Participative Approaches for Ecumenical Conversations

If participation is to help us with our ecumenical conversations, it must move us to a lived vision of ecumenism.  We must understand participation to take place both within formal settings and outside of them.  I think conversations in formal settings (by which I mean any event planned for conversations to take place; don't confuse this with formal talks) are important and indeed the lifeblood of ecumenism.  Without these conversations, we are likely to lose focus.  But outside of those formal settings, there is still a need for conversations and the use of participative methods.

So, what I want to do is offer some understanding of the scope of participatory methods. 

1. Good facilitation skills can enhance participation in almost any meeting.  Of course, it is not necessary to use participative methods at absolutely every meeting.  Good facilitation identifies the most appropriate participative methods to use.    But developing a culture of participation can help almost any sort of meeting to be more participative.  I have seen both more or less participative PowerPoint presentations, for example.  Sometimes, it is a question of checking out basics such as the layout of the room. 
2. There are a number of participative approaches to conferences.  The ones I am most familiar with are Open Space Technology and World Cafe.
3. Social research can be conducted through participative approaches.  The best known approach is Participatory Appraisal.
4. Community development requires participatory approaches and almost any of the methods listed here can be used.  A good example of a method that has grown up to this purpose is Citizens' Organising.
5. Finally, consultancy can be conducted in more or less participatory ways.  A good example of George Lovell's non-directive approach to consultancy.
6. Finally, the big change over recent years, has been the growth of Web2 applications.  One reason formal talks have dominated ecumenism, has been the difficulty bringing together the results of talks at more local levels.  At present, the internet is not used in any formal way even to bring formal talks at the centre to the attention of local churches.  This will change as the churches learn how to pool insights from all levels, reported through blogs and networking sites.

Over the next few weeks I shall visit each of these methods in more detail.