Session 3

Due to my inability to formulate a K-Group in my current congregation (given my transition out), my hope is to gather a group from various local friends (perhaps 4 or 5 people) whom I believe would be interested in participating in this type of adventure. My goal for this K-Group will simply be to help each other become more attentive to the Holy Spirit through prayer. I believe that this goal can be begun (it is after all, never completed) within 3 or so sessions. Thus silence and stillness will be an important component to group practice, as well as the use of Scripture, that is the timeless voice of God given to us centuries ago.

I will be taking the role of facilitator, at least for the three initial sessions so as not to impose undue stress on any group member. A structured format for the group (although I suspect it will organically take a much less structured feel once started) would be as follows:
Open with a time of general conversation to build community and break ice. 5 minutes.
Facilitator will need to call this to an end as opening conversation can quickly take all 90 minutes.

Call to Silent prayer. Here the facilitator calls the group into a time of silence, and asks the group to become comfortable with the silence. Group members are encouraged to listen to every noisy distraction they hear and one by one give it away to God. This initial time of silence is about 3 minutes.

Facilitator will then lead the group through a Lectio Divina by choosing a passage of Scripture (beforehand), explaining the process of Lectio, and then having a group member read it slowly 2-3 times, with 2 minutes or so of silent prayer in between each reading. The Holy Spirit speaks not only from where he dwells in us, but also through the Word of God.

After a period of silent prayer, group members will be asked to share what struck them about the passage and also what they believe God is saying to them. The facilitator may initiate this conversation by asking, "There may be something that struck deep parts of your soul as you absorbed this Scripture. This could be the Holy Spirit moving his Word within you. How did the Holy Spirit move in you as heard this passage?"

Facilitator then leads the group to a time of listening. Group returns to silent prayer to ready themselves for sharing (5 minutes). The point of group sharing will be as follows: members are encouraged to listen to themselves -- what is bothering them today? What is stressing them out? What emotions have they felt? Then they can spend some time in listening prayer for the Holy Spirit to speak to these different emotions.

Facilitator calls the group members to share what they have learned about their emotional state from the Holy Spirit. No interruptions will be permitted. 2-3 minutes of silent prayer must follow where the group members are to listen to the Holy Spirit on behalf of the one who shared (intercession), then other group members may share what the Spirit said in their hearts , but no information, solutions, fixes, or cures should be shared. Thoughts are limited to roughly a minute each before the facilitator will ask person to complete their thought.

Very little to no "chaining" is to be permitted by the facilitator, that is group members chaining one idea to the next person's which tends to end up in a lot of advice giving rather than helping the Presenter listen to the Holy Spirit.

The group is called to silence, at least 2 minutes before the next person may share.

The process of sharing is repeated until everyone who wanted to share has done so.

At the end of sharing, a prayer time is held where people may pray aloud or silently for the others in the group.

At the end the facilitator debriefs the group concerning how they sensed the Holy Spirit, how the lectio scripture affected the outcome, and where the group may have noticed that they lost focus of prayer and turned to advice/cure giving. Finally the group is debriefed on what they learned about listening to the Holy Spirit in prayer and how this can influence their other prayer times.

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1) In our human tendency, I believe many people, especially those in leadership, often try to take charge and to rule over others -- and not necessary maliciously (in fact, usually not maliciously). This problem is especially exacerbated in American culture where getting things done and doing things better seems to be a core value. However, in the case of spiritual direction, it is perhaps the most important thing that the "admonisher," as Watson calls the director, is more like John the Baptist -- pointing others toward Jesus as the authority of their life. Spiritual direction is not advice-giving; it is not problem-fixing; spiritual direction is pointing people to the alive and active Word of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within followers of Christ. The Spiritual director helps and mentors the directee in pushing past the noise of this world -- it's opinions, values, stressors, etc. -- to see the Truth. It is ever important that the director submits him or herself to Holy Spirit at every moment while directing the other. The goal of the direction is not about fixing problems and lives -- but about the directee growing more and more into Christ-likeness by the moving of the Holy Spirit.

2) I imagine that the more confusion and disbelief in the active presence of the Holy Spirit that exists, the more difficult spiritual direction will be. Spiritual direction in terms of doing a great deal of inner listening for the still, small voice of God, is based in theology that Holy Spirit, in a very real way, dwells within each person. Very scientific, mathematical and/or logical personality types of people may struggle with this theology more than the artistic types who are more amiable to abstract realities. I have long had concern over the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the faith community and what the church has missed and lost because they have pushed discussion of this person of God to the side because it is very confusing and mysterious. At least this has been the case in my ministry contexts. Even in composing the format for my K-Group, I realized that I based my format on a theology that the Holy Spirit truly dwells and speaks from within a follower of Christ, and that every believer has access to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I would imagine that sitting and listening to the Holy Spirit in silence would be horribly awkward if I did not believe that the Holy Spirit is as the New Testament describes: the one who convicts, guides and leads the church with the power of God.