RENEWAL

HANDBOOK FOR FACILITATORS

GUIDELINES FOR FACILITATORS:

HANDBOOK FOR PRESENTING AT

JEWISH RENEWAL AND JEWISH MEDITATION EVENTS

[v.1.5 14/02/04] \FACILITATORS HANDBOOK 0704

Authors: Fred Tropp, assisted by Eva Light, Dorothea Tropp-Boas and Bern Boas.

CONTENTS

1. Purpose of this handbook and audience

2. Looking after yourself

3. Presentation in general

4. Presentation at Jewish Meditation events

5. Spiritual issues for Facilitators

6. Techniques for Spiritual Group work

7. Checklist of activities for Spiritual Groups

8. Models for Spiritual Processes

9. Long term Spiritual Objective and Vision

10. Source material

11. Frequently Asked Questions

12. Feedback

= = = =

1. Purpose of this handbook and audience

This handbook is intended to assist people who are asked or who have volunteered to lead segments in (or the whole of) Jewish Renewal services and Jewish Meditation workshops. In many ways, the points made here will apply to any occasion which you are facilitating.

2. Looking after yourself

The important consideration is that you can “survive” on an ongoing basis, as a facilitator. This means you need to maintain your health and your interest.

Therefore you should try to ensure that the working environment suits you. That the temperature is right, that the brightness is OK, that you have water to drink and anything else you require. If the event goes over a long period of time you may need food snacks.

Secondly, it is important that what you do is interesting to yourself. That it involves your creativity and that it supports your approach to activities (eg. new material, or repeating prior material). Whilst from one point of view you are there to keep the audience interested, we think that it is more important, in order to maintain your ongoing involvement, that you do things that keep yourself interest.

It will be up to the leaders of the group to tell you if you are getting too far “off course” and not providing material that is of sufficient interest to the audience. And you can reflect on this yourself. We suggest you keep a Reflective Journal and write in it about your facilitating process, what you did, what worked, how people reacted, so that you can build up knowledge about what works for you.

An essential reason for presenting material on these occasions is that you learn best by doing. We have found that the best means of deepening our own understanding is to present and teach to others.

Other ideas include:

a) Facilitators should attend in depth courses at other institutions.

b) Arrange to bring local or visiting spiritual “gurus” to the local group. As them to include a session specifically for facilitators.

c) Discuss amongst facilitators our own spiritual issues. If appropriate discuss them with the participants’ group as well.

d) Hold a “formal” review of processes and events.

e) Read, think, talk about spiritual issues.

f) Experience life events and feed these into the spiritual activities of the group.

g) Allow scope for synergy between facilitators or sub-groups of them.

h) Allow external events (including group activities) to trigger our own sub-group discussions and issues and individual issues. Articulate these aspects. Eg. world events, synagogue events.

i) Acknowledge and share the role of personal growth issues, relationship issues and sexuality issues in our spiritual growth, and the place of spirituality in those aspects.

j) Contact other spiritual groups. Visit their practices. Copy their ideas. Offer for them to attend your sessions.

l) Run activities and learn from them. Including developing models of spiritual processes for facilitators and participants.

m) There is no division between facilitators and participants. All are learners.

n) Undertake fine-tuning of practices, by peer group review of activities.

o) Have members of the Facilitating Group in-service each other on the areas of expertise that they have. Eg. someone may have expertise in counselling, story-telling, organisational planning, journal writing, prayer-leading, clowning etc.

p) Retreats for Facilitators, with options of total rest and quiet and/or training.

3. Presentation in general

Introducing people

At the start of the session, it is good for people to introduce themselves. That is, go around the circle, and have people say their names. Start with yourself, including your last name if you wish. People should be free to give or not give their last names.

If the workshop has an “inwards focus” it may be good to ask people to respond to a question like: why did you come today; what do you hope for from today; what type of background are you bringing to today’s activities, what in your last week was a healing experience? This can take a lot of time though. It may be more effective to just ask a few people to respond, eg. by selecting them, or saying, we will only have time for 3 or 4 responses.

Reading material

In general it is not a good idea read a paper you have prepared. Of course you may read direct quotes.

The reason is that not reading makes the material fresher and more accessible to the audience, and also ensures that you know the material better. (You will benefit from this as well).

