Facilitating

 

    Facilitating is to make an action or process easier or help it along.  It is used with pre-marital counseling, divorce, addiction, hospice, Sunday classes, and more.  It is a way to make people become more comfortable with things that they are not comfortable with or prepare them for what may come next.

    When you are facilitating a conversation, you need to allow the people to discuss their issues in a safe environment.  Let them say what they need to say without injecting your opinions or thoughts unless you have to.  The point is for the person or people to feel heard, but with healthy boundaries.  

    Use introduction as a teachable moment.  That means suspending your questions until a later moment.  The point is to stay on topic and not wonder off in multiple directions.  If it is in a group, then name tags with first names only can help.  You can begin with an ice breaker that builds trust and gets people ready to communicate using words.

    The most important things is that the area is a safe place.  They need to know that what they say is confidential, but with limitations.  If they express an intention to self-harm or hurt someone else, then you are legally bound to report it or do something about it like put them in psych.  

    The facilitating lesson should begin with you introducing yourself as the facilitator.  Then you lay out the instructions in a clear and precise manner.  Then you can allow them to run it by using open ended questions.  Stay in the moment, so that you are not looking ahead and missing some things that could be important in the moment.

    Your confidence will build over time.  Pray and trust God to guild you when things begin to feel complicated.  Pray over you group before they arrive, during the meeting, and after they leave.  Give them time to reflect before leaving.  

    Time management can be one of the most difficult parts when you are trying to be creative, but it is necessary.  Use cognitive skills to think ahead.  Use affective skills to feel.  Use Psychomotor skills to get the body involved.  If you don't see change, then you know that the learning has stopped.

    Counseling, Facilitating, and helping people in general is a process.  Learn to laugh.  It helps with the stress.  It helps you make your skill thicker when you are feeling vulnerable.  It just takes the edge off.  Be open to how God wants to use this.  It is not just for them.  He is teaching you something too.

    If you are dealing with a group, then you need to consider the group size before you even set the process up.  It needs to be small enough where trust can be built and people will talk about personal issues.  It needs to be large enough, so that they don't feel like they are sharing really intimate details of their lives with just a few people.  They may over think it and worry about seeing them in public.

    Be sensitive to the time of your people and what they have going on outside of this session.  Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit to guild you.  One on one facilitating can happen, but most are built for group healing and support.  Be adaptable by understanding some things work for some people, but not all people.  

Isaiah 41:8-10, Acts 2: 42-47, Philippians 4:10-14, & Hebrews 10: 23-25