The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Rev. Julie Price
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax
July 9, 2017
Call to Worship
It’s summer, folks! And in that spirit, I invite you today into a little serious fun. I began taking classes in improvisational theater last summer and have been hooked on it since. Recently, a newcomer to the class shared about how she had never been in a group before where she felt so comfortable and welcomed so quickly. Others around us agreed. My minister-ears perked up and I asked her to elaborate. She talked about how she had walked into the class as a stranger and by the end of class, felt like she was a valued member of the group.
Now granted, we were a friendly group of folks. But it was more than just friendliness that made strangers into valued members so quickly in our class. As I pondered this, I began to believe that it is the rules of improv that help create a special kind of space where people can be vulnerable, collaborative and creative. So today all of your worship leaders invite you into a sacred experience of improvisation as a way of creating loving, supportive, and energized community. Helping us out today is the newly formed, as of 8:30 this morning, UUCF improv troupe: "Coffee, Please".
Sermon: The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Improvisational theater, is an art-form where the members of the team declare that all evidence to the contrary, no matter how motley their crew, they belong to one another. And in order for this to work, in order for a diverse group of strangers to come together and become an improv team, they follow a certain set of guiding principles: the rules of improv. Often, the very first rule one learns in improv class is “Yes, and…”. When improvising a scene, just agree with your partner and then add something.
If I am in a scene with Kathy and she says that the trees are made of candy, I must agree and then add something. I might say, “I know! Who knew we would get such a sugar high on this vacation?” I definitely would not want to say, “No they’re not. They are just regular old pine trees. You should check your glasses.” That would be “blocking the offer”. Blocking an offer just stops the energy of a scene in its tracks. It disrespects the player who has been courageous and offered a creative idea. And it makes the one who does the blocking look like a bit of a jerk.
So “Yes, and, is the creative engine that drives the energy of a scene forward. “Yes, and…” is a way of responding to your scene partner that says, I hear you and I’m going to add something to it. I wonder what meetings would be like if we had a little more “Yes, and…” and a little less “blocking the offer.”
In an article entitled, “The Relationship Between Trust, Creativity and Improv,” Improv teacher Brandon Rudd talk about how a culture of “yes, and” could transform work teams. He says, “To think that you’re going to give an idea or a thought and it’s going to be built upon by your teammates, this allows us to have creative flow and sometimes find ideas we didn’t know we had.” “Yes, I hear what you are saying, and… I am going to build on that.” How different is that than “No, you’re wrong and I’m going to tell you why.”
Would you like to see an example of “Yes, and…” in practice? Coffee, Please, our new UUCF improv troupe, come on up! Coffee, Please is going to play an Improv game called “Hashtag”. In case you are wondering, I’m not going to ask you to do this from your seats. In fact, I won’t be asking you to do any more on-the-spot improv in the service today. So take a deep breath and just enjoy.
OK, so in this game called “Hashtag”, Coffee, Please will collectively create a tweet, each adding one word at a time.
Hashtag
(The troupe adds one word per person going around a circle in order to create a coherent sentence. Any member of the troupe can complete the sentence by saying “Hashtag” and then the next person in line creates a summary phrase that relates to the sentence just created.)
What did you see at play in that game?
Collaboration: each person made a contribution: even if it was just a small word like “the, a, or and”. And the final product was something that none of them would have probably ever come up with on their own.
Support: Each person built off the person before them. Yes, and…
Flexibility: people had to adjust if the story went in a different direction than they expected.
This is why I like to call improv, “serious fun”. “Yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. We live in a dominant culture where power is not shared, it is hoarded, where some people are valued more than others. And so “yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. It says, “Yes,” your voice matters, “Yes” I hear your truth, “And…” I want to share something of my truth with you as well. “And…” let’s do something about this together.
In New Orleans, two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly approved the appointment of a study commission to consider adding an 8th principle to the Seven UU Principles we currently have. The 8th principle that will be studied states:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
journeying toward spiritual wholeness
by working to build
a diverse multicultural Beloved Community
by our actions that accountably
dismantle racism and other oppressions
in ourselves and our institutions.”
A diverse, multicultural Beloved Community – if this is indeed what our Unitarian Universalist faith is building, and I believe it is something we must build if we are going to live our liberal faith authentically into the future, then a spirit of “Yes, and…” may help us get there. “Yes” I hear your truth. “And” let me add to what you have shared with something of my own truth.
This then leads to a second, related rule of improv: “Got Your Back”. In improv theater, unlike stand-up comedy, for instance, the most important task is not to be funny or clever. No the most important task in an improv scene is “to make your scene partner look good.” Just make the people around you look funny and clever. Have their backs. In fact, many improv groups prepare backstage before a performance by literally demonstrating that they have each other’s back. Coffee, Please, will you show us how it’s done?
Got Your Back Demo – Improv Group
(Troupe runs around patting each other on the back saying “Got your back” to each other.)
Isn’t that powerful? Before they go out on stage together, they pledge to support each other. Having each other’s back might look like incorporating someone’s flubbed word or awkward moment into the action of the scene as if it was comedy gold. Or, “making your scene partner look good” might mean noticing something brilliant just under the surface in something a scene partner is doing and drawing it out. Having each other’s backs requires scene partners to pay close attention and really listen to one another. It asks improvisers to not focus on themselves but instead to look for ways to draw out one another’s gifts, and to make their scene partner look good.
I first became interested in improv after hearing Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jade Angelica, speak to a group of interfaith clergy about how improv and mindfulness can be employed to help people skillfully interact with their loved ones with dementia. At the time I was a chaplain intern at a skilled nursing center where there were a good number of folks with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In Rev. Angelica’s book, “Where Two Worlds Touch: A Spiritual Journey Through Alzheimer’s Disease,” she shares about how she serendipitously completed a series of improv classes right before she was called upon to help take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the rules of improv that she talked about in her book was making your scene partner, your loved one with dementia, look good – to affirm their self worth and dignity by saying “Yes” to whatever decade, or location or relationship that their minds were perceiving.
At the skilled nursing center where I served, there was a sprightly woman in a memory care unit who loved to talk. Whenever I had the time, I would ask her if she would like to take a walk and we would stroll up and down the halls of her unit at the fastest clip I’ve ever seen someone maneuver a walker. Along our walk, she would tell me about the people who lived in her apartment building, pointing to their doors as we passed. She told me about her grandmother who lived across the hall from her and the neighbor boy who lived on another floor who was sweet on her. This woman took me on many a tour of her childhood Brooklyn apartment building. I had the privilege of being her improv scene partner and saying yes to the setting and time period she offered, affirming her dignity in the process.
Imagine if we went into meetings with the goal of making everyone else in the room look good. Or, imagine walking into a meeting and being certain that everyone around the table unequivocally had your back. Imagine the effect.
Our reading today (from BeTheLove.net) says that “[Beloved community] is the story of our brilliance, our beauty, our power, our giftedness. Ours and each others.” When we have each other’s backs, and know that we can count on that, our brilliance, our beauty, our power is affirmed and released. When we know that we have a community of people who are looking to bring out our gifts and support us even in our blunders, we can be free to take bold risks even if it means we very well might make some mistakes.