On the other hand you should have a one-page list of subject headings that you want to cover in your session, to help you cover all of the points you planned to. Don’t be afraid of digressing to other (hopefully relevant) points that come up during the session.

We will endeavour to run an in-service session for facilitators, including skills in presentation and public speaking, such as reading from bullet-points, rather than essays.

Hearing difficulties

If you know someone is hard of hearing you should ask someone next to you to swap seats with them.

Audience discussion

You should always allow time for discussion by the audience. In the same way as participating is the key to your own learning, discussion (and questions) can be the key to learning by the audience. So IN WORKSHOPS after any activity (whether it be a meditation or presentation of a paper) you can ask people:

- how did you find that? is there anything you want to say about it?

- (if there is not much time) we wont have a general discussion but if anyone needs to say anything please go ahead.

Of course if it is a Renewal Service, it is probably not appropriate to have audience discussion after activities (other than activities which are particularly designed for discussion purposes).

Discussion in groups

In line with the previous point about audience discussion, obviously the more people who have a chance to discuss the activity the better. This is best arranged by asking people to break into groups of 2 or 3 (or possibly 4 or 5) and discuss the activity amongst themselves. If there is enough time, you can ask each group to have a spokesperson who can report back to the full group. Discussion in groups is a necessary method if the group itself is large, say over 12 people.

Handouts

It is good to provide your audience with handouts or a slip of paper containing one or more web references to material you have used. This gives people the opportunity to do research or study after the session. Normally it is best not to give out material till after the session (unless working with it is an essential part of your session), as they can become distracted by it and that detracts from the experiential nature of the session.

Practice

If you have not presented the material before, have a full or summary practice session, preferably with another person as audience, or otherwise by yourself. This will also give you an idea of the time the session will take.

Dealing with difficult people

There are several sorts of difficult people you will come across. In general it is up to the Workshop leaders to deal with them, but you should be aware of various techniques. If you have not presented much before, you should ensure that a senior Workshop leader is also at your session.

We have set out some of the difficult people you will come across and what to do about them. In general, your aim is to ensure the mental state of other members of the group not disrupted or is only minimally disrupted.

v People who don’t like what you are presenting and walk out, whilst perhaps making a sarcastic or similar comment

o You can just pause in what you are doing and let them walk out. Then ignore them and continue. If what they have done has made an obvious “dint” in the proceedings, you may need to say something about it, eg. “everyone has a right to their own view. If anyone else feels like that would they like to leave now too”.

v People who interrupt to ask or make “biting” or negative questions or statements

o you will need to say to them, preferably privately, that they are disrupting the group; it is not the time or place for argumentative discussion; you are happy to talk with them after the session, and would they please refrain from such comments during the session.

v People who don’t keep quiet during meditations

o if their eyes are open, you can signal them to be quieter. If their eyes are shut you may need to touch them on the shoulder and make a shssh sign to them. If they continue to disturb, indicate that they should go outside during the meditation.

v People who ask “dumb” questions i.e. questions which everyone else knows the answer to, or questions for which the answer is very obvious.

o Sometimes a “dumb” question can be very significant. If it is, say so, and answer it. Otherwise if you can give a quick direct answer, do so. Alternatively say you will talk to the person in more detail after the session.

Security

Unfortunately security is an issue at Jewish activities. Depending on the surroundings this generally means:

- you may have to lock the entrance door about ½ hour after the session starts. Hopefully there is some intercom or similar thing, to allow in late comers.

- ideally someone should be at the entrance door to greet everyone.

- you should get everyone to write their name and phone no. on a list. Include their email address if it is not known to the organisers, so material can be sent to them later.

- be aware of where the exits are, in case you have to vacate the area.

- approach “strangers” and introduce yourself and ask if they are attending this function, or direct them to the appropriate place

- ensure other areas of the building are secure. Don’t compromise the security of others by leaving doors to their area unlocked when they should not be.

- it is good to know that someone has a mobile phone which can be used to summon the authorities, if necessary

- have a contact number for the building management or security people, in case of problems.

Supervision and feedback

The senior leaders in the workshop should give you feedback after your session. This should help you to improve next time, if there is scope for improvement.

