• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Work That Reconnects Network

Work That Reconnects Network

  • Events
  • Contact
  • FAQs
  • Register
  • Login
  • Show Search
  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
Donate
Hide Search
  • Connect
  • Resources
  • Become a Facilitator
  • Blog
  • Community Forum
You are here: Home / Resources / Creating Study-Action Groups

Creating Study-Action Groups

Work That Reconnects · Dec 3, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Resource Type: Practices (Going Forth)

Study circles are one of the greatest social inventions of our time. Engrossing and fun, they elicit our innate curiosity, raise our sights, and widen our horizons, while offering an immediately rewarding experience of community. They uncover our capacity to think cogently about big issues of common concern–a capacity that we may not have suspected we had. They increase our respect for our self and each other, breaking down barriers of isolation and powerlessness. These functions are multiplied when participants, wanting to embody the values that arise, undertake projects together–and the groups become study-action groups. The energy that is unleashed, when we move out to do together what we may have felt inadequate to do alone, can transform our lives and our society.

Steps in organizing a study-action group:

  • Choose a topic and select a book to study or curriculum to follow. (See Study-Action Groups in the Resource section of this book for curricula).
  • Study groups using Coming Back to Life and/or Active Hope work best when they divide each session between cognitive discussion of the material and an interactive process.  This is an excellent way to train facilitators in the Work That Reconnects.
  • Determine the number of sessions the group will hold; people feel freer to join a group when they know the duration is limited.  The group’s meeting can always be extended for those who choose to continue.  Also choose the frequency and length of sessions. Weekly or monthly meetings of two hours work well.
  • Issue an invitation (say, by contacting selected friends, and/or putting a notice on public bulletin boards). Aim for the optimal size of 8-12 people. Don’t ask people to commit before they’ve come to an introductory session.
  • Select a venue such as your local church, synagogue, mosque, school, or community center and, of course, consider meeting in one or more participants’ homes.
  • Take time in your first meeting to review guidelines for successful study-action groups, and agree on commitments, such as regular attendance, reading and preparation between meetings, etc.  Many of the suggestions for guiding the work provided in Chapter 5 are excellent for study-action groups. Other guidelines are included in the manuals and curricula listed in the Resource section.  
  • We recommend rotating facilitators, enhancing the group’s sense of shared responsibility.
  • Honor the meeting as sacred time and space with a simple ritual at the beginning and end.  Light a candle, for example, or take a moment of silence to breathe.  
  • Make use of interactive processes to sustain motivation and exercise the moral imagination.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Practices

Help us build our resource libary by adding useful WTR resources.

Submit Resource

Resource Types

  • Recent Resources
  • Audio (9)
  • Books (15)
  • Practices (74)
    • Adapted for online (2)
    • Deep Time (12)
    • Going Forth (15)
    • Gratitude (10)
    • Honoring Our Pain for the World (15)
    • Meditation (10)
    • Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes (11)
  • Videos (23)

The Work That Reconnects Network is a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems Inc., a tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation. EIN 94-2524840. All donations are tax-deductible.

Footer

Recent Posts

  • SPECIAL CALL: The Words That Reconnect – An Invitation to Co-create an Emergent WTR Vocabulary Nov 17, 2022
  • The Work That Reconnects Evolves Globally – Network Newsletter, October 2022 Oct 27, 2022
  • Active Hope: The Work That Reconnects in China Oct 25, 2022

Recent Comments

  • the Longwood Loop food resiliency project « The Standard – Credible breaking news on Three Dimensions of the Great Turning
  • the Longwood Loop food resiliency project « The Standard – Fashion online news on Three Dimensions of the Great Turning
  • Revisiting Riverton: the Longwood Loop food resiliency project « The Standard on Three Dimensions of the Great Turning
  • Silvia Di Blasio on Introduction
  • Ruby Perry on Introduction

Subscribe to the WTR newsletter

Receive notification when new issues of the Deep Times Journal are available as well as updates on the Work That Reconnects Network.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
Return to top
© 2000–2023 Work That Reconnects Network, all rights reserved