In preparation for this worship service, I met my improv teacher for coffee to get some ideas from him. He shared with me that one of the best things improv has done for him was to help him feel good about not being perfect. In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford Drama professor Patricia Madson, notes that on the wall of her classroom is a sign that reads, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not doing improv.” She writes, “Mistakes are our friends, our partners in the game. They are necessary.” She invites us “to jump into the world of ‘oops’ with both feet.”
And so the third rule of improv that we will explore this morning is “Make mistakes.” And to help us see this in practice, I invite Coffee, Please to play a game for us called Sound and Motion. In this game, players pass a sound and a motion around the circle. Players try to follow the pattern established by the person before them. But pay attention to what naturally happens to the sound and the motion over time. What happens when someone makes a mistake? I think I’ll join in for this one if that’s OK?
Sound and Motion
What did you notice? This game would become really boring, really fast if everyone could imitate one another perfectly. What makes it interesting, and fun, and creative is that people naturally adapt their sound and their motion and so things evolve and change. The mistakes are the gifts in this game. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing improv. Could it be that if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t living into Beloved Community?
When I was a seminary student, John and Adrienne Carr were two of my religious education professors. John had been a United Methodist pastor for many years and the two of them had traveled around the South of the United States, living in one parsonage after another, serving churches together. These were the days when the church parsonage was one of the primary places for a minister to visit with parishioners. With a rebellious gleam in their eyes, John and Ad would offer this piece of advice to aspiring ministers: “Do not clean up your house before a parishioner comes to visit. If your house is spotless, no one will ever invite you into theirs.”
Perfection does not build relationships. But being real and vulnerable, admitting our failings and mistakes, well that can make someone a fast friend. And a community whose culture encourages people to be honest, to take risks and not be afraid of mistakes, that is a community that is creating space for healing and for real transformation.
I think this may be why the newcomer to our improv class felt so comfortable so quickly. Our class was a place where you could try something new, fall flat on your face, and be admired for your effort. It was a place where you weren’t just tolerated despite your flaws, but where your flaws were seen as an essential part of your creative process.
This is why I have found myself drawn to the artform of improv and it is also why I continue to be part of a community of faith. As Starhawk writes, “we are all longing to go home to some place… where a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.” I think we are all longing for Beloved Community. We are longing for a place where we offer a collaborative “Yes, and…” to one another, where we have each other’s backs, and where we create space for risk-taking, vulnerability, and mistakes. Such a place, such a community, can nurture and set loose our creative power to transform a hurting world. May it be so. Amen.
Call to Worship
It’s summer, folks! And in that spirit, I invite you today into a little serious fun. I began taking classes in improvisational theater last summer and have been hooked on it since. Recently, a newcomer to the class shared about how she had never been in a group before where she felt so comfortable and welcomed so quickly. Others around us agreed. My minister-ears perked up and I asked her to elaborate. She talked about how she had walked into the class as a stranger and by the end of class, felt like she was a valued member of the group.
Now granted, we were a friendly group of folks. But it was more than just friendliness that made strangers into valued members so quickly in our class. As I pondered this, I began to believe that it is the rules of improv that help create a special kind of space where people can be vulnerable, collaborative and creative. So today all of your worship leaders invite you into a sacred experience of improvisation as a way of creating loving, supportive, and energized community. Helping us out today is the newly formed, as of 8:30 this morning, UUCF improv troupe: "Coffee, Please".
Sermon: The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Improvisational theater, is an art-form where the members of the team declare that all evidence to the contrary, no matter how motley their crew, they belong to one another. And in order for this to work, in order for a diverse group of strangers to come together and become an improv team, they follow a certain set of guiding principles: the rules of improv. Often, the very first rule one learns in improv class is “Yes, and…”. When improvising a scene, just agree with your partner and then add something.
If I am in a scene with Kathy and she says that the trees are made of candy, I must agree and then add something. I might say, “I know! Who knew we would get such a sugar high on this vacation?” I definitely would not want to say, “No they’re not. They are just regular old pine trees. You should check your glasses.” That would be “blocking the offer”. Blocking an offer just stops the energy of a scene in its tracks. It disrespects the player who has been courageous and offered a creative idea. And it makes the one who does the blocking look like a bit of a jerk.
So “Yes, and, is the creative engine that drives the energy of a scene forward. “Yes, and…” is a way of responding to your scene partner that says, I hear you and I’m going to add something to it. I wonder what meetings would be like if we had a little more “Yes, and…” and a little less “blocking the offer.”
In an article entitled, “The Relationship Between Trust, Creativity and Improv,” Improv teacher Brandon Rudd talk about how a culture of “yes, and” could transform work teams. He says, “To think that you’re going to give an idea or a thought and it’s going to be built upon by your teammates, this allows us to have creative flow and sometimes find ideas we didn’t know we had.” “Yes, I hear what you are saying, and… I am going to build on that.” How different is that than “No, you’re wrong and I’m going to tell you why.”
Would you like to see an example of “Yes, and…” in practice? Coffee, Please, our new UUCF improv troupe, come on up! Coffee, Please is going to play an Improv game called “Hashtag”. In case you are wondering, I’m not going to ask you to do this from your seats. In fact, I won’t be asking you to do any more on-the-spot improv in the service today. So take a deep breath and just enjoy.
OK, so in this game called “Hashtag”, Coffee, Please will collectively create a tweet, each adding one word at a time.
Hashtag
(The troupe adds one word per person going around a circle in order to create a coherent sentence. Any member of the troupe can complete the sentence by saying “Hashtag” and then the next person in line creates a summary phrase that relates to the sentence just created.)
What did you see at play in that game?
Collaboration: each person made a contribution: even if it was just a small word like “the, a, or and”. And the final product was something that none of them would have probably ever come up with on their own.
Support: Each person built off the person before them. Yes, and…
Flexibility: people had to adjust if the story went in a different direction than they expected.
This is why I like to call improv, “serious fun”. “Yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. We live in a dominant culture where power is not shared, it is hoarded, where some people are valued more than others. And so “yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. It says, “Yes,” your voice matters, “Yes” I hear your truth, “And…” I want to share something of my truth with you as well. “And…” let’s do something about this together.
In New Orleans, two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly approved the appointment of a study commission to consider adding an 8th principle to the Seven UU Principles we currently have. The 8th principle that will be studied states:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
journeying toward spiritual wholeness
by working to build
a diverse multicultural Beloved Community
by our actions that accountably
dismantle racism and other oppressions
in ourselves and our institutions.”
A diverse, multicultural Beloved Community – if this is indeed what our Unitarian Universalist faith is building, and I believe it is something we must build if we are going to live our liberal faith authentically into the future, then a spirit of “Yes, and…” may help us get there. “Yes” I hear your truth. “And” let me add to what you have shared with something of my own truth.
This then leads to a second, related rule of improv: “Got Your Back”. In improv theater, unlike stand-up comedy, for instance, the most important task is not to be funny or clever. No the most important task in an improv scene is “to make your scene partner look good.” Just make the people around you look funny and clever. Have their backs. In fact, many improv groups prepare backstage before a performance by literally demonstrating that they have each other’s back. Coffee, Please, will you show us how it’s done?
Got Your Back Demo – Improv Group
(Troupe runs around patting each other on the back saying “Got your back” to each other.)