Adherence to the theme of the session

The piece you are presenting should be relevant to the session topic and the theme of the workshop in general. Eg. if it is about Jewish Meditation, then what you are presenting should be relevant to that. If you are unsure about your piece’s relevance, then discuss this with one of the senior leaders of the workshop.

Time limits

You should always be given a time limit. Try to stick to the time limit you have been given, but don’t be stressed about it. Don’t ask people to hurry up. These activities are experiential and designed to help people go into deeper levels of themselves, so it is not desirable to pressure them. If you appear to be running over time, and you can, have a private discussion with a senior workshop leader about whether more time is available. You should design your session with prioritised parts, so that there are parts you can drop if you don’t have enough time.

IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO DO FEWER THINGS AND DO THEM THOROUGHLY, THAN TO DO MANY THINGS AND RUSH THROUGH THEM.

You can keep the other things for another session, another day. Or give handouts about them.

A practice run is good for determining how long your session takes.

Some of us like to use a digital watch with a count down timer for group meditations. So you can set the watch to beep after 15 minutes or whatever. Then you can relax and meditate yourself.

Chairing a discussion

Some tips for chairing a discussion:

- keep an eye on the time. Know how to wind up the discussion, eg. “we have time for one more question or comment”

- try not to let one or two people dominate the discussion. Eg. “lets hear from someone who hasn’t spoken yet”

- be ready to deal with “difficult people”. See the notes above. In general it’s better to intervene, rather than let the “difficult person” do their thing. Eg. interrupt them with “lets hear from someone who hasn’t spoken yet”; or “lets try to keep a positive view of things”...

How to encourage participation and leadership from others

Some suggestions:

- look for people who express an interest in a particular topic or idea. Ask them to research it and do a presentation about it next time.

- if desperate, arbitrarily allocate activities to people to carry out in the current or a later session. Hopefully these will relate to the person’s special interests.

- ensure people who present are not embarrassed in any way. Help them if they are asked a question beyond their knowledge; if they can’t deal with a “difficult person’s” actions; if they get stuck.

- explain that the group can’t continue without new facilitators, as the existing facilitators may drop out if their workload is too high

- explain the benefits of facilitating based on your own personal experience. It is usually a great way to learn and develop your spirituality.

- have an atmosphere that does not encourage criticism of mistakes. Just see them as learning experiences.

- delegate tasks : see below.

- give support to facilitators: offer yourself to answer their questions; perhaps have them run through their session with you.

Delegating tasks

Some tips for delegating tasks:

- be on the lookout for “chunks” of activities that can be delegated to others, and ask others to carry them out at the current or some future session.

- if an action has to be carried out by a particular time, tell the person the time limit and ask them to confirm to you when it has been done; then check with them (if you haven’t heard anything from them) at the appropriate time to see if the task has been carried out.

- ensure the task is fairly precisely defined

- ensure the person can come back to you at any time with questions

- encourage people to accept tasks (see the suggestions under “How to encourage participation and leadership”).

4. Presentation at Jewish Meditation events

How to conduct a meditation

Try for the following:

- your voice should be calm and slow

- the style of your presentation should be clear. Avoid complex statements before or during meditations.

- the pace of your presentation should be calm and slow

- include pauses of several minutes in your meditations, for people to just absorb what is happening to them

When the meditation has completed, you should “bring people back” to the room. Eg. you can say “now wriggle your fingers and toes, and when you are ready, open your eyes”. Allow a few minutes for them to do this.

5. Spiritual issues for Facilitators

At various times you may need to consider the following issues:

a) Is meditation the core spiritual practice for you? In which case, ensure you practice it yourself.

b) How do you as a facilitator develop you own spirituality – inside and outside the group? It is good if you, as well as the participants in your sessions, can be growing spiritually over this period. It is good for the facilitator to share with other facilitators and the group in the most positive way what growth is happening for them now and a little about their spiritual history. On the other hand it is not desirable to “hang out your laundry” or disclose negativities. Always try to set a high standard of example.

c) Is spirituality a result of accidental forces in our lives or can it be intentionally planned? Perhaps we don’t have control over what things contribute to our spirituality.

d) Is there a limit on our spirituality and spiritual growth? Perhaps we reach a plateau after some period of time. If so, is there anything we can do about this?

e) To what extent is the activity of running a spiritual group a service to the community? To what extent should it satisfy our own spiritual needs? We think the facilitators need to run the group at least in part for their own benefit, so that it helps with their spiritual growth. It may not be sustainable if it is just a service.

f) The need for a facilitators’ review process. It is important that you get feedback about what you do from group participants and also senior leaders.

g) The facilitators need time for their own inner work even when running the group as facilitators. This is part of making what you do a spiritual event for you as well.

