Pastoral Care
This part of the course explores the role of elders and the Elders' meeting in ensuring pastoral care takes place within the congregation and looks at ways in which this can be effective
9. Aspects of pastoral care
9.5. A listening exercise
You might like to try the following exercise with other elders or members of your pastoral care team.
Break into pairs with one being the storyteller and one the listener. Ask the storyteller to speak for about three minutes on something that has been significant to them in the last few weeks whilst the listener remains totally silent. Then get the listener to repeat back to the storyteller as accurately as possible the story they have just heard. Then get people to reverse roles and repeat the exercise.
Gather people back together and discuss how the exercise felt. How easy or difficult was it, and what made it so?