Isn’t that powerful? Before they go out on stage together, they pledge to support each other. Having each other’s back might look like incorporating someone’s flubbed word or awkward moment into the action of the scene as if it was comedy gold. Or, “making your scene partner look good” might mean noticing something brilliant just under the surface in something a scene partner is doing and drawing it out. Having each other’s backs requires scene partners to pay close attention and really listen to one another. It asks improvisers to not focus on themselves but instead to look for ways to draw out one another’s gifts, and to make their scene partner look good.
I first became interested in improv after hearing Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jade Angelica, speak to a group of interfaith clergy about how improv and mindfulness can be employed to help people skillfully interact with their loved ones with dementia. At the time I was a chaplain intern at a skilled nursing center where there were a good number of folks with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In Rev. Angelica’s book, “Where Two Worlds Touch: A Spiritual Journey Through Alzheimer’s Disease,” she shares about how she serendipitously completed a series of improv classes right before she was called upon to help take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the rules of improv that she talked about in her book was making your scene partner, your loved one with dementia, look good – to affirm their self worth and dignity by saying “Yes” to whatever decade, or location or relationship that their minds were perceiving.
At the skilled nursing center where I served, there was a sprightly woman in a memory care unit who loved to talk. Whenever I had the time, I would ask her if she would like to take a walk and we would stroll up and down the halls of her unit at the fastest clip I’ve ever seen someone maneuver a walker. Along our walk, she would tell me about the people who lived in her apartment building, pointing to their doors as we passed. She told me about her grandmother who lived across the hall from her and the neighbor boy who lived on another floor who was sweet on her. This woman took me on many a tour of her childhood Brooklyn apartment building. I had the privilege of being her improv scene partner and saying yes to the setting and time period she offered, affirming her dignity in the process.
Imagine if we went into meetings with the goal of making everyone else in the room look good. Or, imagine walking into a meeting and being certain that everyone around the table unequivocally had your back. Imagine the effect.
Our reading today (from BeTheLove.net) says that “[Beloved community] is the story of our brilliance, our beauty, our power, our giftedness. Ours and each others.” When we have each other’s backs, and know that we can count on that, our brilliance, our beauty, our power is affirmed and released. When we know that we have a community of people who are looking to bring out our gifts and support us even in our blunders, we can be free to take bold risks even if it means we very well might make some mistakes.
In preparation for this worship service, I met my improv teacher for coffee to get some ideas from him. He shared with me that one of the best things improv has done for him was to help him feel good about not being perfect. In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford Drama professor Patricia Madson, notes that on the wall of her classroom is a sign that reads, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not doing improv.” She writes, “Mistakes are our friends, our partners in the game. They are necessary.” She invites us “to jump into the world of ‘oops’ with both feet.”
And so the third rule of improv that we will explore this morning is “Make mistakes.” And to help us see this in practice, I invite Coffee, Please to play a game for us called Sound and Motion. In this game, players pass a sound and a motion around the circle. Players try to follow the pattern established by the person before them. But pay attention to what naturally happens to the sound and the motion over time. What happens when someone makes a mistake? I think I’ll join in for this one if that’s OK?
Sound and Motion
What did you notice? This game would become really boring, really fast if everyone could imitate one another perfectly. What makes it interesting, and fun, and creative is that people naturally adapt their sound and their motion and so things evolve and change. The mistakes are the gifts in this game. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing improv. Could it be that if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t living into Beloved Community?
When I was a seminary student, John and Adrienne Carr were two of my religious education professors. John had been a United Methodist pastor for many years and the two of them had traveled around the South of the United States, living in one parsonage after another, serving churches together. These were the days when the church parsonage was one of the primary places for a minister to visit with parishioners. With a rebellious gleam in their eyes, John and Ad would offer this piece of advice to aspiring ministers: “Do not clean up your house before a parishioner comes to visit. If your house is spotless, no one will ever invite you into theirs.”
Perfection does not build relationships. But being real and vulnerable, admitting our failings and mistakes, well that can make someone a fast friend. And a community whose culture encourages people to be honest, to take risks and not be afraid of mistakes, that is a community that is creating space for healing and for real transformation.
I think this may be why the newcomer to our improv class felt so comfortable so quickly. Our class was a place where you could try something new, fall flat on your face, and be admired for your effort. It was a place where you weren’t just tolerated despite your flaws, but where your flaws were seen as an essential part of your creative process.
This is why I have found myself drawn to the artform of improv and it is also why I continue to be part of a community of faith. As Starhawk writes, “we are all longing to go home to some place… where a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.” I think we are all longing for Beloved Community. We are longing for a place where we offer a collaborative “Yes, and…” to one another, where we have each other’s backs, and where we create space for risk-taking, vulnerability, and mistakes. Such a place, such a community, can nurture and set loose our creative power to transform a hurting world. May it be so. Amen.
Call to Worship
It’s summer, folks! And in that spirit, I invite you today into a little serious fun. I began taking classes in improvisational theater last summer and have been hooked on it since. Recently, a newcomer to the class shared about how she had never been in a group before where she felt so comfortable and welcomed so quickly. Others around us agreed. My minister-ears perked up and I asked her to elaborate. She talked about how she had walked into the class as a stranger and by the end of class, felt like she was a valued member of the group.
Now granted, we were a friendly group of folks. But it was more than just friendliness that made strangers into valued members so quickly in our class. As I pondered this, I began to believe that it is the rules of improv that help create a special kind of space where people can be vulnerable, collaborative and creative. So today all of your worship leaders invite you into a sacred experience of improvisation as a way of creating loving, supportive, and energized community. Helping us out today is the newly formed, as of 8:30 this morning, UUCF improv troupe: "Coffee, Please".
Sermon: The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Improvisational theater, is an art-form where the members of the team declare that all evidence to the contrary, no matter how motley their crew, they belong to one another. And in order for this to work, in order for a diverse group of strangers to come together and become an improv team, they follow a certain set of guiding principles: the rules of improv. Often, the very first rule one learns in improv class is “Yes, and…”. When improvising a scene, just agree with your partner and then add something.
If I am in a scene with Kathy and she says that the trees are made of candy, I must agree and then add something. I might say, “I know! Who knew we would get such a sugar high on this vacation?” I definitely would not want to say, “No they’re not. They are just regular old pine trees. You should check your glasses.” That would be “blocking the offer”. Blocking an offer just stops the energy of a scene in its tracks. It disrespects the player who has been courageous and offered a creative idea. And it makes the one who does the blocking look like a bit of a jerk.
So “Yes, and, is the creative engine that drives the energy of a scene forward. “Yes, and…” is a way of responding to your scene partner that says, I hear you and I’m going to add something to it. I wonder what meetings would be like if we had a little more “Yes, and…” and a little less “blocking the offer.”
In an article entitled, “The Relationship Between Trust, Creativity and Improv,” Improv teacher Brandon Rudd talk about how a culture of “yes, and” could transform work teams. He says, “To think that you’re going to give an idea or a thought and it’s going to be built upon by your teammates, this allows us to have creative flow and sometimes find ideas we didn’t know we had.” “Yes, I hear what you are saying, and… I am going to build on that.” How different is that than “No, you’re wrong and I’m going to tell you why.”
