The Holy Spirit as Co-Facilitator

A major part of my peacemaking work over the years has been to facilitate trainings in various aspects of conflict transformation.  In those trainings we used participatory experiential education, sometimes referred to as direct education.  The facilitator is not a lecturer, passing on information in a top-down manner, though there may be moments within the training where such an educational method may be briefly used.  Most of the work, however, sees the facilitator acting as a catalyst, helping the participants to do their own work.  The participants know the contexts out of which they come to the training.  They may have severe challenges and feel confused about what to do, but ultimately the participants are the ones who will make the choices about how to act with what they have learned.  So then, a good facilitator will stimulate their learning through ways that draw forth their own experiences and wisdom, helping them discover new insights and access old wisdom to apply to their current conflict context.

Co-facilitators (Dan Buttry and Lance Muteyo)

In most of my trainings and workshops I have worked with a co-facilitator.  Together we design the workshop.  We often alternate in leading various training tools used in the workshop while the other one carefully observes what is happening in the group.  Some tools require us both (or all if there is a larger facilitation team) to be engaged in leading a particular activity.  Sometimes my co-facilitator has been another outsider with whom I work closely, and at other times my co-facilitator has been a person from inside the national or community context where we are working.  In that team we each bring particular skills that, when put together, make a wiser, more broadly experienced facilitation team.

As a Christian facilitator I have discovered that often someone else is involved in the facilitator process:  God’s Holy Spirit.  Besides the human members of the team, there is a divine presence that is not just observing but who is actively engaged in what is happening.  God is present and moving among us to both help us accomplish our goals, but also take the group or individuals in the group beyond what we can know or imagine.  Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as Counselor, Advocate, and Comforter.  He also speaks of the Holy Spirit bringing power to us.  I’ve experienced all these aspects of the Holy Spirit at work in co-facilitation.

One work of the facilitator is to “read the room.”  This phrase refers to the work of discerning the dynamics in the group, sensing the various emotions and the direction in which the group experience is headed.  Then as facilitator you can decide to work with that dynamic or intervene to open up more constructive possibilities.  I had an experience once in Lebanon where I was reading the room but experienced the Holy Spirit reading the room at a deeper level and prompting profound engagement.  I was teach an intensive class in an Arab seminary a few months after the war between Israel and Hezbollah which devastated much of southern Lebanon and Beirut.  On the first or second session a student bluntly asked, “What do you do when your country is invaded?”  I knew I couldn’t deal with the question immediately as we had so much to get out first before we could work on the deep answer.  I told the class we would hold the question and come back to it later.

The class celebrates our deep journey together

Toward the end of the class we had gotten into the topic of trauma, and in light of that I felt we were ready to revisit the question of invasion and war.  Then one student from Sudan who had never spoken to that point in the class shared a horrific story of his own experience of being a victim of military violence, a trauma that still haunted him.  There was an uncomfortable silence broken by a young student making an inappropriate joke to break the tension he felt.  I did a facilitator intervention calling out how the attempt at humor was not helpful in response to the dramatic risky sharing of the Sudanese student.  I said that we were on holy ground to have had the classmate share so deeply.  If we didn’t know what to say, and I wasn’t sure myself, then we should just be silent and pray.  In the middle of the class I knelt down in silence.  That’s where my co-facilitator took over.  After a long period of silence the Spirit prompted a Syrian student to share his story.  He had been in the Syrian Army (which had occupied Lebanon for years), and he shared his experiences of being one who used the violence and how it deadened him emotionally.  The Spirit brought forth these amazing stories of the victim and the victimizer in a way that led us into a community of healing for all with beautiful and deep participation from the whole group.  The class had moved way past my design or capacity to lead, but my Holy Co-Facilitator brought the whole session into one of the more profound moments of my training career.

Another time I was in Ukraine co-facilitating with one of our Global Peace Warriors, Veronika Voloshyna.  The training was held in Veronika’s city of Dnipro, close to the areas in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian forces were fighting government forces.  We had many participants who came from the city of Donetsk, which was at the center of some of the most intense fighting.  I was going to lead the play about Rizpah in our discussion about trauma, and we needed a volunteer to play Rizpah.  I told the group I needed a woman volunteer to help with a little drama we would do, and that we should meet at the break.  I was working through the facilitation of a tool I’d used countless times before, but the Holy Spirit was at work in a deeper way to call a particular person and do a work within and through her that would become the most profound moment of the whole training.

