Phew! After six months of thinking, writing, creating, producing, and preparing for our 2009 "Treasure in Clay Jars" tour, we can say that what we feel on the day after our kickoff is mostly relieved! The fact that it happened at all in this kind of time frame is nothing short of a miracle. According to the 50 or so folks who participated in that first workshop (held yesterday in Chicago), it didn't just "happen"; it was, in fact, pretty good. But it wasn't good enough, as far as we're concerned. We spent several hours pouring over the evaluations last night and debriefing the event. We heard some good things and some hard things from our guests and from each other; we're going to share both with you.
Participants came from all across Chicago-land, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota. The guest who traveled the farthest, by far, however, came from Tanzania - we were thrilled to have been joined by the bishop of the Lutheran church in that country! Even though we were working out a lot of kinks - in both the logistics and the content of the workshop - overall participants gave it a 4 out of 5 stars. But they also had some helpful criticism.
Many of our guests felt like we were trying to cram too much material into a day and went away wishing it had been a two-day workshop, instead. Honestly, we agree. We actually thought about making this a two-day workshop but, frankly, we weren't sure if anyone would come to a ONE day workshop - we've never done anything like this before, after all! Now we know. Expect to see one-day, two-day, and three-day workshop options from ARE in the future.
Many of our guests also said we need to figure out how to make the whole experience more interactive and give people more time to process the content, especially in light of their own context. We have to admit, it killed us to hear this since one of our own Renewable Practices is "Using Participative Processes." But they were right. They were SO right. In our effort to get as much content as possible into the day, we short-circuited conversation and interactivity. In other words, we made what we have to say the most important thing - even more important than what you are learning. We'll be changing this for all of our upcoming workshops. And we're sorry that some of you went away feeling like your head was going to explode!
Some of our guests wondered about how to make what we're teaching more culturally sensitive. For example, one of the stories we use to illustrate a principle can be heard in various ways, depending on who's hearing it. This is an ongoing challenge for all leaders today and for us, too. We've found that, even though our team includes a pretty wide diversity of people (in terms of education and experience, religious commitments and denominational affiliations, race/ethnicity, lay/ordained, sexual orientation, gender, age, geography and nationality), especially for such a small team, we still sometimes find ourselves in a place of cultural confusion and crossed wires. The fact is that no matter how diverse our team is, there will always be somebody in the room and at the table with a unique point of view and a voice that hasn't been heard but needs to be. The challenge for all of us who lead and teach is to create opportunities as a matter of course for every voice to be heard. That's where those "participative processes" come in, among other things. We'll be doing a better job of that in our work going forward (see above!).
A few guests wanted to hear more about ARE's books, resources, and services and wished they had an opportunity to hear more about how we might be able to help them, specifically in their organization or congregation, make the shift from a consumable to a renewable way of living and working together. We aren't exactly sure what to do about this, to be honest. Our goal in this workshop is to share what we think are some pretty radical and exciting ideas about how to be, see, and do ministry in post-missional and post-modern ways in this emerging future. We don't intend it to be and don't want anyone to feel like they're getting a sales pitch. On the other hand, we do want to be helpful. So we're going to try to do a better job of sharing information about resources in upcoming workshops without sounding like somebody doing a TV infomercial. Let us know how we do.
We are SO thankful to the folks who helped us kick off our tour yesterday! And we're thankful for your honest feedback. We've learned something from you. We are glad you felt like you learned something from us.
Here are a couple of "working playfully" photos from yesterday's workshop:
What's sucking the life out of you?!
What's the best way to build a tower together?
Stone soup, anyone?!
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