Here is a good book that crosses over from simply being about formation and direction into being a book about formation and direction within the individual and group process of adventure programing. Folks involved in Camping and Retreat Ministries will love this book. It is a reminder how adventure scenarios are a small slice of a life in faith and descriptive image of it all at once.
Greg Robinson sets out with some groundwork that lays out basic definitions of faith, formation and adventure work in general. At first I thought that this book was only going to be helpful only for folks in the Camping and Retreat Ministries genre of things, but I really found it to be an expose of theory and practice for anyone working with groups. If you are trying to experience or process community with people - people with an adventurous curiosity - then this book is right for you.
There are a couple of keen observations and core insights that Greg makes in this book that you won't want to miss. Three key factors that leaders need to keep in mind when planning, executing, and evaluating any group work and formation work (even for individual formation) are: 1. What is the intent or the end toward which you are working. 2. What things are best suited to help people grow and what resources are at the leaders' disposal to engage this piece of the work. 3. What are the issues that you are working toward revealing and overcoming. With these three concepts in mind you can set out to alleviate the negative interactions of fear, doubt and the consequences of both of these things in individual and group spiritual formation.
I love what he has to say about adventure. He lines adventure experiences up along a definition that shows how much risk is involved. He says that adventure is an experience in which the outcome is unknown. In group settings, this blows open the parameters of what adventure is since with most groups many if not all of the outcomes are unknown. Most group experiences are adventures (any youthworker knows this intuitively). So he makes you feel right at home with the concepts in the book and whatever level of risk you and your group are currently experiencing or able to tolerate. Your group may not be doing high ropes courses, but they are risking every time one of the kids in the group shares what they think, feel, or do about some particular thing in their own personal lives. Being a community always engenders risk.
His emphasis on learning from mistakes, failures, and limitations is perhaps the one thing I valued the most since I feel that most groups tend to hide or disguise their mistakes, failures, and limitations. A key feature in outdoor and adventure programming is that it requires a raw vulnerability that demmands honesty. The keen and adept facilitator knows how to challenge the group along accurate and bold fault-lines: exposing just enough of a groups responses and identities to them to get them to seek integrating what they find with where they are headed and want to be.
In adventure experiences, group engagement, and in growth oriented endeavors we must look for clues to our own identity and voice outside of our own individual productivity and look for them in an among the ways we interact in those groups and with those groups during times of great risk.
Robinson points out that this whole process of learning begins with some disturbance or increase in the risk the individual or group faces. They are then left trying to work through the chaos either by applying quick fixes like deal making, blame, control taking, or looking busy; or by learning to let go of their control, comfort and certainty. When a group succeeds at letting go, the experience itself tends to reveal honesty, reflective content, and immense bonding in the close proximity and risk encountered.
The book has a few great diagrams that organize the work and there are several pages of questions that help facilitators touch base with themselves and find out what personal biases and personal ambitions they may be bringing to the work and how that may impact or interfere with the groups development and growth. He also talks about the posture that facilitators operate from.
After doing 8 years of group work in a residential treatment facility as a group worker, I was pleased by all the tough and ingenious work that went into this book. It is right on the money and you will not be disappointed in the read. Your take away will be immense. Get it. Read it. Do it. Process it!
Ciao!
tjm+
Greg Robinson sets out with some groundwork that lays out basic definitions of faith, formation and adventure work in general. At first I thought that this book was only going to be helpful only for folks in the Camping and Retreat Ministries genre of things, but I really found it to be an expose of theory and practice for anyone working with groups. If you are trying to experience or process community with people - people with an adventurous curiosity - then this book is right for you.
There are a couple of keen observations and core insights that Greg makes in this book that you won't want to miss. Three key factors that leaders need to keep in mind when planning, executing, and evaluating any group work and formation work (even for individual formation) are: 1. What is the intent or the end toward which you are working. 2. What things are best suited to help people grow and what resources are at the leaders' disposal to engage this piece of the work. 3. What are the issues that you are working toward revealing and overcoming. With these three concepts in mind you can set out to alleviate the negative interactions of fear, doubt and the consequences of both of these things in individual and group spiritual formation.
I love what he has to say about adventure. He lines adventure experiences up along a definition that shows how much risk is involved. He says that adventure is an experience in which the outcome is unknown. In group settings, this blows open the parameters of what adventure is since with most groups many if not all of the outcomes are unknown. Most group experiences are adventures (any youthworker knows this intuitively). So he makes you feel right at home with the concepts in the book and whatever level of risk you and your group are currently experiencing or able to tolerate. Your group may not be doing high ropes courses, but they are risking every time one of the kids in the group shares what they think, feel, or do about some particular thing in their own personal lives. Being a community always engenders risk.
His emphasis on learning from mistakes, failures, and limitations is perhaps the one thing I valued the most since I feel that most groups tend to hide or disguise their mistakes, failures, and limitations. A key feature in outdoor and adventure programming is that it requires a raw vulnerability that demmands honesty. The keen and adept facilitator knows how to challenge the group along accurate and bold fault-lines: exposing just enough of a groups responses and identities to them to get them to seek integrating what they find with where they are headed and want to be.
In adventure experiences, group engagement, and in growth oriented endeavors we must look for clues to our own identity and voice outside of our own individual productivity and look for them in an among the ways we interact in those groups and with those groups during times of great risk.
Robinson points out that this whole process of learning begins with some disturbance or increase in the risk the individual or group faces. They are then left trying to work through the chaos either by applying quick fixes like deal making, blame, control taking, or looking busy; or by learning to let go of their control, comfort and certainty. When a group succeeds at letting go, the experience itself tends to reveal honesty, reflective content, and immense bonding in the close proximity and risk encountered.
The book has a few great diagrams that organize the work and there are several pages of questions that help facilitators touch base with themselves and find out what personal biases and personal ambitions they may be bringing to the work and how that may impact or interfere with the groups development and growth. He also talks about the posture that facilitators operate from.
After doing 8 years of group work in a residential treatment facility as a group worker, I was pleased by all the tough and ingenious work that went into this book. It is right on the money and you will not be disappointed in the read. Your take away will be immense. Get it. Read it. Do it. Process it!
Ciao!
tjm+
No comments:
Post a Comment