Would you like to see an example of “Yes, and…” in practice? Coffee, Please, our new UUCF improv troupe, come on up! Coffee, Please is going to play an Improv game called “Hashtag”. In case you are wondering, I’m not going to ask you to do this from your seats. In fact, I won’t be asking you to do any more on-the-spot improv in the service today. So take a deep breath and just enjoy.
OK, so in this game called “Hashtag”, Coffee, Please will collectively create a tweet, each adding one word at a time.
Hashtag
(The troupe adds one word per person going around a circle in order to create a coherent sentence. Any member of the troupe can complete the sentence by saying “Hashtag” and then the next person in line creates a summary phrase that relates to the sentence just created.)
What did you see at play in that game?
Collaboration: each person made a contribution: even if it was just a small word like “the, a, or and”. And the final product was something that none of them would have probably ever come up with on their own.
Support: Each person built off the person before them. Yes, and…
Flexibility: people had to adjust if the story went in a different direction than they expected.
This is why I like to call improv, “serious fun”. “Yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. We live in a dominant culture where power is not shared, it is hoarded, where some people are valued more than others. And so “yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. It says, “Yes,” your voice matters, “Yes” I hear your truth, “And…” I want to share something of my truth with you as well. “And…” let’s do something about this together.
In New Orleans, two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly approved the appointment of a study commission to consider adding an 8th principle to the Seven UU Principles we currently have. The 8th principle that will be studied states:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
journeying toward spiritual wholeness
by working to build
a diverse multicultural Beloved Community
by our actions that accountably
dismantle racism and other oppressions
in ourselves and our institutions.”
A diverse, multicultural Beloved Community – if this is indeed what our Unitarian Universalist faith is building, and I believe it is something we must build if we are going to live our liberal faith authentically into the future, then a spirit of “Yes, and…” may help us get there. “Yes” I hear your truth. “And” let me add to what you have shared with something of my own truth.
This then leads to a second, related rule of improv: “Got Your Back”. In improv theater, unlike stand-up comedy, for instance, the most important task is not to be funny or clever. No the most important task in an improv scene is “to make your scene partner look good.” Just make the people around you look funny and clever. Have their backs. In fact, many improv groups prepare backstage before a performance by literally demonstrating that they have each other’s back. Coffee, Please, will you show us how it’s done?
Got Your Back Demo – Improv Group
(Troupe runs around patting each other on the back saying “Got your back” to each other.)
Isn’t that powerful? Before they go out on stage together, they pledge to support each other. Having each other’s back might look like incorporating someone’s flubbed word or awkward moment into the action of the scene as if it was comedy gold. Or, “making your scene partner look good” might mean noticing something brilliant just under the surface in something a scene partner is doing and drawing it out. Having each other’s backs requires scene partners to pay close attention and really listen to one another. It asks improvisers to not focus on themselves but instead to look for ways to draw out one another’s gifts, and to make their scene partner look good.
I first became interested in improv after hearing Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jade Angelica, speak to a group of interfaith clergy about how improv and mindfulness can be employed to help people skillfully interact with their loved ones with dementia. At the time I was a chaplain intern at a skilled nursing center where there were a good number of folks with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In Rev. Angelica’s book, “Where Two Worlds Touch: A Spiritual Journey Through Alzheimer’s Disease,” she shares about how she serendipitously completed a series of improv classes right before she was called upon to help take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the rules of improv that she talked about in her book was making your scene partner, your loved one with dementia, look good – to affirm their self worth and dignity by saying “Yes” to whatever decade, or location or relationship that their minds were perceiving.
At the skilled nursing center where I served, there was a sprightly woman in a memory care unit who loved to talk. Whenever I had the time, I would ask her if she would like to take a walk and we would stroll up and down the halls of her unit at the fastest clip I’ve ever seen someone maneuver a walker. Along our walk, she would tell me about the people who lived in her apartment building, pointing to their doors as we passed. She told me about her grandmother who lived across the hall from her and the neighbor boy who lived on another floor who was sweet on her. This woman took me on many a tour of her childhood Brooklyn apartment building. I had the privilege of being her improv scene partner and saying yes to the setting and time period she offered, affirming her dignity in the process.
Imagine if we went into meetings with the goal of making everyone else in the room look good. Or, imagine walking into a meeting and being certain that everyone around the table unequivocally had your back. Imagine the effect.
Our reading today (from BeTheLove.net) says that “[Beloved community] is the story of our brilliance, our beauty, our power, our giftedness. Ours and each others.” When we have each other’s backs, and know that we can count on that, our brilliance, our beauty, our power is affirmed and released. When we know that we have a community of people who are looking to bring out our gifts and support us even in our blunders, we can be free to take bold risks even if it means we very well might make some mistakes.
In preparation for this worship service, I met my improv teacher for coffee to get some ideas from him. He shared with me that one of the best things improv has done for him was to help him feel good about not being perfect. In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford Drama professor Patricia Madson, notes that on the wall of her classroom is a sign that reads, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not doing improv.” She writes, “Mistakes are our friends, our partners in the game. They are necessary.” She invites us “to jump into the world of ‘oops’ with both feet.”
And so the third rule of improv that we will explore this morning is “Make mistakes.” And to help us see this in practice, I invite Coffee, Please to play a game for us called Sound and Motion. In this game, players pass a sound and a motion around the circle. Players try to follow the pattern established by the person before them. But pay attention to what naturally happens to the sound and the motion over time. What happens when someone makes a mistake? I think I’ll join in for this one if that’s OK?
Sound and Motion
What did you notice? This game would become really boring, really fast if everyone could imitate one another perfectly. What makes it interesting, and fun, and creative is that people naturally adapt their sound and their motion and so things evolve and change. The mistakes are the gifts in this game. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing improv. Could it be that if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t living into Beloved Community?
When I was a seminary student, John and Adrienne Carr were two of my religious education professors. John had been a United Methodist pastor for many years and the two of them had traveled around the South of the United States, living in one parsonage after another, serving churches together. These were the days when the church parsonage was one of the primary places for a minister to visit with parishioners. With a rebellious gleam in their eyes, John and Ad would offer this piece of advice to aspiring ministers: “Do not clean up your house before a parishioner comes to visit. If your house is spotless, no one will ever invite you into theirs.”
Perfection does not build relationships. But being real and vulnerable, admitting our failings and mistakes, well that can make someone a fast friend. And a community whose culture encourages people to be honest, to take risks and not be afraid of mistakes, that is a community that is creating space for healing and for real transformation.
I think this may be why the newcomer to our improv class felt so comfortable so quickly. Our class was a place where you could try something new, fall flat on your face, and be admired for your effort. It was a place where you weren’t just tolerated despite your flaws, but where your flaws were seen as an essential part of your creative process.
This is why I have found myself drawn to the artform of improv and it is also why I continue to be part of a community of faith. As Starhawk writes, “we are all longing to go home to some place… where a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.” I think we are all longing for Beloved Community. We are longing for a place where we offer a collaborative “Yes, and…” to one another, where we have each other’s backs, and where we create space for risk-taking, vulnerability, and mistakes. Such a place, such a community, can nurture and set loose our creative power to transform a hurting world. May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Julie Price
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax
July 9, 2017
Call to Worship
It’s summer, folks! And in that spirit, I invite you today into a little serious fun. I began taking classes in improvisational theater last summer and have been hooked on it since. Recently, a newcomer to the class shared about how she had never been in a group before where she felt so comfortable and welcomed so quickly. Others around us agreed. My minister-ears perked up and I asked her to elaborate. She talked about how she had walked into the class as a stranger and by the end of class, felt like she was a valued member of the group.
