Ministering Reflectively: A Story of Two Groups

Abstract

We—Paddy Sweeney and Martin Daly, have worked for several years with two groups of clergy, with one group for nine years, and another for four. This work has become a long term project, but did not set out to be so. However, because the participants experienced it as valuable and we the facilitators have managed to retain an interest in it and a freshness to our approach, it has continued for a long time and may do for some time yet. We are not necessarily arguing for the value of long term groups, but wish to inquire into the conditions that contributed to the groups being sustained over a lengthy period of time and what doing so added of value, to the experience for us and them. Obviously as the groups are still working, this places some restraints on the way in which we can write about them and how we might illustrate the workings of the groups. We informed the participants of our intention to write this article, sought their views of the experience and committed to providing them with an opportunity to read it and comment on it.