For use during Clinic
1. Listening Feedback - participants have copies
2. Survey Feedback link to PDF
3. Working Materials link to PDF
Who? -
A small group of clergy-in-charge of parish churches working together with experienced trainer/coaches
To do what? -
1. To better understand the inner dynamics of self and parish around listening and taking counsel.
2. To increase their ability to shape healthier and more faithful practices around listening and taking counsel
When -
February 19 - 22, 2019
How? -
An integration of practical parish issues and Anglican pastoral/ascetical theology and strategy; with a touch of organization development. Participants come having completed a significant course of reading. They each complete some work prior to the clinic. That work, is in part, based on the readings.
The advance work and time together will help you become more oriented to listening, especially communal processes and around the spiritual life of parishioners.
When we gather the trainer/coaches will facilitate a process in which the participants engage one another and the coaches around the assigned work and the issues and dynamics of their parishes.
Registration: Registration is now closed. If you are interested in future offerings, please contact Michelle Heyne.
Participants: Must be the priest-in-charge of a parish church (a vicar, rector, priest-in-charge)
Location: Queen Anne area of Seattle, WA. 220 W. Olympic Place, Apt 202
Participants: four or five
Trainer/coaches: Michelle Heyne, OA and Robert Gallagher, OA. For more
Travel: Participants need to plan on traveling to Seattle on Monday the 18th (or prior to that) and departing on Saturday the 23th (or a date after that).
Full Participation: No late arrivals or early departures. Present every day from 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Schedule
Tuesday- Friday. 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
9:00 Arrive
9:05 Morning Prayer
9:40 Work session
12:30 - 2:00 Lunch - in neighborhood; working space will not be available.
2:00 Work session
5:10 walk to Evening Prayer
5:30 Evening Prayer - at Saint Paul's Parish
6:00 End for day
PDF of schedule with more details
Beginning and ending times are firm. Other times may be revised as we go along.
Reading
Complete assigned readings. You need to come being very familiar with the material. Please read them again if you haven't read them recently.
Seeking God: The Way of Saint Benedict, Esther de Waal - Focus on Chapters 3, 9, and 10; Listening, Authority, and Praying
Silence - in Prayer and Action, Sister Edmee, SLG. A booklet from Fairacres Publications
"The Invitation: Take Counsel - Stop Grumbling" - web page - Read and reflect on all material. Apply as noted in "advance work" below.
Resource books - The chapters noted contain material for you to use in your advance work. All books are available through Ascension Press - see information at bottom of that web page for ordering individual copies ("Smaller Orders").
Fill All Things: The Dynamics of Spirituality in the Parish Church, R. Gallagher - Chapter Three "The Benedictine Promise" Pay special attention to pages 107 - 121.
In Your Holy Spirit: Traditional Spiritual Practices in Today's Christian Life, M. Heyne - Chapter Five "Participating in Community"
In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practices, R. Gallagher - Chapter Five "Participating in Community" and Chapter Seven "The Process of Change"
Resource web pages - Methods that may be useful in your advance work
General orienting
Grumbling & Conflict Q & A: Take Counsel – Stop Grumbling Benedictine spirituality and the parish church
Caesura: Grumbling and taking counsel in the parish community Institutionalism vs. the Body
Feed my sheep - the 21st c. parish priest
Methods and related theory
Fake Listening The Transformation Model The Relationship Cycle
Likes - Concerns - Wishes Process All the good ideas
Collaboration 101: Taking a position vs. working with underlying positive concerns Collaboration 201
Conversations parishes need to have: Three Things Caesura: Methods for “taking counsel”
Advance Work
1. Use "The Invitation: Take Counsel - Stop Grumbling" -- to reflect upon your own spiritual life and to use in the parish PDF on using the material Related reporting form (first part due 9/10/18)
2. Identify one or two listening tools -- use in an appropriate manner in the parish. Base that on your review of the listening tools covered in the assigned readings. Send a report with your action plan to Bob Gallagher by September 20.
Regarding 1 & 2 above -- If you would like feedback and consultation on how you're proposing to implement these things -- please send one of us an email.
3. Feedback for you. From ten parishioners. On how you listen.
You'll identify ten parishioners to offer feedback on how you listen - as person and as clergy-in-charge. You give each the feedback form along with a stamped envelope addressed to Robert Gallagher, OA 220 W. Olympic Place, Apt 202, Seattle, WA 98119. Please make sure that you provide enough postage.
Also, complete one on yourself. Please send that by December 20.
We will have a PDF of the feedback form. You need to ask people to complete it and return it to us no later than January 20, 2019. PDF listening feedback form
4. Listening to parishioners about their spiritual life.
You'll interview 5 parishioners on their spiritual life using the questions provided in this PDF; this doc. Scan your notes into one PDF and send it to Robert Gallagher, OA before December 30, 2018
Supporting one another in the novitiate
The advance work offers you a way to build bonds with one another and to support each other in ways that express the Order's Charism. For more
Reflecting on and learning from the advance work
We see this as an "action - learning process" or a bit of Action - Research. We will post a set of digital worksheets to use in reflecting upon the work you do. You will be asked to send them to us in advance of the clinic. That will allow us to be better prepared to be helpful when we gather.
Core norms
1. Arrive having completed all the advance reading and work.
2. Be present 9:00 am - 6:00 pm every day. We begin with Morning Prayer at 9:05 and end with Evening Prayer from 5:30 - 6:00. May change start and end times as we get closer.
3. Participants need to go out to lunch each day. Michelle and Robert will not be available for private meetings during the Clinic. We work during lunch and dinner every day of the Clinic.
Each participant arranges and pays own costs -- hotel, meals, travel. There is coffee available at Cafe Ladro and Metropolitan Market on your way up the hill to Robert's apartment. Tea and instant Starbucks coffee will be available throughout the day.
Workshop fee of $200 (for those who are not novices or Professed Members of the Order of the Ascension).
Hotels in the neighborhood - all with a few blocks
Background: The Order of the Ascension has developed the Parish Development Clinics. The idea emerged in our work on establishing an effective formation program for novices. The clinic is just a small part of the overall formation program for the novices.
As we designed the program we realized that in addition to the OA novices we could include other people. We can manage a total of five participants.