Now granted, we were a friendly group of folks. But it was more than just friendliness that made strangers into valued members so quickly in our class. As I pondered this, I began to believe that it is the rules of improv that help create a special kind of space where people can be vulnerable, collaborative and creative. So today all of your worship leaders invite you into a sacred experience of improvisation as a way of creating loving, supportive, and energized community. Helping us out today is the newly formed, as of 8:30 this morning, UUCF improv troupe: "Coffee, Please".
Sermon: The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Improvisational theater, is an art-form where the members of the team declare that all evidence to the contrary, no matter how motley their crew, they belong to one another. And in order for this to work, in order for a diverse group of strangers to come together and become an improv team, they follow a certain set of guiding principles: the rules of improv. Often, the very first rule one learns in improv class is “Yes, and…”. When improvising a scene, just agree with your partner and then add something.
If I am in a scene with Kathy and she says that the trees are made of candy, I must agree and then add something. I might say, “I know! Who knew we would get such a sugar high on this vacation?” I definitely would not want to say, “No they’re not. They are just regular old pine trees. You should check your glasses.” That would be “blocking the offer”. Blocking an offer just stops the energy of a scene in its tracks. It disrespects the player who has been courageous and offered a creative idea. And it makes the one who does the blocking look like a bit of a jerk.
So “Yes, and, is the creative engine that drives the energy of a scene forward. “Yes, and…” is a way of responding to your scene partner that says, I hear you and I’m going to add something to it. I wonder what meetings would be like if we had a little more “Yes, and…” and a little less “blocking the offer.”
In an article entitled, “The Relationship Between Trust, Creativity and Improv,” Improv teacher Brandon Rudd talk about how a culture of “yes, and” could transform work teams. He says, “To think that you’re going to give an idea or a thought and it’s going to be built upon by your teammates, this allows us to have creative flow and sometimes find ideas we didn’t know we had.” “Yes, I hear what you are saying, and… I am going to build on that.” How different is that than “No, you’re wrong and I’m going to tell you why.”
Would you like to see an example of “Yes, and…” in practice? Coffee, Please, our new UUCF improv troupe, come on up! Coffee, Please is going to play an Improv game called “Hashtag”. In case you are wondering, I’m not going to ask you to do this from your seats. In fact, I won’t be asking you to do any more on-the-spot improv in the service today. So take a deep breath and just enjoy.
OK, so in this game called “Hashtag”, Coffee, Please will collectively create a tweet, each adding one word at a time.
Hashtag
(The troupe adds one word per person going around a circle in order to create a coherent sentence. Any member of the troupe can complete the sentence by saying “Hashtag” and then the next person in line creates a summary phrase that relates to the sentence just created.)
What did you see at play in that game?
Collaboration: each person made a contribution: even if it was just a small word like “the, a, or and”. And the final product was something that none of them would have probably ever come up with on their own.
Support: Each person built off the person before them. Yes, and…
Flexibility: people had to adjust if the story went in a different direction than they expected.
This is why I like to call improv, “serious fun”. “Yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. We live in a dominant culture where power is not shared, it is hoarded, where some people are valued more than others. And so “yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. It says, “Yes,” your voice matters, “Yes” I hear your truth, “And…” I want to share something of my truth with you as well. “And…” let’s do something about this together.
In New Orleans, two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly approved the appointment of a study commission to consider adding an 8th principle to the Seven UU Principles we currently have. The 8th principle that will be studied states:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
journeying toward spiritual wholeness
by working to build
a diverse multicultural Beloved Community
by our actions that accountably
dismantle racism and other oppressions
in ourselves and our institutions.”
A diverse, multicultural Beloved Community – if this is indeed what our Unitarian Universalist faith is building, and I believe it is something we must build if we are going to live our liberal faith authentically into the future, then a spirit of “Yes, and…” may help us get there. “Yes” I hear your truth. “And” let me add to what you have shared with something of my own truth.
This then leads to a second, related rule of improv: “Got Your Back”. In improv theater, unlike stand-up comedy, for instance, the most important task is not to be funny or clever. No the most important task in an improv scene is “to make your scene partner look good.” Just make the people around you look funny and clever. Have their backs. In fact, many improv groups prepare backstage before a performance by literally demonstrating that they have each other’s back. Coffee, Please, will you show us how it’s done?
Got Your Back Demo – Improv Group
(Troupe runs around patting each other on the back saying “Got your back” to each other.)
Isn’t that powerful? Before they go out on stage together, they pledge to support each other. Having each other’s back might look like incorporating someone’s flubbed word or awkward moment into the action of the scene as if it was comedy gold. Or, “making your scene partner look good” might mean noticing something brilliant just under the surface in something a scene partner is doing and drawing it out. Having each other’s backs requires scene partners to pay close attention and really listen to one another. It asks improvisers to not focus on themselves but instead to look for ways to draw out one another’s gifts, and to make their scene partner look good.
I first became interested in improv after hearing Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jade Angelica, speak to a group of interfaith clergy about how improv and mindfulness can be employed to help people skillfully interact with their loved ones with dementia. At the time I was a chaplain intern at a skilled nursing center where there were a good number of folks with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In Rev. Angelica’s book, “Where Two Worlds Touch: A Spiritual Journey Through Alzheimer’s Disease,” she shares about how she serendipitously completed a series of improv classes right before she was called upon to help take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the rules of improv that she talked about in her book was making your scene partner, your loved one with dementia, look good – to affirm their self worth and dignity by saying “Yes” to whatever decade, or location or relationship that their minds were perceiving.
At the skilled nursing center where I served, there was a sprightly woman in a memory care unit who loved to talk. Whenever I had the time, I would ask her if she would like to take a walk and we would stroll up and down the halls of her unit at the fastest clip I’ve ever seen someone maneuver a walker. Along our walk, she would tell me about the people who lived in her apartment building, pointing to their doors as we passed. She told me about her grandmother who lived across the hall from her and the neighbor boy who lived on another floor who was sweet on her. This woman took me on many a tour of her childhood Brooklyn apartment building. I had the privilege of being her improv scene partner and saying yes to the setting and time period she offered, affirming her dignity in the process.
Imagine if we went into meetings with the goal of making everyone else in the room look good. Or, imagine walking into a meeting and being certain that everyone around the table unequivocally had your back. Imagine the effect.
Our reading today (from BeTheLove.net) says that “[Beloved community] is the story of our brilliance, our beauty, our power, our giftedness. Ours and each others.” When we have each other’s backs, and know that we can count on that, our brilliance, our beauty, our power is affirmed and released. When we know that we have a community of people who are looking to bring out our gifts and support us even in our blunders, we can be free to take bold risks even if it means we very well might make some mistakes.