6. Techniques for Spiritual Group work

a) The ideas presented in the section above “Spiritual Issues for Facilitators” can be discussed with the wider group. Although the issues are deeper than those that the participants normally discuss, they may benefit from and be able to contribute towards the issues that face the facilitators.

b) Debate with and challenge the participants. (Point a. can be an example of challenging them).

c) Facilitate activities in pairs (i.e. with two facilitators). The pairs should be (at different times) of the same or different gender; of the same or different age.

d) Work without time limits. There needs to be time guidelines established, but the time should be extended if the participants (or facilitators) need it.

e) Design the program so activities at the end of the program can be deleted, without affecting the integrity of the workshop’s experience for participants.

f) If there are several facilitators, then take each activity in rotation. This means that at the “cut off point” each of the facilitators has hopefully had a fairly equal share of the activities; none feels unduly left out.

g) Have a key theme that permeates all activities for the day’s group meeting. Do not have activities unrelated to this theme.

h) Sum up at the end: what has been learned.

i) Hold “formal” debates on topics. Select members of the “debating teams” who have expressed these attitudes in the group. These “debates” could replace the “sermon” or “group discussion” in more formal spiritual services. Sample topics:

i) Spirituality is not a necessary component of our lives.

ii) Can you have spirituality without personal, relationship and sexual growth?

j) Include long meditations of 20 to 40 minutes. (20 minutes in an evening workshop; 40 mins in a day-long workshop). Give some initial guidance, then leave the participants to do their own practice. It is important that people be given time to grapple with the internal difficulties that arise during long meditations. Doing this, dealing with the ego-issues, is part of spiritual growth. People should be told about this prior to such a long meditation session.

k) Include long chants (10 minutes) before longer meditations. This can help deepen the meditation. Our current favourite is the “Kadosh chant with YHVH”.

l) Encourage the participants to become facilitators – to lead segments of the workshops. Create expectations that they can and will do this. Offer some training workshops in facilitating. Use this manual as a reference.

m) Explain to participants that a path to spiritual development is to become facilitators.

n) Tell the participants that whenever they read a spiritual book, they should consider presenting to the group about it. Ask them to come forward and nominate themselves to do this.

o) If a participant expresses an interest in a particular topic or question, ask them to research it and present it to the group at the next session.

p) Model learning by teaching to the group. Whatever the facilitators or participants learn, they should teach to the group to deepen their learning.

7. Checklist of activities for Spiritual Groups

a) Meditation: Guided, Non-guided and walking meditations.

b) Relaxation

c) Chanting with percussion from the session participants.

d) Book reviews

e) Discussions on spiritual topics, eg. Do we have control over things that contribute to our spirituality and spiritual growth? Is there a limit on our spiritual growth? Do we reach a plateau after some period of time? Is there anything we can do about this?

f) Debates on spiritual topics

g) Creation of “alternative religious services” incorporating any or all of the activities in this list

h) Drawing, working with media. (This needs an explanation about how to do it in a spiritual manner, connecting to your inner self, without judgment).

i) Presenting your spiritual autobiography.

j) Journalling and spiritual journalling. (Needs an explanation about various journalling techniques)

k) Writing poetry, as individuals or as a group.

l) Studying poetry, literature and other works, individually or in a group.

m) Finding/creating personal spiritual symbols and symbolic objects. These may be physical, or remembrances of past experiences.

n) Creating and enacting personal rituals

o) Creating and using personal prayers

p) Shared discussion of the above in small groups of 2-3.

q) Creating and enacting public rituals

r) Private and Public blessings

s) Participants to bring objects which stimulate spiritual thoughts or are relevant to the above to the group. Such objects may be from natural or religious sources.

t) Beautifying the spiritual space at home or for a workshop

u) Taking traditional texts/prayers and finding new interpretations and ways of using them

v) Art based on themes such as the “Four Worlds”

w) Experiences in nature: being in nature, walking in nature.

x) Experiences , discussions and activities that develop ecological consciousness eg. examining whether there is a Jewish approach to ecology; running practical ecological activities.

y) Community service, such as assistance for the need, sick, for refugees etc.

z) and much more

8. Models for Spiritual Processes

Spiritual groups have two processes running in parallel. The facilitators’ process and the Groups process.

