SYIS (sharpening your interpersonal skills) is a five day seminar that many missions sending agencies require of their new missionary appointees. Its aim is expressed in its title. We focused on highly practical relational skills and issues like: building community, building trust, conflict management, confronting / being confronted, drawing people out, encouragement, grief, helping others solve problems, listening, margin, moral purity, relationship killers, and stress management.
16 participants joined with 3 facilitators in a five day journey together. We made it through a 160 page workbook in 18 90 minute sessions. We shared life together during this training. Some instruction, but mostly some well done facilitation. Highly interactive. Creative. Some role playing. Some personal reflection.
For me, not a lot of new content. But some excellent reminders. Reminders that I needed. And I have little doubt will need again. It would have been nice to spread this training out over a longer period of time. It was pretty intense and hard to attempt to take it all in. Like trying to drink out of a fire hose.
I appreciated the fact that we had a “snapshots” page at the back of our workbook where we each faithfully recorded 1-3 high level takeaways at the end of each session. I wouldn’t have remembered much of what we covered without that helpful tool. Our final session together attempted to pull everything together and helped us focus on identifying a few high level takeaways from the week together. Lots of relevant applications, but the three I focused on were:
1) The relationship is almost always more important than the issue.
2) Some practical steps to take to become a better listener.
3) Some practical steps to take in managing conflict well.
For me the two contexts that would most benefit from forward progress with these issues are my family and my team with Pioneers.
I would welcome your prayers that I do a great job of reviewing and seeking to integrate into my life what the Holy Spirit laid on my heart through this continuing education experience.
