John's Blog: Transforming Globalism (Part 7 of 8)
Everyone and his dog has a 'blog these days, right? So why not me? If you are interested in anything I'm saying, great! Let's talk about it! (Leave comments.) If not, try one of my other links. Better yet, why are you wasting your time staring at your computer screen, go do something real!
Let me know if you'd like to be to be updated whenever I post a new article. It won't happen every day!
Transforming Globalism (Part 7 of 8)
Workshops
There were about a dozen workshops offered, with three sessions in which to take them. Herewith is a summary of the ones that I took.
1) Friday AM: Micah 6
Describes the Micah 6 program, "a congregational initiative for integrating the ministries of justice, service, and spiritual growth into the entire life of the church." It is basically a collection of resources -- bible and other study sessions, worship materials, ministry tools, stories from Micah 6 congregations, and more -- that may be used in many different ways, depending on the need of the church. The workshop consisted of an introduction to the program, answering questions about it, and singing some of the very singable music from it.
2) Friday PM: Basic Congregational Development
This was a presentation of a technique which I have encountered before whose purpose is to build community within the church and get people to know each other in a meaningful way. We started by asking three questions:
1. What percentage of people in your church do you know by name?
2. What percentage of people in your church have you talked to in the last month?
3. With what percentage have you had a really meaningful conversation with in the last month?
The technique presented is the 1:1 conversation. This is basically a very focused and intentional conversation intended to find out what is who someone is and what is important to them. It is not an open-ended social conversation.
There are different ways in which these conversations can be set up. At this presenter's church, they held a series of church-wide meetings in which the process was explained, and cards which everyone present had filled out were drawn randomly so that each person had one person they were to "interview" sometime in the next week, and one person who was to "interview" them. Meetings were scheduled between the two people for sometime that week, at their convenience. The next week, feedback was taken on how the meetings went, and new pairings were set up.
One outcome of this technique can be to use the results for an individual church to set goals and obtain feedback. Regionally, multiple churches who are all participating in this process can synrchronize their effort to work together on issue of common importance to their congregations.
Mainers should note that a training will be held in Waterville, ME, on May 11, 2004! If you are interested, contact me and I will pass on the training leader's contact info.
3) Saturday AM: Charity to Justice
This workshop centered on the difference between doing charity (which churches are generally good at) and doing justice (which they often are not as good at). Some tools to help congregations move to incorporating more justice work were presented, including a bible reflection based on Isaiah 61:1-4 ("God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, " etc.) and Luke 4:16-21 (where Jesus reads this Isaiah passage in Nazareth). Also presented was a story illustrating the difference, and a "force field" analysis, which is basically just a way of listing things that would help your church do more justice work (i.e. education, bible study, discussion of world events) and hinder it (i.e. belief that church and politics do not mix, lack of time and energy, fear that people will leave).
0 comments
0 Comments:
Blog Index
