Healthy Congregations, Inc.

Healthy Congregations workshops are familiar to those of us who have been trained as facilitators and/or trainers.  Individually they are indispensable for contributing to the health of our ministries.  But I have observed the impact of looking at the workshops as a “whole” as well.  Or at least a major part of a whole…

When I served on the Staff of Healthy Congregations during my senior year of seminary, I was aware that some of the workshops were ordered more often than others.  I have been known to use Workshop 1 by itself to introduce family systems theory.

If one or two of the workshops helps to shift a congregation in positive directions, how much more powerful would it be if you could get a congregation to commit to and go through all of the workshops?

One way I have experimented with this is to make the commitment up front by purchasing all of the workshops in a notebook.  Having a longer term road map gives a commitment to invest in a fuller understanding of family systems theory.

Many of us have gone to conferences or trainings where we were given material which we took home with good intent.  It went into the pile of things to be filed but we could never figure out a good way to store it on the shelf and so it ended up, against our better judgment, in the circular file.  Think about when or if you went to a conference and someone had taken the time to put the materials in a notebook. When this happens for me I go home and find a place for it on the shelf.  This then allows me to go back to the material and reference it and review it and makes it valuable long term.  We have the opportunity to provide this to our workshop participants through this binder that also helps them identify it with the logo and printed spine.  Items that are distinct and identifiable on the shelf are in my experience more frequently referenced.  This is a great opportunity to not only teach all the material but to see that family systems theory becomes a part of how they think on a regular basis.

I have used the notebook in two different ways.  Both worked well.  I led a multi day conference for pastors which went through all the materials.  We ran the workshops back to back.  It is a lot of material but for a motivated group it can be a tremendous opportunity.  The pastors went home with the notebook of materials.  This then lets them see the value of the material, adapt small parts of it for use in their congregation and look at the value of bringing in a facilitator to run the workshops for their parish.  First they get the continuing education with in depth family system training and its use.  Then they can bring in the facilitator to bring the same education to their congregation.  This then leads to the other way to use the workbook and the one I did in my own church.  By having the congregation buy it for each participant as a commitment to ensure an on going education process with in the church regarding family systems theory.

Pastor Kit Robison
First-Grace Lutheran Parish
Jeffersonville/North Branch, New York