Session Two Two Loop Change Theory Wheatley HOSPICING

Session Two

Two Loop Change Theory - Wheatley HOSPICING WAYFINDERS FIX MIDWIFING TIME OF EXPERIMENTATION AND UNCERTAINTY

To move to a different place within congregations, leaders need to disrupt the group to the point that worldviews are reconsidered; behaviors are changed, and the group’s value-focus is redirected.

? ? ? ? ‘What if’ questions ? ?

“A powerful question is ambiguous – in other words, those being asked have to bring their own meaning to the question; it’s personal; and it evokes anxiety. If there is no edge to the question, there is no power. ” - Peter Block, Organizational Consultant

In looking at possibility thinking, asking what if questions, we need to realize each of us have habitual patterns as to how we think, what we assume, what we believe and therefore what we look for.

We need never be in darkness.

We need never wonder about anything.

Pause and ponder: • Where is the sense of wonder stirring in your life as leader? • What sustains or nurtures it? • What depletes it?

Past, present, and future

1. What if COREW agreed to move beyond congregational boundaries and leverage its collective knowledge, resources and contacts in order to create a more humane society? Canada 2. What if all members of our congregations were willing to be personally and collectively accountable? USA

3. What if we were willing to risk personally and communally our finite and precious resources for mission and to truly be prophetic? India 4. What if our pretending and denying that all is well is keeping us from facing our reality? Australia

5. What if we let go of our sponsored ministries and major properties; allocate sufficient funds for the current large elder care group and let the next generation find its own way? Australia 6. What if we intentionally redefine our charism and broaden how we articulate what we mean by it for these times? Korea

7. What if we need to expand our web of relationships beyond religious and mutually collaborate with other agencies or congregations committed to gospel values? USA 8. What if religious life is no longer needed and we are writing our last chapter? Worldwide

What if there are no more religious from our founding congregation willing or able to be a part of our life in another country? Philippines

• Share your ‘what if’ question and those you might be censoring? • As you listen to one another, are you naming the powerful questions of these times? • Do you have the trust and the emotional resiliency to address them?

Large Group Sharing/Dialogue: What is stirring in you as you ponder changing the conversation by asking what if questions?

Embrace being non-dualistic in my thinking, that is, not getting trapped into either/or thinking. Embrace a non-defended stance.

And remember as Maria Ranier Rilke tells us: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ”

Session Two