Opening the poetic space in churches: UCC launches online poetry collective

From Genesis to Revelation, one-third of the Bible is filled with poetry, beckoning souls to soar, sigh and sing. The ancient texts, particularly within the Old Testament, awaken slumbering emotions and set loose new ways of living in the world.

“Poetry can deepen the connection with self, with others and with God,” said the Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister and President/CEO of the United Church of Christ, in a video greeting celebrating World Poetry Day, which was held on March 21. World Poetry Day was created by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999.

Thompson, who is also a passionate reader and prolific writer of poetry, viewing the art form as a spiritual gift that is “grounding and healing,” noted the relevance of this year’s World Poetry Day theme of poetry as a bridge for peace and inclusion.

“Poetry can be disruptive, offering deeper insights into realities other than our own. That disruptiveness is the prophetic witness,” said Thompson.

Click the video below to watch Thompson’s message and to hear a reading of her poem, “Where.”

Thompson also noted how poetry is “a platform for expression, for exploration and for encountering the divine.” It is a platform Thompson, who has a library app on her phone to discover and access new poetic voices, invites more UCC congregations to engage with during Sunday worship, in poetry groups, or in online forums such as the newly launched UCC Poetry Collective.

UCC poetry Facebook page is launched

The end of February, the UCC national offices launched a Facebook group called UCC Poetry Collective to facilitate the sharing of poetry.

Those interested can request to join the private space, which was curated as such to honor and foster the vulnerability that delving the depths of poetry requires.

“This is a space to share poems you have written or ones you have loved with others,” said Thompson.

The UCC Poetry Collective was created in response to the success of the poetry night that was held during last summer’s 35th General Synod in Kansas City, in which 15 UCC clergy and laity read their original works to a room of 100 of their friends and colleagues.

The Rev. Carrie Call, Transitional Executive Conference Minister of the Keystone Conference UCC, who created a “Poetry as Prayer” group for clergy in 2020, was discussing with Thompson ways to bring poetry to the synod experience. After batting around workshop ideas, the desire to hear the “voices of the UCC” share their own poetry led to a night of poetry reading.

“We both looked at each other and agreed that we had to make this happen,” said Call.

After the last couplet was recited and folks returned home from General Synod, the question of how to continue the magic of the poetry night lingered.

“Poetry is alive and well in the Church. How, though, do we open wide the poetic space in congregations?” Thompson mused.

The UCC Poetry Collective was not just an answer. It was yet another step toward realizing UCC’s commitment to nurturing spiritual growth among its leaders and worshippers.

 In 2021, at the virtual 33rd General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the “Becoming a Church of Contemplatives in Action” resolution passed. It was a resolution that placed emphasis on congregations to integrate spiritual practices such as silent prayer and meditation with justice-oriented activities.

Awakening the call to deeper living

The Rev. Allyssa Boyer is one UCC pastor who finds herself answering the call to become a contemplative in action. It was a call the associate pastor of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, never thought she would answer. But when her conference minister, Rev. Carrie Call, invited her to the “Poetry as Prayer” group that was forming six years ago, Boyer said “yes” — with a bit of trepidation.

“I liked poetry, but I had no great knowledge of it or experience with it,” she said.

Still, with ministry an often isolating profession, made more so by the advent of a global pandemic in 2020, Boyer welcomed the opportunity for connection. It would turn out to be an invitation that the pastor is grateful to have accepted.

“The poetry group has been a gift to me,” said Boyer. “So much of our lives in the modern world is black and white, but poetry invites you to be curious, to see the shades of gray. It invites you to wonder and to break down your armor. We can be vulnerable with one another.”

For Call, the poetry group is indeed pastoral care, and that sense of belonging and understanding are what she had hoped pastors would glean from coming together over poetry.

The world is still in chaos

While “Poetry as Prayer” proved to be a valuable outlet for processing loss and maintaining a sense of togetherness during Covid, Call doesn’t see that value waning anytime soon.

“We created a community of support and depth that poetry allowed us to enter. We came very quickly to trust one another. Poetry was one way we dealt with the chaos and the pain of losing people,” said Call. “While we are no longer in Covid lockdown, the world, though, is still in a state of chaos and pain. We are still at the point where we need to find space for poetry as prayer.”

Call hopes to create more poetry groups to read and share poems — and to also begin dabbling into the writing of original prose. For now, her original 2020 group of pastor poets continue meeting faithfully each month to find connection amid words.

“We are all lovers of words, and this is a time where we can mull them over. We come together and look at the themes in the poems that are read and we all have different insights,” said the Rev. Leigh Pick.

While retired, Pick admits that poetry has always informed her life as a pastor. She has especially been excited by the recent robust conversations in the group on how to incorporate poetry in the Sunday worship service.

A notion that just makes sense to Call.

“The Psalms, the prophetic writings, even a lot of Ecclesiastes, are all poetry,” said Call. “Poetry is already an integral part of our worship time.”

Click below to experience a typical gathering of a “Poetry as Prayer” group with the Rev. Carrie Call.

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