In preparation for this worship service, I met my improv teacher for coffee to get some ideas from him. He shared with me that one of the best things improv has done for him was to help him feel good about not being perfect. In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford Drama professor Patricia Madson, notes that on the wall of her classroom is a sign that reads, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not doing improv.” She writes, “Mistakes are our friends, our partners in the game. They are necessary.” She invites us “to jump into the world of ‘oops’ with both feet.”
And so the third rule of improv that we will explore this morning is “Make mistakes.” And to help us see this in practice, I invite Coffee, Please to play a game for us called Sound and Motion. In this game, players pass a sound and a motion around the circle. Players try to follow the pattern established by the person before them. But pay attention to what naturally happens to the sound and the motion over time. What happens when someone makes a mistake? I think I’ll join in for this one if that’s OK?
Sound and Motion
What did you notice? This game would become really boring, really fast if everyone could imitate one another perfectly. What makes it interesting, and fun, and creative is that people naturally adapt their sound and their motion and so things evolve and change. The mistakes are the gifts in this game. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing improv. Could it be that if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t living into Beloved Community?
When I was a seminary student, John and Adrienne Carr were two of my religious education professors. John had been a United Methodist pastor for many years and the two of them had traveled around the South of the United States, living in one parsonage after another, serving churches together. These were the days when the church parsonage was one of the primary places for a minister to visit with parishioners. With a rebellious gleam in their eyes, John and Ad would offer this piece of advice to aspiring ministers: “Do not clean up your house before a parishioner comes to visit. If your house is spotless, no one will ever invite you into theirs.”
Perfection does not build relationships. But being real and vulnerable, admitting our failings and mistakes, well that can make someone a fast friend. And a community whose culture encourages people to be honest, to take risks and not be afraid of mistakes, that is a community that is creating space for healing and for real transformation.
I think this may be why the newcomer to our improv class felt so comfortable so quickly. Our class was a place where you could try something new, fall flat on your face, and be admired for your effort. It was a place where you weren’t just tolerated despite your flaws, but where your flaws were seen as an essential part of your creative process.
This is why I have found myself drawn to the artform of improv and it is also why I continue to be part of a community of faith. As Starhawk writes, “we are all longing to go home to some place… where a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.” I think we are all longing for Beloved Community. We are longing for a place where we offer a collaborative “Yes, and…” to one another, where we have each other’s backs, and where we create space for risk-taking, vulnerability, and mistakes. Such a place, such a community, can nurture and set loose our creative power to transform a hurting world. May it be so. Amen.
Call to Worship
It’s summer, folks! And in that spirit, I invite you today into a little serious fun. I began taking classes in improvisational theater last summer and have been hooked on it since. Recently, a newcomer to the class shared about how she had never been in a group before where she felt so comfortable and welcomed so quickly. Others around us agreed. My minister-ears perked up and I asked her to elaborate. She talked about how she had walked into the class as a stranger and by the end of class, felt like she was a valued member of the group.
Now granted, we were a friendly group of folks. But it was more than just friendliness that made strangers into valued members so quickly in our class. As I pondered this, I began to believe that it is the rules of improv that help create a special kind of space where people can be vulnerable, collaborative and creative. So today all of your worship leaders invite you into a sacred experience of improvisation as a way of creating loving, supportive, and energized community. Helping us out today is the newly formed, as of 8:30 this morning, UUCF improv troupe: "Coffee, Please".
Sermon: The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Improvisational theater, is an art-form where the members of the team declare that all evidence to the contrary, no matter how motley their crew, they belong to one another. And in order for this to work, in order for a diverse group of strangers to come together and become an improv team, they follow a certain set of guiding principles: the rules of improv. Often, the very first rule one learns in improv class is “Yes, and…”. When improvising a scene, just agree with your partner and then add something.
If I am in a scene with Kathy and she says that the trees are made of candy, I must agree and then add something. I might say, “I know! Who knew we would get such a sugar high on this vacation?” I definitely would not want to say, “No they’re not. They are just regular old pine trees. You should check your glasses.” That would be “blocking the offer”. Blocking an offer just stops the energy of a scene in its tracks. It disrespects the player who has been courageous and offered a creative idea. And it makes the one who does the blocking look like a bit of a jerk.
So “Yes, and, is the creative engine that drives the energy of a scene forward. “Yes, and…” is a way of responding to your scene partner that says, I hear you and I’m going to add something to it. I wonder what meetings would be like if we had a little more “Yes, and…” and a little less “blocking the offer.”
In an article entitled, “The Relationship Between Trust, Creativity and Improv,” Improv teacher Brandon Rudd talk about how a culture of “yes, and” could transform work teams. He says, “To think that you’re going to give an idea or a thought and it’s going to be built upon by your teammates, this allows us to have creative flow and sometimes find ideas we didn’t know we had.” “Yes, I hear what you are saying, and… I am going to build on that.” How different is that than “No, you’re wrong and I’m going to tell you why.”
Would you like to see an example of “Yes, and…” in practice? Coffee, Please, our new UUCF improv troupe, come on up! Coffee, Please is going to play an Improv game called “Hashtag”. In case you are wondering, I’m not going to ask you to do this from your seats. In fact, I won’t be asking you to do any more on-the-spot improv in the service today. So take a deep breath and just enjoy.
OK, so in this game called “Hashtag”, Coffee, Please will collectively create a tweet, each adding one word at a time.
Hashtag
(The troupe adds one word per person going around a circle in order to create a coherent sentence. Any member of the troupe can complete the sentence by saying “Hashtag” and then the next person in line creates a summary phrase that relates to the sentence just created.)
What did you see at play in that game?
Collaboration: each person made a contribution: even if it was just a small word like “the, a, or and”. And the final product was something that none of them would have probably ever come up with on their own.
Support: Each person built off the person before them. Yes, and…
Flexibility: people had to adjust if the story went in a different direction than they expected.
This is why I like to call improv, “serious fun”. “Yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. We live in a dominant culture where power is not shared, it is hoarded, where some people are valued more than others. And so “yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. It says, “Yes,” your voice matters, “Yes” I hear your truth, “And…” I want to share something of my truth with you as well. “And…” let’s do something about this together.
In New Orleans, two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly approved the appointment of a study commission to consider adding an 8th principle to the Seven UU Principles we currently have. The 8th principle that will be studied states:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
journeying toward spiritual wholeness
by working to build
a diverse multicultural Beloved Community
by our actions that accountably
dismantle racism and other oppressions
in ourselves and our institutions.”
A diverse, multicultural Beloved Community – if this is indeed what our Unitarian Universalist faith is building, and I believe it is something we must build if we are going to live our liberal faith authentically into the future, then a spirit of “Yes, and…” may help us get there. “Yes” I hear your truth. “And” let me add to what you have shared with something of my own truth.
This then leads to a second, related rule of improv: “Got Your Back”. In improv theater, unlike stand-up comedy, for instance, the most important task is not to be funny or clever. No the most important task in an improv scene is “to make your scene partner look good.” Just make the people around you look funny and clever. Have their backs. In fact, many improv groups prepare backstage before a performance by literally demonstrating that they have each other’s back. Coffee, Please, will you show us how it’s done?
Got Your Back Demo – Improv Group
(Troupe runs around patting each other on the back saying “Got your back” to each other.)
