Ministering Circles?

[ckmcdonald]

We had a ward RS presidency member ask if there is a way to assign more then 3 people together in LCR as ministering companions so they could implement "Ministering Circles". Poking around a little it appears there are wards implementing something called "Ministering Circles", which are groups of 10 or so sisters grouped together and minister to each other. References to "Ministering Circles" are few and I'm not able to get much information about them. A quick read of the Handbook would suggest that "Ministering Circles" aren't a Church support thing. Can anyone shed some light on this subject? Thanks.

[russellhltn]

Not sure what they're talking about. Given a finite number of sisters, It's all going to get circular at some point. Companions A minister to Companions B, who minister to C, who ministers back to A. That can be set up. But it's not going to support a large number of companions.

Personally, I'd ask the person making the request to show where that came from and if it's church approved.

[BrianEdwards]

I'd also consider the importance of the "companionship principle". Companionships of two are what's "normal" (GHB 21.2.1), with three approved as mentioned previously. There's a lot of good things that come from two brothers or two sisters working together as a companionship, with stewardship over specific members -- and they can always coordinate additional support from a larger community, if that's what the ward desires. But receiving that specific responsibility as a companionship, is much different than having a shared responsibility amongst many. Just another thing to consider.

[Hardy95]

A member of our Presidency had a dream about these "circles" and felt strongly about it. We prayed about it and talked with our Bishop who felt that the inspiration for ministering comes from the R.S. Presidency and that we can be inspired for our ward. With this, we took a lot of time and energy to create "Sister Circles", which we just kicked off a few weeks ago with a combined RS Lesson that all the Sisters and young women joined with. We had a chair for every sister whether present or not, and our President shared some things and our Bishop gave a great lesson on the oak tree and ministering. We gave each sister who was there, a program with every "Sister Circle", which consists of 8-10 sisters, both attending and not, including our yw 14+. It went great and we have done some follow-up since and may have to do some tweaking.

We started with 2 strong ministering sisters, creating 14 groups. We then spent the next few hours making the circles, considering the different phases/stages of life. We also will choose a leader of the circles that we can send information to, who will then pass the information on to her "circle". This is a brief run down of how we're trying this.

[russellhltn]

With this, we took a lot of time and energy to create "Sister Circles",

Last I heard, the ward was stuck with the pre-defined circles and couldn't create any. Has your ward found a way to create them?