Faith at Work
How to use this course
The course has a lot of material but don’t let that put you off. This has been done so that you can choose options most appropriate to your context, the nature of your group, how talkative they are, and the time you have available.
The idea is that for each week you treat all the resources like a well-stocked buffet table, where you pick the things that appeal to you, plus perhaps choosing a few items that you’re unfamiliar with, just to try them out.
If you and your group are meeting for a longer time, or if you’re an individual working through the course material on your own at your own pace, then please do treat each session as a four or five course meal where you eat everything as it’s placed before you.
If you follow the buffet table option, please don’t miss out the whole of a section. You should pick at least one activity or option from each of the four sections – Welcome, Word, Worship and Witness.
The course resources available are:-
- Sessions / Leaders’ notes – these are available online (and can be used directly from the website if you have a tablet device). They are also available online as a Word document for you to download and print out. Hard copies can also be ordered from the Lincolnshire Chaplaincy Services office
- Postcards – a series of full colour postcards are available from the LCS Office, alternatively they can downloaded from here. This is instead of a participants’ course booklet. There is one postcards per session for people to take away. These have salient points from that session, plus quotes for reflection during the week. There is an additional introductory postcard with the session titles and theme prayers on. This can be given out at the first session or sued beforehand as an invitation or advertisement.
Full Colour Postcards (Large printable version) - DVD – containing edited excerpts of over 30 interviews that we’ve filmed of people talking about the opportunities and challenges of their daily lives plus reflections on what difference faith might or might not make on the way they live their live. The DVD also has the words of many of the prayers, readings and activities in each session. The DVD has been designed to work in domestic DVD players as well as on computers. Where prayers and readings are included on the DVD, each screen has been timed for ‘normal’ reading pace but as this varies from person to person you may need to use the pause button. You can also the pause button to keep other items such as discussion point on-screen for as long as you want.
Audio transcript to accompany the DVD and all Faith at Work video clips is available here. - Support – group leaders are able to contact us via the website at any time to ask questions or seek help with how to run the course.
- Feedback forms – these will be available from the website so that your opinions can help us develop the course for future, wider use.
- Accessibility – audio transcript to accompany the DVD and all Faith at Work video clips can be found here.
Leaders’ notes and structure of group sessions
Each session is based around a recognised structure taken from the ecumenical cell-church movement. This is commonly known as ‘The Four Ws’: Welcome, Word, Worship and Witness. Within each section there is material in different formats, some more interactive than others.
Welcome: introductory, gathering material, including video clips on the session themes from various Lincolnshire Church leaders. After the first session, there is sometimes a link back to the previous session.
Word: the ‘main’ study section of the session, including Bible study alongside other sources of teaching and tradition, including video reflections from our 30+ workplace interviewees.
Worship: self-explanatory really although suggestions about different ways of worshiping are included.
Witness: this section is about translating our study into action in the world we live and belong in. It often also includes something to think about in preparation for the next session.
In addition to the 4 Ws there is another section on the DVD unimaginatively called “Other Resources”. These are further video clips from our interviewees that you may want to use instead of or as well as the ones specified in the Leaders’ Notes. It is also planned that there will be at least one new thought each day during Lent 2014 so that group members can follow the themes of each session and take them with them into their daily lives. These ‘thoughts for the day’ will also be available via Twitter and Facebook.
If you need to know more and weren’t able to attend one of our training sessions for group leaders you might want to look at this PowerPoint presentation for more information.
We hope that you enjoy exploring Faith at Work, as we each seek to find a faith that works for us whether in the workplace or the rest of our daily lives.