Isn’t that powerful? Before they go out on stage together, they pledge to support each other. Having each other’s back might look like incorporating someone’s flubbed word or awkward moment into the action of the scene as if it was comedy gold. Or, “making your scene partner look good” might mean noticing something brilliant just under the surface in something a scene partner is doing and drawing it out. Having each other’s backs requires scene partners to pay close attention and really listen to one another. It asks improvisers to not focus on themselves but instead to look for ways to draw out one another’s gifts, and to make their scene partner look good.
I first became interested in improv after hearing Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jade Angelica, speak to a group of interfaith clergy about how improv and mindfulness can be employed to help people skillfully interact with their loved ones with dementia. At the time I was a chaplain intern at a skilled nursing center where there were a good number of folks with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In Rev. Angelica’s book, “Where Two Worlds Touch: A Spiritual Journey Through Alzheimer’s Disease,” she shares about how she serendipitously completed a series of improv classes right before she was called upon to help take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the rules of improv that she talked about in her book was making your scene partner, your loved one with dementia, look good – to affirm their self worth and dignity by saying “Yes” to whatever decade, or location or relationship that their minds were perceiving.
At the skilled nursing center where I served, there was a sprightly woman in a memory care unit who loved to talk. Whenever I had the time, I would ask her if she would like to take a walk and we would stroll up and down the halls of her unit at the fastest clip I’ve ever seen someone maneuver a walker. Along our walk, she would tell me about the people who lived in her apartment building, pointing to their doors as we passed. She told me about her grandmother who lived across the hall from her and the neighbor boy who lived on another floor who was sweet on her. This woman took me on many a tour of her childhood Brooklyn apartment building. I had the privilege of being her improv scene partner and saying yes to the setting and time period she offered, affirming her dignity in the process.
Imagine if we went into meetings with the goal of making everyone else in the room look good. Or, imagine walking into a meeting and being certain that everyone around the table unequivocally had your back. Imagine the effect.
Our reading today (from BeTheLove.net) says that “[Beloved community] is the story of our brilliance, our beauty, our power, our giftedness. Ours and each others.” When we have each other’s backs, and know that we can count on that, our brilliance, our beauty, our power is affirmed and released. When we know that we have a community of people who are looking to bring out our gifts and support us even in our blunders, we can be free to take bold risks even if it means we very well might make some mistakes.
In preparation for this worship service, I met my improv teacher for coffee to get some ideas from him. He shared with me that one of the best things improv has done for him was to help him feel good about not being perfect. In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford Drama professor Patricia Madson, notes that on the wall of her classroom is a sign that reads, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not doing improv.” She writes, “Mistakes are our friends, our partners in the game. They are necessary.” She invites us “to jump into the world of ‘oops’ with both feet.”
And so the third rule of improv that we will explore this morning is “Make mistakes.” And to help us see this in practice, I invite Coffee, Please to play a game for us called Sound and Motion. In this game, players pass a sound and a motion around the circle. Players try to follow the pattern established by the person before them. But pay attention to what naturally happens to the sound and the motion over time. What happens when someone makes a mistake? I think I’ll join in for this one if that’s OK?
Sound and Motion
What did you notice? This game would become really boring, really fast if everyone could imitate one another perfectly. What makes it interesting, and fun, and creative is that people naturally adapt their sound and their motion and so things evolve and change. The mistakes are the gifts in this game. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing improv. Could it be that if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t living into Beloved Community?
When I was a seminary student, John and Adrienne Carr were two of my religious education professors. John had been a United Methodist pastor for many years and the two of them had traveled around the South of the United States, living in one parsonage after another, serving churches together. These were the days when the church parsonage was one of the primary places for a minister to visit with parishioners. With a rebellious gleam in their eyes, John and Ad would offer this piece of advice to aspiring ministers: “Do not clean up your house before a parishioner comes to visit. If your house is spotless, no one will ever invite you into theirs.”
Perfection does not build relationships. But being real and vulnerable, admitting our failings and mistakes, well that can make someone a fast friend. And a community whose culture encourages people to be honest, to take risks and not be afraid of mistakes, that is a community that is creating space for healing and for real transformation.
I think this may be why the newcomer to our improv class felt so comfortable so quickly. Our class was a place where you could try something new, fall flat on your face, and be admired for your effort. It was a place where you weren’t just tolerated despite your flaws, but where your flaws were seen as an essential part of your creative process.
This is why I have found myself drawn to the artform of improv and it is also why I continue to be part of a community of faith. As Starhawk writes, “we are all longing to go home to some place… where a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.” I think we are all longing for Beloved Community. We are longing for a place where we offer a collaborative “Yes, and…” to one another, where we have each other’s backs, and where we create space for risk-taking, vulnerability, and mistakes. Such a place, such a community, can nurture and set loose our creative power to transform a hurting world. May it be so. Amen.
Call to Worship
It’s summer, folks! And in that spirit, I invite you today into a little serious fun. I began taking classes in improvisational theater last summer and have been hooked on it since. Recently, a newcomer to the class shared about how she had never been in a group before where she felt so comfortable and welcomed so quickly. Others around us agreed. My minister-ears perked up and I asked her to elaborate. She talked about how she had walked into the class as a stranger and by the end of class, felt like she was a valued member of the group.
Now granted, we were a friendly group of folks. But it was more than just friendliness that made strangers into valued members so quickly in our class. As I pondered this, I began to believe that it is the rules of improv that help create a special kind of space where people can be vulnerable, collaborative and creative. So today all of your worship leaders invite you into a sacred experience of improvisation as a way of creating loving, supportive, and energized community. Helping us out today is the newly formed, as of 8:30 this morning, UUCF improv troupe: "Coffee, Please".
Sermon: The Rules of Improv for Beloved Community
Improvisational theater, is an art-form where the members of the team declare that all evidence to the contrary, no matter how motley their crew, they belong to one another. And in order for this to work, in order for a diverse group of strangers to come together and become an improv team, they follow a certain set of guiding principles: the rules of improv. Often, the very first rule one learns in improv class is “Yes, and…”. When improvising a scene, just agree with your partner and then add something.
If I am in a scene with Kathy and she says that the trees are made of candy, I must agree and then add something. I might say, “I know! Who knew we would get such a sugar high on this vacation?” I definitely would not want to say, “No they’re not. They are just regular old pine trees. You should check your glasses.” That would be “blocking the offer”. Blocking an offer just stops the energy of a scene in its tracks. It disrespects the player who has been courageous and offered a creative idea. And it makes the one who does the blocking look like a bit of a jerk.
So “Yes, and, is the creative engine that drives the energy of a scene forward. “Yes, and…” is a way of responding to your scene partner that says, I hear you and I’m going to add something to it. I wonder what meetings would be like if we had a little more “Yes, and…” and a little less “blocking the offer.”
In an article entitled, “The Relationship Between Trust, Creativity and Improv,” Improv teacher Brandon Rudd talk about how a culture of “yes, and” could transform work teams. He says, “To think that you’re going to give an idea or a thought and it’s going to be built upon by your teammates, this allows us to have creative flow and sometimes find ideas we didn’t know we had.” “Yes, I hear what you are saying, and… I am going to build on that.” How different is that than “No, you’re wrong and I’m going to tell you why.”