Lyudmyla (not her real name) came up at the break.  I shared the story of Rizpah from 2 Samuel 21 where David executes 7 sons of Saul, including Rizpah’s sons.  Rizpah mourns the sons, then begins a long vigil by the bodies until King David (acted by me) comes to engage in repentance, restitution, and reconciliation.  (Click here for more on the story and tool.)  When we started the drama, Lyudmyla was sitting in the circle with the other participants.  I led the story about the slaughter of these young men, bringing 7 participants out to sit on chairs where we “executed” them.  Then as David, I went to my “palace” outside the circle.  After a few moments Lyudmyla rose with her body tight as a wound spring.  As she approached the “bodies” she let out this deep and chilling scream.  We continued to go through the drama to the end, but Lyudmyla’s scream still resonated within us.

Later during a feedback session Lyudmyla talked about what happened.  She had been living for two years in the war zone in Donetsk.  She had bottled up all her emotions and horror for the daily challenge of surviving.  All that pent up grief and anger exploded in that scream.  She told us doing the scream was her “work” for the training.  Others shared later how Lyudmyla’s scream was a emotional gift to them as well, inviting them into the catharsis of that space.  I didn’t know Lyudmyla’s story and experience.  I had no clue how deep she would go with this little sketch we were performing.  But my Holy Co-Facilitator knew.  The Spirit prompted her to volunteer for what she didn’t know so she could play a role I could imagine.  I played my part in the drama, but the Holy Spirit was the director of the drama.

Tape on the forehead

Sometimes my Holy Co-Facilitator gives me a gentle nudge as I am leading an experience, nudges I’ve learned to trust.  One example happened at a training in a large church in Egypt.  We were doing “Tape on the Forehead” (click here to learn more about the tool), an exercise that explores dynamics of being mainstream in a group and marginality.  We put bits of masking tape with various colored symbols on people’s foreheads.  Without using words the participants are told to form groups.  Most look for people with the same symbol, forming 3, 4 or 5 groups, each with their particular symbol.  But a few people have unique symbols.  They experience marginalization, sometimes even being physically pushed away from groups because of their difference.  At this church in Egypt we had way too many people for the exercise, yet we felt it was too pertinent and powerful a tool not to use.  So we had half the group stand on a wide staircase watching the rest of us in the little courtyard below do the exercise.

As my wife Sharon and I were putting the bits of tape on everyone’s forehead, I had picked out a couple people I planned to put the unique symbols on.  As I got to one man, I felt this gentle nudge—not him, but her, the young woman standing next to him.  Trusting such a nudge, I put the tape with the special symbol on her forehead.  Then the game began.

As the groups began to form, I watched those with the unique symbols to see their experiences.  The young woman soon realized she didn’t fit into any group, so she literally left the game, going to stand with all the folks on the stairs who were just watching.  But she kept watching, even at a distance.  She noticed that the other two or three unique ones had come to stand together.  She then stepped out from the viewing folks and with strength in her step stood with the others with unique shapes.

Then came the reflection—what happened?  We typically interview people in the similar groups asking how they came together and how they feel—good, they are with their people.  Last we interview those with the unique symbols who had a very different experience.  They had experienced being cast out, not wanted, being alone.  In this case the unique folks found each other and made their own solidarity group.  Then the young woman shared, weaving together not just her experience in the game but in her life.  As a Christian woman in a majority Muslim country she often experienced marginalization.  Her response was to withdraw, to check out, something she literally acted out in the exercise by leaving the game and standing with the observers.  But as she saw other marginalized people gather together she realized she had a choice.  She could join with that group and share in the support and strength of their solidarity.  She physically acted out that choice by leaving the observers and standing with the unique ones.  She spoke of the experience as being an “aha!” moment about how she could act in her own social contexts.  She celebrated a personal breakthrough for herself in this self-awareness and discovery, which never would have happened if I had ignored that gentle nudge.

Forcing someone to carry the pack a mile

Sometimes the prompt isn’t a nudge but a more insistent shove.  I experienced that holy shove when I was in a Central Asian country doing conflict transformation training.  We were unpacking Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount when we got to the part about carrying the pack the second mile (click here to see how we train with this part of the Sermon on the Mount).  I pretend I’m a Roman soldier in the occupying army forcibly making a Jewish person carry my pack the legally acceptable one mile.  I usually pick someone who is much smaller than me—I’m over 6 feet—and sometimes a woman to accentuate the power differences.  I walk around the circle of participants with my pack talking about Roman oppression, then I grab a participant and make them carry the pack.  I had a small woman picked out, and as I got near the holy shove demanded that I take the large woman sitting next to her.  I made her get up, take my pack and follow me.

