Getting Practical - all you need to know about running Just People in your church?
All the information you need to think about before running the course in your church, such as which version, facilitation and leadership issues and the all-important day of action...
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Adapting the course for your context
The resources we provide will run a session for around 90 minutes for large groups, or 60 minutes for small groups, and we have sought to ensure that they will fit groups in a broad range of contexts. However, each church and community is unique and it’s important that you run the course in a way that works for you. Running a larger course will involve more preparation from the group leaders (we’d recommend not doing it on your own!).
Here are our 5 suggestions for running the course well:
1. Run Just People? in a way that connects with your group
If your church is used to running Alpha courses you may choose to run Just People? in a similar way, with people eating together beforehand etc. We would strongly recommend this, if possible, because eating together helps to build atmosphere and trust. If it is unrealistic for your church setting, consider the possibility of beginning with something more low-key like Fairtrade coffee and cakes. This time of interaction at the beginning can offer a great opportunity for people to discuss how they found last week’s take-away action. Some groups will know each other well; in other settings, participants come from a group of churches and are less familiar with one another. Give some thought to the dynamics of the group and how you could help ease people into the course, eg when people do not know each other ensure that you use some of the warm-up activities we have suggested to get people mixing and getting to know each other
2. Facilitation and leadership
The way we have set up the course obviously depends on good, engaging leadership. The course material is serious, but it is important to ensure that the atmosphere is positive and inspiring rather than overly heavy. Having two people lead the course works well – splitting the sessions with different voices and perspectives. Also important is having competent small group leaders who can manage the discussion, and also feed back concisely.
3. Use Bibles
If you are running the course at church then you may have Bibles available but, if not, please encourage people to bring Bibles with them. This is a course that takes the Bible seriously and we want people during the talks and discussions to be engaging deeply with the text.
4. Getting the technical stuff right
The DVD clips are really important – each week the case study brings alive and grounds the issues that are discussed. Remember that technical problems can be a real blow to the atmosphere, so try and organise the TV and DVD player (and projector if you need it) with good time to spare.
5. Engaging people
Obviously selling the course within the church is vital to ensure people come. Why not use the promotional taster video or powerpoint?
Key points that have been important for those churches which have already run the course: • Getting the church leaders behind it.
• Having arresting/provocative notices to advertise the course during the church services.
• One of the interesting things with the course is the way it can be attractive to people who might otherwise be on the fringe of the church or even those who do not come at all. In some of the pilots, the course drew in people from the edge of church for whom these issues were deeply compelling.
Also, some of the people who were best connected into the local community, but hardly noticed in church, suddenly became really important to what the church was trying to do. This has been especially inspiring to see happen.
Warning: this course could change your church!
Churches who have run the adult course most successfully have had the whole leadership behind the course and have seen the course as part of a move to become more outward, rather than inward-focused. They have been prepared to recognise that the course could have major implications on the activities and focus of the church. Many planned their teaching programme around it, including introducing aspects of the teaching either during the course or afterwards. As a result those not participating in the course themselves see it is being taken seriously by the church leadership and those who are doing the course have the teaching reinforced on Sundays.