Help for the Trainer of Lab 1/SCS

Looking for Quotations or Extra Interest Materials? 

When preparing for a presentation, you may want to consider using a quotation about your subject, a historical account, or demographic data.  Check out some of the following websites for some:

 Medical Benefits of Communication Skills: 

A group of subjects with malignant melanoma received traditional treatment and then was divided into 2 groups.  One group met weekly for 6 weeks and the other did not.  Facilitators taught the first group specific communication skills.  The group that was taught to express themselves effectively had a higher survival rate – only 9 % succumbed as opposed to almost 30% in the untrained group.     Dr. Janice Kiecolt – Glasner and Dr. Ronal Glaser 

 Demographics: 

 http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en:  This a source for American housing, population, and economic status.

http://www.govspot.com/.  Find national and world information on this site, including data from census Bureau, CIA ,  and National Archives.  

Quotations: 

http://www.bartleby.com. This is a great site for quotations, famous books and reference materials with usage guides by Strunk, White, and Fowler. 

 http://www.quoteland.com/.  This is a great site for quotations by topic. It features quotations from famous people and literature.   

 http://www.quotationspage.com/.  There are over 26,000 quotes from famous people and literature. 

 Stories and historical trivia: 

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/.  This an excellent site to discover what happened on the day in history that you will be making your presentations.  How can you tie it to listening skills, the drop-out track, or life commands?  It could add richness to your teaching presentation. 

Here is a free resource for a video on why we need to listen to Lost People. 

http://www.faithvisuals.com/content/offthemap/threeminuteswiththreelostpeople.html

Other Resources

 Warning Signs of Disengagement

 Help in Marketing Lab 1/SCS

 Help for Trainers

 Mental Models-Barriers to Change 

 The Value of Listening 

 Videos to Use with Lab 1 

Idea on Demonstrating Fogging

This is an idea for teaching Fogging from Joy Deyo, a Lab II graduate and member of Willow Creek Church in Naperville, Ill.  After teaching and having the class practice “fogging.”  Joy says to the class:  “you are the worst group I have ever worked with when it comes to learning the skills.” After they gasp, she laughs and encourages them to fog her.

Warning Signs of Disengagement

1. Differentiating Stage:  The language of the member changes from inclusive to exclusive.  As long as they are engaged in the church,  they will use language to indicate that they share ownership of the church and will maintain a close relationship with the members by using words like:  “we” and “ours.”  During the differentiating stage, their language will shift to separation pronouns like “the” “yours,” or “mine,”  They will talk about “the” church instead of “our” church.  They are looking for differences.

Plus, a person will disinherit the current state of the church’s direction.  They will start using nostalgic language – “remembering when” to identify with the past.

Individuals will start separating from close relationships in the church if the other person does not agree with him/her. You will hear statements like:   “I don’t understand how you could possibly like her.”  I can’t believe you agree with him.  You will also see a look of contempt on their face, and sometimes they will even roll their eyes if you say something with which they disagree.

Your response: Continue to use inclusive language with them, such as “our church,” and “we have a great opportunity here to serve.”  Focus on similarities.  Reaffirm what you have in common and how you share the same goal- “reaching your community for Christ.” 

Use listening skills of “fogging, negative inquiry, and paraphrasing .  Find solutions to solve the problem that they may be having with the church together. The solutions should be something that both the person and the church can be in agreement. Apologize if the person has a legitimate complaint and state how you will correct the problem.  Use role renegotiation.  (see future article on role renegotiation)

2. Chilling: Relationships break down. Members limit their conversations. They will refuse to talk about subjects that are painful or those they disagree with you, such as your opinion of the new worship leader.  When asked their opinions, they will say, “skip it,”  “it’s not worth discussing,”  or “my opinion doesn’t matter.”  The member will begin to succinctly greet you or others with formalities and politeness.  They will  move to arms length to you.  This is the “ennui”  stage.  “Ennui”  is a state of boredom and a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction and lacking interest.  The person just lives with the situation although he does not like it. He simply exists.  S/He attends church out of duty.   There will be little involvement. 

Your response: Offer to listen.  Visit with the person and listen to their grievances. Clarify the person’s expectations. State the church’s expectation of the person.   Often they are having personal problems and need someone to listen.  Sometimes the person will silently slip away from the church without talking.  This is mute termination.  Use role renegotiation. 

