Boundary Awareness Training
Pleasant Places:
an introduction to Boundary Awareness
Inspired by Psalm 16, this two-day foundations course explores the holiness and value of healthy boundaries for authorized ministers and religious professionals. This course is open to Members in Discernment, UCC clergy, and interfaith partners. Pleasant Places focuses on the sacred responsibility authorized ministers embrace in our role in congregations and other ministry settings. The curriculum dives deeply into three key concepts: power, authority, and vulnerability. The course emphasizes the vulnerability of congregants and prevention of harm, rather than the wellness of the practitioner. Participants will develop their own set of guiding principles related to boundary setting. The training is 12 hours long, over two consecutive days. Additional topics include: Identity and Role, Sabbath and Self-Care, Dual Relationships, and Confidential Information.
Next Training
January 22 & 23, 2025
Primary Articles to Read:
Ministry with Children & Youth
Special Topics:
Clergy Who are Single and/or Dating
Clergy with Partners and/or Children
Parting Well: Boundaries for Former Clergy
Articles:
Why Clergy Should Take Two Days Off Per Week, by Donna Schaper
Call and Compromise: “Balancing” Ministry and Family, by Alison J Buttrick Patton
Writing a Case Study.
Your case studies should be brief (100 words or less), and should evoke one of the key concepts or applied principles your reading about, and should relate to the "special topic." To the extent possible it should be a situation you've dealt or are dealing with, and there should be a question about "what to do" or "would you have done the same." This is a good chance to workshop a present situation if you would like.
For example, for Clergy who are single/dating - here's an example.
"X. is a single solo pastor. They've recently started dating someone who lives two towns over and things are going reasonably well. On date six, their sweetie asks them about suffering and theodicy - it turns out their mother is dying and they are in the midst of a family fight over choosing hospice or aggressive chemo. How might X understand their identity and role in this situation, and what is their power, authority, and responsibility? What should they do in this situation?"
Keep in mind we may not get to everyone's case study in every breakout. This exercise is useful for applying the learning from this training. It is also a useful ongoing practice to make sense of challenging situations in ministry.
About the Authors
Reverend Reebee Kavich Girash and Reverend Gregory R. Morisse have been authorized pastors in the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ for over fifteen years. In their formative years at Harvard Divinity School, they were part of a generation of new clergy influenced by the pain of clergy sex abuse scandals, most publicly in the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese.
They have been active in Boundary Awareness Training for over a decade. They come to this work having seen up close the consequences of both clergy burnout and clergy misconduct. They have witnessed the damage boundary violations inflict upon churches and how congregations can mirror clergy dysfunction. They have seen careers end after a boundary violation; and they have also seen colleagues come back from the gray zones.
Over the years, they have held mirrors up to each other and personally learned from these concepts and principles. Boundary Awareness is both personal and important. For their “expertise” they continue to seek out healthy mentors and those who model good boundaries and great wisdom. This is a living conversation. May it continue.