal expectations, set cultural norms, and signal how important accountability is to the group.

If you’ve been charged or called to facilitate a covenanting process, before you begin, dare to ask yourself: What do you assume to be true about the people you are covenanting with?

What do you assume to be true about the people you are covenanting with?

Practically speaking, this question clarifies things you need to know to be able to pick a method that’s fitting for the group. For instance, if you know this group is only meeting once for a short time or this group has never created a covenant before, you might choose to provide them a list of generally good ideas and invite them to add/change/rearrange what’s offered, such as in this Scaffold Activity taken from the Covenant Lighthouse section of the Community Building Map to Deeper Joy.

Theologically, however, the question goes much deeper. As UUs, we believe that people are as messy as they are loveable, which is to say: very. We believe people have choice, agency and a responsibility to one another, that we are capable of change and growth, that our differences make us beautiful, that we’re stronger together, and that every single person has something to give and something they need. All of this is why we choose covenant over creed.

In the Community Building Map to Deeper Joy, covenant is symbolized by a lighthouse, and that is a deliberate choice. A lighthouse shines equal light on obstacles and possibilities, not to punish or constrain but to illuminate pathways for safer navigation. Imagine if we’d used a watchtower or stone tablets to symbolize our covenants. It just wouldn’t make sense! Covenant is not about monitoring behavior, poised for a “gotcha” moment, nor is it something immutable, unchangeable, or indisputable. In fact, with the symbol of the lighthouse, covenant isn’t really the red and white striped beacon; it’s not even the light emanating from it (those things represent the written document, the thing that we can refer back to when we get lost). Just like the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon, covenant (the verb) is the way the tiny boats just off the rocky shore use the light from the lighthouse to try to make their way home through the wild sea together. Covenant is the practice.

This metaphor matters because covenant-making is not setting the rules so we can get to the real work. Itis the real work. A group that understands covenant as The Work stops trying to get the words just right and starts asking the right questions to get to the heart of what they value and how those values shape their actions.

A facilitator’s task is to illuminate this for participants, to show thathow we create our covenant IS the covenant. The written final product matters far less than the process that produced it. If we rush through the process impatiently, we may catch ourselves in the future rushing through other sacred moments together. If we sweat over every comma placement, we may apply that same scrutiny to each other’s future actions with the same unmerciful precision. If we fill our covenants with unexamined platitudes like “Respect” and “Assume good intentions,” we may miss other coded defenses of the status quo (white supremacy cultural norms disguised as universal truths) in our committee meetings, at coffee hour and in our strongly worded emails.

Mean What You Say and Say What You Mean

This is where Deeper Joy’s “Cracking Open the Covenant on the Wall” activity that I learned from the Rev. Stevie Carmody can help groups deepen their ability to mean what they say and say what they mean. Take these familiar youth group covenant slogans:

• Don’t yuck someone’s yum (let everyone have their preferences)
• The Vegas rule (what happens here stays here)
• Croissants not donuts (no exclusivity)
• Respect (there are so many interpretations of this one word!)

These sound friendly enough. But are there unintentional status quo reinforcing consequences to these statements? The activity invites small groups to “crack open” (unpack, interrogate, disassemble, and reassemble) key phrases on their existing covenant. Asking:

• What values does this phrase support?
• What would somebody miss out on or not get to do by following this?
• Who is being served by this phrase?
• Who is being left out?
• How might this phrase apply differently to people who have more or less power?

After this deeper level of meaning-making, the group is no longer producing rules; they are producing insight. And that insight shapes the covenant-keepers more than any tidy phrase ever could. A covenant created through curiosity produces curious covenant-keepers. A covenant created through shared power produces accountable covenant-keepers.

Covenant: Groups Learn How to Become Themselves

In the Journeys of Deeper Joy Role Playing Game, yes there’s a Deeper Joy RPG!, players visit the Covenant Lighthouse and meet a character named Torch and other candle-beings in the Lighthouse Keepers Guild. It quickly becomes apparent that the Lighthouse Keepers’ covenant is but a dusty document that some in the guild use to reinforce a status quo that keeps them comfy instead of creating an equitable community. Players must move in to support Torch, who is exhausted from carrying almost all the labor “because that’s how it’s always been.” They must investigate, ask hard questions, and experiment with solutions until the group reimagines how to share responsibility for keeping the lighthouse shining bright. I love this role playing game because it creates a learning experience demonstrating that the process of building community is shaped by the people, it cannot be imposed on them.

Covenant-making is spiritual formation. When a group chooses how to make its covenant, it is learning how to become itself. The process becomes practice. If our covenants are to be alive, liberating, and capable of sustaining real community, then the making of them must form us into people who can hold truth, negotiate difference, repair harm, and return to one another when the seas get rough. There are so many ways to create a covenant. Find a method that works for your purpose in the Covenant Lighthouse section of the Community Building Map to Deeper Joy.