Part I – Leader Support

Starting the Group

Planning and Promotion

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. Romans 12:3-8 NRSV

If you are reading this Leader Guide, likely you are interested in starting a grief support group. You may be planning to lead it yourself, or exploring what it would take to lead a grief support group in order to recruit a capable leader. You may be a pastor or church staff person. You may be a lay pastoral care volunteer or a Stephen minister who discerns the need for a grief support group in your church. You may be a lay person who has been asked to lead a group or who has volunteered to lead one. Or you may be a professional counselor who plans to lead a group in the community or a church. But it is by no means a requirement that you have pastoral or counseling experience to be an effective grief group leader. If you have a heart for those who grieve and bring to your mission both empathy and compassion, you can lead a grief support group.

Whatever your background or motivation for starting a grief-support group, you will be equipped to lead a group using this Leader Guide and the DVD for each session. The following guidelines will help you start, plan, and promote a grief support group.

1. Many churches do not have a support group for those in the congregation and/or community who are grieving the death of a loved one. If you are interested in being the leader of a Beyond the Broken Heart grief group, contact the person on staff at your church who best understands this area of pastoral care.

• If a staff person or committee needs to review and approve the Beyond the Broken Heart program, the Leader Guide and DVD provide a good overview of the content.

• A kit containing one each of the program components is also available.

• In addition, the pocket-sized A Journey Through Grief: Life Beyond the Broken Heart is available, which well summarizes the journey using much of the content covered in the group sessions. This inexpensive little book is a resource that might encourage those who are interested in the group but may be hesitant about participating.

2. Depending on the size of your church and/or the number of persons in the church who are grieving the loss of a loved one, it may not be possible to constitute a stand-alone group. A grief group typically is most dynamic when there are 6-12 people who participate and, over time, bond to become a real support community. If there are not enough people within your own church, consider coordinating with other churches in your community to form a joint grief group. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The church most centrally located might serve as host and provide the meeting space.

• Each church should then promote the grief support group through its newsletter, worship bulletin, website, etc.

• To avoid any confusion, it should be made clear in all publicity that there is one location for meetings and one contact person, number, or website.

• A joint grief group might be an interest story for media outlets. Cooperative church efforts always seem to be newsworthy.

3. Decide on a time frame for the group. There are a variety of possibilities:

• 8 weeks – Meet once a week for 8 weeks.

• 10 weeks – Meet weekly using the 8 sessions and the 2 supplemental sessions.

• 16-20 weeks – Meet bi-weekly for a total of 16 or 20 weeks. Or, meet weekly but devote two sessions to each session guide. This latter option allows you to:

* Spend more time in each session on content review and group discussion.

* Have a more in-depth study of grief.

* Use the same opening and closing for the two sessions, or create new ones for the additional session.

* 8-10 months – Meet consecutively once a month for 8 or 10 months.

* 12 months – Meet for 10 sessions, gathering once a month over a year with two months designated as breaks.

Note that the two supplement sessions can be used at any time during the program. Here are some ideas for incorporating these sessions:

• It is effective to use "Grief at the Holidays" during November and December.

• Each of the three topics in chapter 9 of the Participant Book is relatively short. A session on each topic—The Season, The Experience, The Light—would allow the group time for rich, cathartic conversation about the emotions of grief at the holiday season.

• If one session is planned before Thanksgiving and two sessions before Christmas, the group has continuous support throughout the holiday season.

• Your church might want to open the group to anyone in the community who is grieving at the holidays, whatever their experience of loss (divorce, estrangement, loss of job, death of a friend, etc.).

• The supplemental session Peace of Mind: Financial Management for Life might be offered before the New Year or as an option for "break" months or weeks, or at the end of the program after the 8 sessions have been completed. This session content is also well suited to spread out over 2-4 sessions.

Here are some things to consider when deciding on a time frame for the group:

• How many weeks or months should be scheduled?

• How does the schedule for the group coincide with events in the church liturgical year?

• Should the sessions be scheduled during the fall with a lead-in to Advent and Christmas?

• Should the group be scheduled before or after Lent or Easter?

• Would the focus on Christ's death during Lent emphasize the pain of group participants already struggling with grief and death?

• Could the sessions be scheduled to parallel...