Would you like to see an example of “Yes, and…” in practice? Coffee, Please, our new UUCF improv troupe, come on up! Coffee, Please is going to play an Improv game called “Hashtag”. In case you are wondering, I’m not going to ask you to do this from your seats. In fact, I won’t be asking you to do any more on-the-spot improv in the service today. So take a deep breath and just enjoy.
OK, so in this game called “Hashtag”, Coffee, Please will collectively create a tweet, each adding one word at a time.
Hashtag
(The troupe adds one word per person going around a circle in order to create a coherent sentence. Any member of the troupe can complete the sentence by saying “Hashtag” and then the next person in line creates a summary phrase that relates to the sentence just created.)
What did you see at play in that game?
Collaboration: each person made a contribution: even if it was just a small word like “the, a, or and”. And the final product was something that none of them would have probably ever come up with on their own.
Support: Each person built off the person before them. Yes, and…
Flexibility: people had to adjust if the story went in a different direction than they expected.
This is why I like to call improv, “serious fun”. “Yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. We live in a dominant culture where power is not shared, it is hoarded, where some people are valued more than others. And so “yes, and…” is a counter-cultural way of interacting in the world. It says, “Yes,” your voice matters, “Yes” I hear your truth, “And…” I want to share something of my truth with you as well. “And…” let’s do something about this together.
In New Orleans, two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly approved the appointment of a study commission to consider adding an 8th principle to the Seven UU Principles we currently have. The 8th principle that will be studied states:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
journeying toward spiritual wholeness
by working to build
a diverse multicultural Beloved Community
by our actions that accountably
dismantle racism and other oppressions
in ourselves and our institutions.”
A diverse, multicultural Beloved Community – if this is indeed what our Unitarian Universalist faith is building, and I believe it is something we must build if we are going to live our liberal faith authentically into the future, then a spirit of “Yes, and…” may help us get there. “Yes” I hear your truth. “And” let me add to what you have shared with something of my own truth.
This then leads to a second, related rule of improv: “Got Your Back”. In improv theater, unlike stand-up comedy, for instance, the most important task is not to be funny or clever. No the most important task in an improv scene is “to make your scene partner look good.” Just make the people around you look funny and clever. Have their backs. In fact, many improv groups prepare backstage before a performance by literally demonstrating that they have each other’s back. Coffee, Please, will you show us how it’s done?
Got Your Back Demo – Improv Group
(Troupe runs around patting each other on the back saying “Got your back” to each other.)
Isn’t that powerful? Before they go out on stage together, they pledge to support each other. Having each other’s back might look like incorporating someone’s flubbed word or awkward moment into the action of the scene as if it was comedy gold. Or, “making your scene partner look good” might mean noticing something brilliant just under the surface in something a scene partner is doing and drawing it out. Having each other’s backs requires scene partners to pay close attention and really listen to one another. It asks improvisers to not focus on themselves but instead to look for ways to draw out one another’s gifts, and to make their scene partner look good.
I first became interested in improv after hearing Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jade Angelica, speak to a group of interfaith clergy about how improv and mindfulness can be employed to help people skillfully interact with their loved ones with dementia. At the time I was a chaplain intern at a skilled nursing center where there were a good number of folks with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In Rev. Angelica’s book, “Where Two Worlds Touch: A Spiritual Journey Through Alzheimer’s Disease,” she shares about how she serendipitously completed a series of improv classes right before she was called upon to help take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the rules of improv that she talked about in her book was making your scene partner, your loved one with dementia, look good – to affirm their self worth and dignity by saying “Yes” to whatever decade, or location or relationship that their minds were perceiving.
At the skilled nursing center where I served, there was a sprightly woman in a memory care unit who loved to talk. Whenever I had the time, I would ask her if she would like to take a walk and we would stroll up and down the halls of her unit at the fastest clip I’ve ever seen someone maneuver a walker. Along our walk, she would tell me about the people who lived in her apartment building, pointing to their doors as we passed. She told me about her grandmother who lived across the hall from her and the neighbor boy who lived on another floor who was sweet on her. This woman took me on many a tour of her childhood Brooklyn apartment building. I had the privilege of being her improv scene partner and saying yes to the setting and time period she offered, affirming her dignity in the process.
Imagine if we went into meetings with the goal of making everyone else in the room look good. Or, imagine walking into a meeting and being certain that everyone around the table unequivocally had your back. Imagine the effect.
Our reading today (from BeTheLove.net) says that “[Beloved community] is the story of our brilliance, our beauty, our power, our giftedness. Ours and each others.” When we have each other’s backs, and know that we can count on that, our brilliance, our beauty, our power is affirmed and released. When we know that we have a community of people who are looking to bring out our gifts and support us even in our blunders, we can be free to take bold risks even if it means we very well might make some mistakes.
In preparation for this worship service, I met my improv teacher for coffee to get some ideas from him. He shared with me that one of the best things improv has done for him was to help him feel good about not being perfect. In her book, Improv Wisdom, Stanford Drama professor Patricia Madson, notes that on the wall of her classroom is a sign that reads, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not doing improv.” She writes, “Mistakes are our friends, our partners in the game. They are necessary.” She invites us “to jump into the world of ‘oops’ with both feet.”
And so the third rule of improv that we will explore this morning is “Make mistakes.” And to help us see this in practice, I invite Coffee, Please to play a game for us called Sound and Motion. In this game, players pass a sound and a motion around the circle. Players try to follow the pattern established by the person before them. But pay attention to what naturally happens to the sound and the motion over time. What happens when someone makes a mistake? I think I’ll join in for this one if that’s OK?
Sound and Motion
What did you notice? This game would become really boring, really fast if everyone could imitate one another perfectly. What makes it interesting, and fun, and creative is that people naturally adapt their sound and their motion and so things evolve and change. The mistakes are the gifts in this game. If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t doing improv. Could it be that if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t living into Beloved Community?
When I was a seminary student, John and Adrienne Carr were two of my religious education professors. John had been a United Methodist pastor for many years and the two of them had traveled around the South of the United States, living in one parsonage after another, serving churches together. These were the days when the church parsonage was one of the primary places for a minister to visit with parishioners. With a rebellious gleam in their eyes, John and Ad would offer this piece of advice to aspiring ministers: “Do not clean up your house before a parishioner comes to visit. If your house is spotless, no one will ever invite you into theirs.”
Perfection does not build relationships. But being real and vulnerable, admitting our failings and mistakes, well that can make someone a fast friend. And a community whose culture encourages people to be honest, to take risks and not be afraid of mistakes, that is a community that is creating space for healing and for real transformation.
I think this may be why the newcomer to our improv class felt so comfortable so quickly. Our class was a place where you could try something new, fall flat on your face, and be admired for your effort. It was a place where you weren’t just tolerated despite your flaws, but where your flaws were seen as an essential part of your creative process.
This is why I have found myself drawn to the artform of improv and it is also why I continue to be part of a community of faith. As Starhawk writes, “we are all longing to go home to some place… where a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.” I think we are all longing for Beloved Community. We are longing for a place where we offer a collaborative “Yes, and…” to one another, where we have each other’s backs, and where we create space for risk-taking, vulnerability, and mistakes. Such a place, such a community, can nurture and set loose our creative power to transform a hurting world. May it be so. Amen.