The voice that guides You
"This Girl" asked a couple posts ago that I explain the other activity that I did with the uber-diverse in life walk and age missions team. I had been mulling over what to do for several days before the activity. My parents had expressed their concern over having too intense of an activity with some of the group members being so old. I felt frustrated by the comment and almost in spite wanted to jump to an activity that would point out their error in thinking. I resisted because it isn't about me and certainly isn't all about them either.
I'm going to touch on some theory behind programming team building sessions. A lot of the staff that I work with find that concrete expectations and plans are the easiest to work with. So when I start teaching people activities and their "arsenal" begins to grow beyond 5 or 6 activities - the question of which activity to do comes into play. As a young facilitator - it's easy to base your program on activities that you love to run or that are fun for groups to work through. It's easy to do activities that have predictable outcomes so that your debriefs can also be predictable. But there's a problem in that mindset. No two groups will EVER be the same. Yes - the Helium Stick will almost ALWAYS end one of two ways. But the core dynamics and challenges within each group will be equally diverse. To approach each group as a "repeat" performance is to short them of a unique experience.
With that in mind - it's extremely important to look at your group and what their needs are. You may start with an ice-breaker and discover immediately that your group won't touch each other or half of the group will not speak to the other half. Will this affect which activity you should do next? Should it? Yes and YES! Your programming should reflect the group not your plan/agenda.
Back to my Jamaica Team. I really wanted to do a communication activity. Not because we were struggling with it but because regardless of the point in life you find yourself: young, old, student, retired - communication is always a part of your life. And busyness is a side-effect of our ever-demanding lifestyles. Even in Jamaica - I could barely stop myself from checking email or Facebook each day. My dad carried his Blackberry around 24/7. We have become dependent on full schedules and plates. When something is removed from the plate - we seem to want to fill it.
So the activity that I went with was an altered form of a couple others. I had limited space to work within and a lot of people. I don't even really have a name for it - there's a million versions of it out there. I partnered everyone up saying that they could go with someone they knew well or not (because there are really good illustrations with both). In their partners - they had to decide who was going to be blindfolded and who was going to be using their voice. Then I separated them - the voice on one side of a space (there was 15-20feet between them) and the blindfolded person on the other side. The voice was not allowed to move but their task, once their partner was blindfolded, was to vocally instruct their partner over to them. This is all well and good but the problem being is that there was 11 partnerships doing this at the same time.
I'm sure you can imagine the noise as 22 people started talking to one another. I put some large objects in the way that wouldn't hurt people if they walked into them (plastic patio chairs) but would make the navigation a little more confusing or frustrating. The activity was over in about 2-3 minutes. We sat down and talked about person experiences. Some of the feedback was that it was noisy and quite impossible to hear. A lot of people noted that a few of the more aggressive and therefore louder partners drowned out the rest - however these partners didn't find they had any trouble. Some of the older partners found themselves uncomfortable with being blindfolded - scared that they would hurt themselves or run into people. Some people stopped and waited until the entire group had completed their run and then completed theirs.
I asked the group to think of how many voices in their head or in the course of the day they have to compete with. Phones, email, co-workers, family members, church members, God - they have to compete with. Are they hearing the voice(s) that really matter?
Here's the scripture I used:
1 Samuel 3 - When God called Samuel 3 times and it took a couple times for Eli to clue in as to what was happening.
1 Kings 19:12 - When God appears to Elijah
John 10: 3, 14-16 - Jesus speaks about his sheep knowing his voice.
I spoke briefly about it can get impossible to hear God when our lives are filled with so much. Regardless of how much "stuff" we have going on - it still take discipline and resting in God's presence - just as Samuel was literally doing when God spoke to him.
So I guess - today...how much do you have going on? Are you hearing the voices that you should be...need to be hearing?
I'm going to touch on some theory behind programming team building sessions. A lot of the staff that I work with find that concrete expectations and plans are the easiest to work with. So when I start teaching people activities and their "arsenal" begins to grow beyond 5 or 6 activities - the question of which activity to do comes into play. As a young facilitator - it's easy to base your program on activities that you love to run or that are fun for groups to work through. It's easy to do activities that have predictable outcomes so that your debriefs can also be predictable. But there's a problem in that mindset. No two groups will EVER be the same. Yes - the Helium Stick will almost ALWAYS end one of two ways. But the core dynamics and challenges within each group will be equally diverse. To approach each group as a "repeat" performance is to short them of a unique experience.
With that in mind - it's extremely important to look at your group and what their needs are. You may start with an ice-breaker and discover immediately that your group won't touch each other or half of the group will not speak to the other half. Will this affect which activity you should do next? Should it? Yes and YES! Your programming should reflect the group not your plan/agenda.
Back to my Jamaica Team. I really wanted to do a communication activity. Not because we were struggling with it but because regardless of the point in life you find yourself: young, old, student, retired - communication is always a part of your life. And busyness is a side-effect of our ever-demanding lifestyles. Even in Jamaica - I could barely stop myself from checking email or Facebook each day. My dad carried his Blackberry around 24/7. We have become dependent on full schedules and plates. When something is removed from the plate - we seem to want to fill it.
So the activity that I went with was an altered form of a couple others. I had limited space to work within and a lot of people. I don't even really have a name for it - there's a million versions of it out there. I partnered everyone up saying that they could go with someone they knew well or not (because there are really good illustrations with both). In their partners - they had to decide who was going to be blindfolded and who was going to be using their voice. Then I separated them - the voice on one side of a space (there was 15-20feet between them) and the blindfolded person on the other side. The voice was not allowed to move but their task, once their partner was blindfolded, was to vocally instruct their partner over to them. This is all well and good but the problem being is that there was 11 partnerships doing this at the same time.
I'm sure you can imagine the noise as 22 people started talking to one another. I put some large objects in the way that wouldn't hurt people if they walked into them (plastic patio chairs) but would make the navigation a little more confusing or frustrating. The activity was over in about 2-3 minutes. We sat down and talked about person experiences. Some of the feedback was that it was noisy and quite impossible to hear. A lot of people noted that a few of the more aggressive and therefore louder partners drowned out the rest - however these partners didn't find they had any trouble. Some of the older partners found themselves uncomfortable with being blindfolded - scared that they would hurt themselves or run into people. Some people stopped and waited until the entire group had completed their run and then completed theirs.
I asked the group to think of how many voices in their head or in the course of the day they have to compete with. Phones, email, co-workers, family members, church members, God - they have to compete with. Are they hearing the voice(s) that really matter?
Here's the scripture I used:
1 Samuel 3 - When God called Samuel 3 times and it took a couple times for Eli to clue in as to what was happening.
1 Kings 19:12 - When God appears to Elijah
John 10: 3, 14-16 - Jesus speaks about his sheep knowing his voice.
I spoke briefly about it can get impossible to hear God when our lives are filled with so much. Regardless of how much "stuff" we have going on - it still take discipline and resting in God's presence - just as Samuel was literally doing when God spoke to him.
So I guess - today...how much do you have going on? Are you hearing the voices that you should be...need to be hearing?
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