First Church in Barre, Universalist

WORKSHOP PURPOSE: In the past decade many congregations have adopted Small Group Ministry or Covenant Groups to address the needs of friendship and spiritual growth among people in our congregations. This workshop is aimed at facilitators who are eager to take the group experience to a higher level. The focus of our day will be exploring the question, “What leads to healing and transformation in small groups?” We’ll cover topics such as inviting epiphanies; what is spiritual growth and what nurtures it; cultivating respect; creating a compassionate group environment; developing your presence as a facilitator; using all of our capacities as facilitators – heart and mind, left and right hemispheres; facilitation as a spiritual practice; how to recover after goofs and engender a forgiving group environment. The workshop will help You enjoy facilitating more and make the group experience as transformational and vitalizing as possible for Yourself and the other participants. We’ll end with how to bring this powerful work back to our congregations and out into our aching, broken world. (Please note that we won’t be covering the how-to’s and basics of SGM).

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: The workshop is aimed primarily at facilitators who have some experience (preferably at least a year). It works very well to have in the mix a few inexperienced people (such as new facilitators or board members) who can learn from and be carried along by the more experienced members. So, a few inexperienced folks are welcome to participate with a prior okay from Rev. Kennedy.

LEADER: Rev. Dr. M’ellen Kennedy is passionate about the power of Small Groups to feed our souls and help heal our ills. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois was on worldview transformation in small groups. She has been involved with lay led small groups for over 30 years as a facilitator, trainer, organizer, researcher and writer. Participants tend to love her workshop and come away with fresh perspectives and renewed enthusiasm about their work as facilitators. Rev. Kennedy is a co-founder of the UU Small Group Ministry Network, and started and served for four years as editor of the Small Group Ministry Quarterly. She lives in Vermont where she serves three Universalist congregations in Barre, Strafford and Washington.

Directions: The church is at the corner of South Main and Church Street (corner of Route 302 and Route 14). It’s the only white church bordering the city park in the center of town and the only one with a clock in its steeple. Google Map

Registration& Lunch: The workshop is free to members and friends of the First Church in Barre Universalist. For others, the fee, which includes an information packet, is $35 for one person and $ 25 for each additional person from the same congregation. $10 for seminarians. Soup will be served. Please register by September 21, 2011. The registration form can be downloaded as a Word doc from our website. Healing and Transformation Workshop registration form