The facilitators process involves: development of their spirituality; practising service and

developing themselves as facilitators.

The Group’s process involves: spiritual awakening of the group and spiritual growth of the group.

The Facilitators process is also an input into the group process.

There may also be sub-group processes: between individual facilitators and between various participants.

There will also be the individual’s process of spiritual growth.

A model for participants’ spiritual growth.

Different participants will be going through different stage of the model at the same time, whether or not the group is an Open Group. (An Open Group is one where new people can attend at any time). Individuals may go through the stages in any order. Some individuals may just wish to participate passively and to be nurtured. The facilitators will need to develop a policy about how to handle such people. In general we allow them to be nurtured but at the same time gently push them to contribute/facilitate. Some individuals will come with their own personal issues that may disrupt their participation in the group. The facilitators need to identify such people and have techniques for dealing with the disruption. (See above).

A model that sets out the stages for a participant’s spiritual growth is as follows:

(1) Exposure to spirituality

(2) Exposure to spiritual practices

(3) Incorporation of spiritual practices into your life

(4) Attendance at a spiritual group

(5) Attaining some spiritual knowledge, revelations, experiences and intuitions.

(6) Conveying these happenings to others informally.

(7) Conveying this knowledge to others formally (as facilitators themselves).

A model for facilitators’ spiritual growth

(1) Start as participants and go through the above processes.

(2) Become facilitators: motivated by service and by needs of your own spiritual growth.

(3) Lead spiritual groups.

(4) Burn out?

(5) Rediscover your spiritual roots

(6) Deepen your practices

(7) Deepen your ability to facilitate

(8) Train new facilitators

(9) Write spiritual documents, practice manuals etc

(10) Liaise with other groups including “cross denominational” groups.

9. Long term Spiritual Objective and Vision

Our objective and vision is to increase the depth of spirituality and spiritual experience of various activities, and in particular to assist participants in those activities to have deeper spiritual experiences and to experience spiritual growth.

The activities include:

v Mainstream activities such as religious services. This can be done by increasing the chanting and meditative components of such services.

v Specialist activities such as spiritual workshops. We can focus more intently on these spiritual practices.

v Personal life: We can encourage spiritual awareness and practices in the individual daily life.

Our vision is that there are no facilitators and no participants. Everyone facilitates their own growth. All own their own processes.

Our vision is also to recognise and incorporate a universal aspect into our spirituality. It is not just Jewish-centric. It acknowledges its similarities to other religions and forms of spirituality. We seek to participate in and learn from their spiritual experiences at appropriate times.

10. Source material

For excellent material by Rabbi Kennard Lipman, including: What is Jewish Meditation, see:

http://www.innerjew.com

For excellent material by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Shalom Centre, on God, Prayer etc. see:

http://www.shalomctr.org

For excellent material on the Kabbalah. (One of numerous sites). A deep mystical approach. See:

http://www.workofthechariot.com

The website of the Melbourne Jewish Renewal Group. Contains useful information from other web sites.

http://home.vtown.com.au/ftropp/

(More sources to be added later.)

11. Frequently Asked Questions

a) Can the facilitator meditate whilst others are meditating, when leading a meditation session?

We think this is OK. It is part of benefiting from the work that you conduct. If you are not sure if you will awake from meditation, you should use a digital watch with a count-down timer on it, which beeps after 15 minutes or whatever. You should at least have a watch so you can open your eyes and check the time..

12. Feedback

We would like your comments on this document: whether you have found the ideas worked for you in

practise, and any of your own suggestions (that we could incorporate in future editions of the work) . Please email ftropp@vtown.com.au

Last updated by Webmaster Fred Tropp v.6 1/3/04 \facilitators handbook