Facilitation Skills for Ministry
Jo Whitehead, Sally Nash, and Simon
Sutcliffe
SPCK £12.99
(978-0-281-06877-7)
Church Times Bookshop £11.70 (Use code
CT670 )
THE book Facilitation Skills for Ministry is an
indispensable handbook for all those who call groups together, lead
them, or coordinate their activities.
The authors are busy and experienced practitioners. Jo Whitehead
is Assistant Director of the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry,
based at St John's College, Nottingham. Sally Nash is Director of
the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry, also at Nottingham, and
works at Hodge Hill Church, Birmingham. Simon Sutcliffe is
part-time tutor in evangelism and church growth at Queen's
Foundation, as well as a pioneer minister establishing new forms of
Christian community.
The book is a fine example of what is described as "reflexion -
the art of deliberately slowing down our habitual processes of
interpreting our lives to take a closer look at the experience and
at our frameworks for interpretation".
There are 12 chapters; the first six describe different styles
of leadership, noting that a more participatory style of leadership
requires understandings of different dimensions of facilitation.
Whitehead describes these as Purpose - what the facilitator hopes
to achieve; the Product - what it is hoped the result of the group
experience will be; the Process - how the group will accomplish its
task; the People, who take part; and lastly the Place - that is,
the venue where the group functions.
These dimensions are spelt out in other chapters, and there is
much valuable and distilled experience on facilitating worship,
meetings of one sort or another, learning and reflection, and
facilitating change. As a practitioner working in the Balkans for
13 years in peace-building, I was particularly helped by the
clarity and wisdom of Whitehead's essay "Facilitating Learning and
Reflexion". Nash balances the emphasis on skills to be learnt by
emphasising the necessity for facilitators to be aware of their own
motivation and behaviour.
Much of what those who organ-ise meetings forget is described in
detail: creating hospitable spaces, and ensuring that the layout of
the room reflects the style and manner of work of the group, as
well as the use of visual aids, from the flip chart to PowerPoint.
There are useful tips on planning and preparation, starting and
finishing. What might become rather laboured is lightened by the
many stories and experiences of the authors.
The authors draw on their experience of working with community,
churches, and young people. Therefore, there is little about the
status of group work in organisations, and what authority a group
has in implementing its decisions. This is certainly an important
factor in the conversations to be held across the Church of England
on same-sex marriage, since decisions have to be made at the
General Synod - not the best structure for groups to be effec-
tive.
Neither does the book touch on spoilers - those who
unconsciously or deliberately attempt to undermine the group in its
task.
There is a substantial bibliography, and each chapter ends with
questions inviting the reader to reflect on the theme of the
chapter in the light of his or her own experience, and a section on
further reading.
One of the most engaging aspects are the quotations at the start
of each chapter. I liked particularly Abraham Lincoln's words
"People support what they help create" and the words of Henry Ford
"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and
working together is success."
The Revd Donald Reeves is a former Rector of St James's,
Piccadilly, and is Director of the Soul of Europe.
www.soulofeurope.org.uk