Being With: Exploring Life and Faith Together

Being With is a very special new program being offered at St. John’s.  It was created by the Rev. Sam Wells and others at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London and is being promoted by Bishop Mariann in our diocese.  

What is Being With?  Most simply, it is about sharing stories.  And it’s about how sharing stories enriches our relationships – with each other and with God.  The Being With course reflects God’s greatest desire, which is to be with him and with one another.  Unlike other church programs or courses that teach about Christianity, Being With is designed to foster “embodied understanding” of what it means to be Christian—more like gut feelings than intellectual processing.  

Being With is a sort of theology of human connectedness.  It sees Christianity as a form of relationship—with God, with one another, and with Creation.  It celebrates each person in a sacred space of listening and presence, creating opportunities to form significant relationships.   Being With is guided by the conviction that the Holy Spirit has been at work in each of our lives since day one—constantly seeking relationship with us. Through participating in the course together, we see and feel that presence in each other.  And through the process, we model God’s desire to be with us through the incarnation.  

The Being With course offers pathways to deepen our faith, individually and as a community. As expressed by Rev. Anna Olson, Canon for Faith, Leadership and Collaboration, who supports Being With in our diocese, “So many things in our lives, our cultures, and even our churches, invite us to stay near the safe surface when we engage one another. This course throws caution to the wind, suggesting that life is awfully short for talking about anything except what really matters.”

Being With sessions follow a carefully-designed method which forms a foundation for entering safe, secure, authentic conversations and exploring stories in ways that can surprise, delight, and move us in unique ways.  There is a clear structure for the course and each meeting which reinforce a commitment to no judgement, no wrong answers, and no proscribed path.  

A group of eight to 10 people gather together with two leaders (“hosts”)— either remotely or in person—for 10 weeks.  Being With’s foundational guideline for these meetings is that except for the host offering “thanks” in response to what someone has said, no one responds verbally or in writing to anything that someone says.  This single rule is powerful in the way in which it frees both the speaker and listeners to be more fully and immediately present for each other.  In addition, Being With participants commit to holding what is said during meetings as confidential and sacred, and not shared with anyone outside of the group.  Each 90-minute meeting is comprised of 4 sections:  

• The first part is the “check in” and is only time everyone is expected to speak.  We begin by asking “What has been the heart of your week?”  Each person responds briefly by sharing anything—big or small--that has been on their heart or in their life this week.
• The second part is called “Wonderings”.   The group is presented with thought-provoking prompts to invite sharing, or quiet reflection.  For example:
  - I wonder if you’ve known what I feels like to be set free.    
  - I wonder who you would say “your people” are.
  - Tell about a time you had to give up something good to keep hold of something else that was also good
  
  No one is required to respond to the Wonderings, but participants speak as the spirit moves them, sharing stories, thoughts, or feelings.  Everyone listens with deep respect and without saying anything in response.  Silence is a common and valued part of Being With.  
• The next part is the “Talk” or story, which is read aloud to the group.  Each story has been crafted to offer wisdom on some dimension of the Christian tradition, from perspectives that may be unusual.  
• In the last portion of the meeting, “Reflection”, participants are invited to speak freely to process what they heard in the Talk or reflect on anything that they would like to share.  This open discussion allows the opportunity to explore how our individual stories connect with those of others and with the bigger Christian Story.   

Each session explores a different theme—such as Essence, Church, Cross, Prayer, and Suffering—through the wonderings and the talks.   As Anna Olson explains, “While the themes guide the movement of the course and are the topic of the weekly talks which come towards the end of each session, the energy of a Being With course comes from the sharing of the participants.  The striking quality of the ‘wonderings’ is the depth of sharing that they draw out of a group of people who start out knowing little if anything about one another. The very structure of the course, with ample space for storytelling and silence, teaches us something about being with one another and about God’s deep desire to be with us. We discover through our own stories and the stories of others that we know far more about God than we may have realized, that we have learned more from our lives than we may have given ourselves credit for, that we have survived bleaker and more terrifying times than we often admit, and that God has been with us through it all.”

Initial participants overwhelmingly affirm the value of Being With.  Several St John’s parishioners have been trained as hosts to lead Being With groups, using the approach and materials developed by the program’s founders.  At the men’s retreat in January and at the women’s retreat in February, participants got a taste of what Being With is about.  Since then, we completed a pilot of the full 10-week course.   Feedback from the experience affirmed the value of the course.  

Some participants expressed valuing Being With as a way to deepen faith without heavy “churchiness.”  They appreciated the deeply spiritual, yet not religious, essence of the program, noting how it helps us connect the secular and the sacred.  Some said they felt spiritually refreshed at the end of a session, and somehow ‘prayed’ despite having had no typical prayers. Someone thought the Wonderings felt like “scripture” while the Talk was like a sermon.  Several noted how Being With is akin to Rabbi Sharon Brous’s concept of “showing up” (in her book The Amen Effect) whereby we foster human connection by simply showing up for each other in good times and bad; we sit together amidst suffering without trying to ‘help’ or ‘fix’ – just being with.  Many participants felt the glory in shared silence, and discovered the power, mystery, and even delight of just being present.  We felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, we experienced God, and we deepened our faith through Being With. 

We are committed to sharing this uniquely enriching experience with our church community.  Being With is for anyone who’s seeking deeper connections, and for anyone interested in new ways of experiencing Christianity.  It’s for those who feel on the edge of church — uncertain, disconnected, hurt, or simply searching for something deeper. It’s for those who’ve never explored faith before but feel open to discovering more together with others.  And it is for those who are deeply “churched” and fervently faithful.  Being With is for everyone. 

St. John's September 14 Forum will introduce and provide a taste of the Being With program; please join us at 10:00 am in St. John's Parish Hall or via Zoom.

Still want to know more?  Use the form below to contact our leaders with any questions.  More information can also be explored at the Being With website, https://being-with.org/.

- Mary Packard-Winkler