Pithy Summaries

I’ve been lucky to be a part of a learning cohort, Ignite, over the last year, a learning initiative of the Rocky Mountain Conference of The United Church of Christ.

There was the imagining.
There was the planning.
There was the wrestling.
There was the clarifying.
There was the convening.
There was the communing.
There was the delighting.
There was the crying.
There was the laughing.

Full experience, as I think of it, as well it should be — life deserves full expression, particularly with such good people that are helping to steward a quality of awakening in self and in others.

As part of the followup, I found myself wanting to offer a few pithy summaries of some of what we did together, primarily in two face-to-face gatherings, each of four days in October 2017 and earlier this month, April 2018. I wanted to pick out some of the skills and methodologies and teachings, with hopes that the simplification would encourage practice and experiments. I offer them here, for the broader group of us learning and hosting groups in our varied levels of learning.

Circle — Most basic container for turning to one another.
Check-In — Helping to presence just a bit more together, and shift from social space.
Check-Out — Being deliberate about releasing from learning space in a way that isn’t leaking out.
Ceremony — The focus that can take us beyond words.
World Cafe — Large(r) group method, yet supporting learning at small tables.
Two Loops — A systems map to help understanding working with change and emergence.
Polarities — Finding the “and”.
Games / Play — To get to principles.
Social Styles — Typology for understanding difference, similarity, and preferred forms of interaction.
Open Space Technology — Group methodology to help people self-organize and take responsibility for what they love.
Adaptive Leadership — It’s more than technical fix.
Working With Shadow — Understanding the hidden.
The Work of Byron Katie — Working with limiting beliefs.