Rejecting being a victim, going the second mile

We walk around the circle of the group—one mile.  Then I mention that Jesus said go the second mile, something that the soldiers were not supposed to require to limit the irritation of their oppression.  The participant then steps in front, leading the soldier who is now outside the law.  I talk about how the person forced to carry the pack has rejected the victim identity and is now becoming the initiator of action.  I did this with the woman, inviting her to follow the teaching of Jesus and go that second mile, acting on her own accord.  When we finished acting out the drama, she returned to her seat, and we finished the section on the transforming initiatives in the Sermon on the Mount.

At the break she came to me with tears streaming down her face.  We went to a more private spot with the translator for her to share her story.  She had been sexually abused about 20 years earlier.  Ever since then she had been emotionally stuck in being a victim of that crime.  She was withdrawn and passive.  When I forced her to take that pack it was a trauma trigger putting her emotionally in that moment of horrifying victimization.  But then when I invited her to follow the teaching of Jesus, she said it was an invitation for personal liberation.  She could step out of that oppressive victim identity, stand up straight, and claim her full personhood.  She could choose what would be done.  She could step out in the lead and make a new way in her life.  She told me her tears were tears of joy.  She hadn’t felt so free in 20 years.

The Holy Spirit knew her story; I didn’t.  The Holy Spirit knew my workshop design, but the Spirit also knew the participant’s personal journey and need that could be woven into what we were doing in the training.  I needed that holy shove to pick her for the role play, something my Holy Co-Facilitator was gracious to provide.  The whole group had their understanding of Jesus’ teaching transformed, but this woman had her life gloriously transformed in that simple dramatization, acted out therapy with the Counselor.

In most workshops there are multiple agendas and journeys.  The group has its own agenda, most of which is explicitly spelled out at the beginning.  The individual journeys and agendas may be shared in the group or not.  Sometimes they aren’t even conscious to individuals, such as this woman in Central Asia.  But the Holy Spirit as Co-Facilitator knows all the group and individual agendas and can weave them together.  Much of the work happens with our own planning, design, and adaptations in the middle of the training as we read the room and respond with what we call emergent design.  However, there can also be work done by the Spirit that as facilitator I may never see or recognize, and that’s fine.  God does beyond what we can discern.  Sometimes that individual agenda does come out for the group as happened with Lyudmyla’s scream and the Egyptian woman joining with the other marginalized folks.  If I see the hidden work of the Spirit, great!  But if the work remains hidden to me, that’s fine as well.  What matters is the growth, liberation, empowerment, and transformation of each of the participants and the community they share together.

At times my Holy Co-Facilitator will inspire me to speak unplanned words.  You could say I was just reading the room or responding to what was presented by a participant, but at times I’ve felt as if what I did and said came from beyond me.  I was in Chile doing training with Spanish Chileans and indigenous Mapuche people.  The indigenous language of the Mapuches, Mapudungun, had been systematically suppressed, and churches often participated in the mainstreaming of the Spanish language and culture.  As the issues of marginalization came up and I heard various stories from the Mapuche participants I felt my Holy Co-Facilitator inspire me to go in a way I’d not anticipated.

Lucy and I have a deep conversation in another exercise about oppression

A Mapuche woman named Lucy, a seminary student, had shared some of her struggles.  I told her that when she got to heaven Jesus wouldn’t say “Bienvenidos!” but rather she would be greeted by Jesus in her mother tongue:  “Mari mari!”—with no Spanish accent, either.  Lucy’s eyes welled up, and her face shone.  Our group took a holy quantum leap in understanding God’s embrace of the societal margins and that all will be equally together in that heavenly scene with people from “every tribe, people, and language” (Revelation 7:9).

I could go on with other stories of unexpected prompts I felt or that were given to participants who acted beyond what I planned or anticipated.  Not every workshop has such moments.  We can have excellent trainings without that clearly divine intervention.  It’s good to know that my facilitation team is more than just we human members.  The Holy Spirit is a part of our team, and as we grow in relationships with our human co-facilitators so we can work together with greater trust in each other and shared creativity, so too can we grow in our relationship with our Holy Co-Facilitator.  The Spirit can guide into deeper learning and transformation for the entire training group as well as for individuals within that group.  May we all grow in our awareness of our holy partner and the divine wind blowing through our workshops.

Daniel Buttry is the founders of the Global Peace Warriors website and a loose network of people around the world committed to conflict transformation work.  For more about him and other Global Peace Warriors, click here.