Facilitating Rather than Leading

How did your most recent Christophany Group session go? 

In the first chapter of her book Facilitating for Growth: A Guide for Scripture Study Groups and Small Christian Communities, Barbara Fleischer asks us to recall a highly effective or satisfying small-group discussion in which we participated. She then asks three questions: “What did group members do that helped the discussion develop? What did the facilitator of the group do that helped the discussion develop? Based on your experiences, what would you consider to be the most important characteristics of skills of an effective facilitator?” (p. 15). How would you respond to these questions?  (These questions can also be found on our “C4C Christophany Group Facilitators” private Facebook group.  Feel free to share your responses there.)

In writing of effective facilitation skills, Fleischer reminds us that community life requires “a type of leadership that encourages trust, openness, and the growth of authentic relationships” (p. 21). In our Christophany Groups we seek to enter into what she describes as “deepening relationship with one another and, in community, with God” (p. 21).  What is needed, she suggests, is not a “leader” but a “facilitator.”

According to Fleischer, “leader” implies someone who directs a group, standing apart from it, with power over his or her ‘followers.’  A “facilitator,” however, serves the group and helps it achieve its purpose, co-participating and making easy its work, while also “modeling what membership in the group means” through the nature and quality of his or her participation (p. 21).    For, in a well-functioning group, all share the responsibility for the health and ongoing growth of the group. Fleischer suggests that we might think of a facilitator as an animator who helps the group “plunge into the heart of the matter…”  (p. 21).  

The facilitator also creates clear guidelines regarding how the group will function.  I invite you to review the “Center for Christogenesis Christophany Group Covenants,” which can be found below in our “Christophany Group Resources.”  You are free to use them as they are, adapt them, or integrate them into guidelines you have already developed, if you wish.  The covenants are derived from the United Nations Unitive Cluster Norms, the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) “Covenants of Presence,” and the Omega Café Christophany Group Guidelines.  Perhaps the most valuable and challenging guidelines, especially during our present political times, are those of suspending judgement and turning, instead, to wonder:  “I wonder why she shared that story or made those choices?” “I wonder what my reaction teaches me?” “I wonder what he’s feeling right now?”

If you wish to engage in conversation regarding this post, I encourage you to participate in discussion on our Facilitators’ Facebook page.