Templates for Architecting Sacred Community
Fetzer’s dedicated time on Tuesday mornings for fostering its sacred-centered community includes alternating weeks for full community sessions and for small group or individual exploration. This structure nurtures and deepens spiritual development at the organizational, interpersonal, and individual levels — which together can help individual staff and the organization as a whole “live the work.”
These modalities of full community, small group, and individual engagement amplify each other. While they each have merit on their own, their full benefits are best realized together. Full community sessions are curated to align with organizational priorities and developmental needs, and engage expertise in spiritual formation and adult learning.
It is not possible or preferred to “complete” work in the full community sessions — whether that be learning about a world religion, developing a relational capability, or setting intentions for spiritual deepening. To be realized, the seeds planted in the full community sessions have to be cultivated through other facets of life and work. The time for small group and/or individual exploration on the alternating Tuesdays allows for such integration. It is a space for staff to follow their own spiritual and religious paths and deepen according to their own traditions or needs. Staff can then bring their spiritual growth and insight back into full community sessions. It’s a virtuous cycle.
With all of these modalities for engaging our sacred-centered community, we are often asked: What does it look like in practice? In the following sections, we offer our templates for full community, small group, and individual engagement. Like any effective design, these templates were developed for the Fetzer community — with our mission, vision, resources, staff composition, and culture in mind. We offer them here in the hope that their specificity can help inspire other organizations to imagine what is possible within your own contexts. Feel free to use these templates and examples as you see fit.
The full community, small group, and individual engagement is bolstered by intentional stewardship and resources (e.g., staff dedicated to cultivating the community) and enabling organizational conditions, including supportive senior leadership, cultural norms, structures, and benefits (e.g., financial resources and time away from the office for individual spiritual development). These elements are detailed in a comprehensive list of all the building blocks for spiritually grounded life at Fetzer in the Appendix.
This area of the case study includes templates for Full Community Sessions, Small Group Exploration, and Individual Exploration. Please use the buttons below to navigate through these areas of the report or, alternatively, download the full report PDF.
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