3. Questioning:  The member begins to ask derogatory questions.  S/he will use scriptures (often out of context ) to make their point.  They tend to ask for prayers for the church or the leadership of the church.  Body language is rigid and negative.  Pupils tend to dilate when the controversial subject is addressed. 

Your response: Use behavior description to describe what you observed.  Ask what did that mean.  Listen and ask good productive questions.    Avoid making inferences about their behavior as if that were their intentions.  Then move to problem solving and role renegotiation.

4. Sabotaging:  The member may begin with expressions of concerns about the church using innuendos and gossip about the leadership or members of the church.  Some members will threaten to quit.  They will tend to blame certain  leaders of the church for what they perceive as problems of the church.  They will start to polarize people.  You will often see looks of anger or disgust on their face. 

Your Response:  Follow the guidelines in Matthew 18:15-17.  First confront the member in a one-to-one conversation.   State from your point of view how your expectations of how Christians should behave have been violated and you were disappointed.   Describe their behavior.  Mention that you have come to them out of love and that their behavior is not in accordance of scripture.  If they repent, accept their apology.  Reaffirm your relationship with them. .  If the person has something against someone else in the church, encourage them to go talk with them.  You may offer to go.  Act only as a mediator of the process.  Avoid tribulation.  23"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you. Matthew 5:23.

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.

But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

                                                                                    Matthew 18:15-17

“So watch yourselves.  If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”          Luke 17:3

So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.  III John 10

5. Termininating

This is the drop out phase.  The member will usually first stop attending worship service, then he will drop out of:

§  Business meetings and/or committee meetings

§  Sunday School

§  Removes children from Sunday School and other church activities

§  Announces his quitting church to someone

§  Stops his giving to whatever he has pledge to give.  (High control people will often stop their weekly giving to the offering first if it was not a pledge.) 

Your Response:   Make an appointment and visit the person. Listen and follow the steps of role renegotiation

3. Then Jesus told them this parable: 4. "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6. and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 7. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.  Luke 15:3-7

©Margaret Slusher 2008

Research Materials to Use in Marketing the Listening Labs

Here is some research information about the power of listening that you may want to include when you promote Listening Skills.   Listening is  . . .

1.   A cure for social isolation

In a Washington Post article (June 23, 2006) “Social Isolation Growing in U.S.,” Shankar Vedantam reported that people are more isolated today than they were two decades ago.  “There seems to be a sharply growing number of people who say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.     . . .

“Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.”

2.   Helpful in Job Success

       *        Human resources professional estimate that more than 80% of the people who fail at their jobs do so for one reason – they don’t relate well to other people.

       *        Executives Rank Listening Skills as the Most Important, but most lacking in Employees  in “Listen Up!” Time June 28, 1999, p. 72 copyright Time, Inc

3.   Reduces absenteeism

       *        The January, 2005 issue of Fortune Magazine reported businesses are beginning to use trained listeners to reduce absenteeism and worker turnover, a problem which costs companies over 300 billion dollars each year in the US.  

       *        In a 2005 report released by Group Publishing, Inc. and Gallup Poll, 98% of church members who indicated that they were "very satisfied" or “somewhat satisfied" with their church described their church as very friendly, maintaining good relationships.  (Michael Lindsay, Creating a Culture of Connectivity in Your Church, Loveland, California: Group Publishing, Inc., 2005, p.8)

       *        Dr. John Savage discovered that a church could reclaim up to 82% of drop-outs using strategic listening skills. 

_________________________________________________

Help for Trainers

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

·         Adults learn best when they contribute to a learning situation.

·         Adults learn best when they want to or need to learn

·         Adults learn best when they can put it to immediate use.

·         Adults learn best when they feel physically and psychologically 

      comfortable.

More Get Acquainted Ideas

1. Comic Strip Matching:  Use comic strips to get acquainted by cutting apart the panels of the strips and giving each individual a panel.  Ask participants to find others to match their strips.

2. A Penny for your Thoughts:  Give each participant 3 pennies.  They are to introduce themselves to the group by relating an important personal or work-related event.

3. Story-telling Guessing Game:  Ask participants to write on a slip of paper a unique event that they have experienced.  Some Examples are:  shook hands with the president, survived a plane crash, ran in the Boston Marathon, etc.  Collect the slips and read the statements.  Have everyone guess who it is.  The author is then asked to stand and share the rest of the story.  You could use practical jokes played,

          strangest teacher, least favorite physical education lesson,

          proudest moment and worst cafeteria meal. [1]