What: What happened to us? A brief presentation on key events of the past couple of years at St. Paul’s will be followed by a period of sharing how we have been affected.
Who: The invitation is open to all St. Paul’s people. Please join us if you are seeking understanding, compassion, forgiveness and/or healing.
When: Sunday, March 9, from 3:30 – 6:00
Where: St. Paul's Fellowship Hall
At the October Retreat, the St. Paul's community defined the broad areas of recovery, open communication, and healing as priority directions. To forward this agenda, our small group volunteered to spearhead discussions aimed at creating a respectful, honest way to talk together about challenging, unresolved experiences. In our review of national resources on churches in transition and/or dealing with church difficulties as well as of the literature on forgiveness, we found a consistent message that talking about "the issues" is a necessary step to healthy resolution. However, we also learned that there is no blueprint or one-size-fits-all process.
This is a new approach for us as a church community. Talking about difficult topics is notably hard, especially because revisiting these memories can be painful. Group process doesn't work equally well for everybody. As Mark Preece stated early on, "All may attend; some should; none must."
*The March 9th meeting will focus on the 2012 Vestry's experience (caught in the eye of the storm, so to speak), what they learned in the process, and how it affected us as members of the community. As always, respectful and thoughtful communication toward a goal of deep understanding of one another is the purpose. The structure of this meeting will allow time for personal reflection; the use of a "talking stick" in order to honor each speaker's thoughts and share the time equally; and close with worship. A "talking stick" is a way to share without cross-talk and to cultivate non-judgmental presence in listening. Given the importance of what is shared we are asking those interested in attending to arrive promptly at 3:30pm and stay for the full meeting ending at 6:00. We respectfully ask those who miss the presentation at the beginning to be an observer only.
*There are two future dates, March 30 and April 6th, scheduled for discussion topics not yet addressed.
Sincerely,
Bev Barton, Cindy Dale, Mark Detzer, Jill Fisher, Mark Preece, and Katy Chaffee