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Examples of workshops we've held in the past:

The Big Benefit of Systems Theory

This workshop looks at what systems theory is all about, and how its use benefits clergy in our ministry.  Ministry is like public health, and ministers intervene on behalf of the health of their congregational systems.  Systems theory is a diagnostic lens through which we assess systemic illness.  A good diagnostic lens increases the odds of a good diagnosis, and a good diagnosis sets one up for treatment interventions that actually help.  Helpful interventions can then work like a rising tide, in which all boats float in a healthy system. 

This workshop will address:

•   The difference between the systems diagnosis and the personality problem diagnosis
• The central themes of systems theory: the system is a whole, the effects of any action are direct and indirect, and any relationship in the system affects all the other relationships
• The nature and causes of systemic anxiety
• A diagnostic model for congregations
• Intervention assumptions
• Self-definition in leadership

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Conflict and the Healing Community

This training aims to support ministers in handling conflict in their congregations in ways that enhance the health of their congregations. This workshop looks at the nature of conflict and at routes to peace.  Clergy can sometimes avoid conflict, fearful of its implications, or acquiesce in a conflict, or wage conflict in ways that become destructive.  In this program we will examine the root of conflict, the stages, or course, conflict takes, and at how to move conflict from something to avoid, or lose, to win-win approaches to conflict.  Conflict handled well transforms our communities into contexts of healing and empowerment. 

 This workshop will address:

• What people fight about
• The stages of a conflict
• Family history related to conflict
•  Differing identity assumptions in congregations and their effects on conflict
• Self-protection vs. vulnerability in the midst of conflict
• Non-violent communication

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That Pushes My Buttons: Handling Difficult Behavior, Complaint, and Criticism in Ministry

 This training aims to support ministers in handling difficult behavior, complaint, and criticism in ways that enhance the health of the minister and the ministry.  Ministers can hope ministry will involve extending benevolence and care for people, to which they will respond with joy and gratitude.  Sometimes that happens, but other times people’s bile can be an unwelcome surprise.  What then? 

 In one form of difficult behavior, clergy can experience critical and evaluative comments from parishioners and others – about sermon content and delivery, leadership style, speaking, voice, personal mannerisms – almost anything at all. How do we field these observations, and other difficult behavior, in a pastoral manner, taking in what needs to be heard and learned from, discarding the rest?  The workshop will address:

• A definition of difficult behavior
• Why ministers can be targets
• How congregations can become a fertile ground for difficult behavior
• The use of congregational norms and standards to support humane behavior
• Doing the unexpected in the face of difficult behavior
• What makes complaint and criticism difficult
• Useful personal assumptions to employ when criticized
• Common (although unsuccessful) defenses people use when criticized
• Useful ways to handle complaint and criticism