Leader’s Guide to the Instructional Reunion

The Instructional Reunion is designed to be held one week after each Kairos Weekend.  The purpose of the Kairos Weekend was to encourage the participants to become part of a Prayer and Share Group, the basic structure underlying the Kairos community.

Those participants who return for the Instructional Reunion are responding to the very deep inherent need to be known, to be wanted, to be needed and to be loved.  Their experience in the short course led them to know those needs can be met in Kairos.  It is our purpose in the Instructional Reunion to teach the residents how to meet those needs for one another in the prison environment.  Though it may be blind to them rationally, they know intuitively that meeting those needs is critical to their healing, to their lives.

This instruction is the bridge between the Kairos Weekend, where they received a broad vision of Christian community, to life in a small family of Christian brothers/sisters which will be their nuclear Christian community known as their Prayer and Share Group.  This group is not an adequate substitute for positive family experience, but it probably is the best and only substitute available to them.  

Be aware that if a prison does not allow the formal environment where participants gather together in a Prayer and Share Group, that the Kairos method allows for an “informal” Prayer and Share “Fellowship” where Participants meet informally on the prison yard or gathering areas and go through the Prayer and Share method.  As the leader of the Instructional Reunion, your speeches allow for structuring the training for either the formal Prayer and Share “Grouping” or the more informal Prayer and Share “Fellowship.”

Prayer and Share Groups will be the vehicle they will use in the Kairos Community to become Christ to one another, to grow in faith, courage and hope as they know, want, need and love one another.

Such participation is an alien and threatening adventure for anyone living in the social milieu of a correctional institution.  To join such a group admits a need for fellowship, for support.  Most of those in prison do not recognize any such need, which in all probability is the blindness which brought them to incarceration.

In prison, it is okay to have such a need, but to express it is a sign of weakness.  Prison populations are made up of takers and the taken from.  The takers are often referred to a the “hawks.”  The hawks sit watching the rest of the population for signs of weakness.  When they spot it, they descend.  If the target person has money, they ask for some of it.  Ot they may seek services… “make my bed,” “seep the floor for me,” “iron my shirt and pants,” or the services they demand may be sexual.  If they are denied, they are usually taken anyway.

During the short course, much witness was given to prepare the participants for participation in these Prayer and Share Groups.  The entire weekend was a bath in the love of God.  This love was expressed by the team and affirmed by expressions of agape on the part of the Church.

The speaker in practically every talk, said something to the effect that “sure, you’re going to get hurt when you become vulnerable, but the man in whose life Jesus Christ is the most important person is not going to be hurt anywhere nearly as badly as the man in whose life he himself is the most important person.

Everything which could contribute to the development of trust in the heart of the resident was done during the short course.  He was seated at the same table throughout the weekend, in the same chair.  He was seated with a team member on one side of him and another participant on the other in order that selective and progressive experiments in vulnerability might be encouraged.

Members of the team who gave talks or meditations shared deeply of their experiences, good and bad, in order to become vulnerable to the entire community.  All of the members of the team became vulnerable to at least one of the residents during the introductory short course.  On Sunday, table families began to share lifelines.

In short, everything which can be done to favorable incline the residents to participation in Prayer and Share Groups has been done.  Most of them, when they left the Closing on Sunday night, were anticipating that fellowship and support with some excitement.  This does not mean that there is not some trepidation.  There certainly is.  That is why it is imperative that the participants be confirmed in their desire to become part of a Prayer and Share Group before their desire is eroded by the environment in which they live.  There is some urgency to schedule the Instructional Reunion as soon after the weekend as possible.

This Instructional Reunion is also designed to confirm the action of those who are already members of a Prayer and Share Group and to encourage those who are not to form a group during this Reunion.

When asking the participants if they are already in a Kairos Prayer and Sharer Group, be certain that it is a Kairos Prayer and Share Group and not just a group of men/women who gather informally to do Bible Study or to pray.  Both of those are essential to our spiritual growth, but they do not take the place of participation in a Kairos Prayer and Sharer Group.

Without this Instructional Reunion, it is estimated that as many as one-half of the participants on a short course may be lost to the possibility of grouping by the time the next 2-Day Retreat is held.

Preparations for the Instructional Reunion
The time allotted for the reunion should be at least 6 hours.  The schedule of activities in Ezra include this time demand.  It should be scheduled on the Saturday following the short course if at all possible.

It should be lead by the Leader of the Kairos Weekend.  Team selection should be done during Team Formation and should be drawn from the Team if possible.  The Team should be composed of persons who have worked a Team in the institution.  If there were 42 participants for the short course, the reunion will require only about 12-15 Team members.

These Team members will be working in the following capacities:

1.	One facilitator for each four participants (10 if 40 participants).  If the participants will form a new Prayer and Share Group from their Weekend Table Family, then there should be at least one facilitator for each group (7 Families).  It is preferable that the facilitators be Team members who served at the Table Families during the short course.  The six, ten-minute talks will be given by speakers from this group of facilitators.
2.	The Leader will direct the Reunion
3.	One person to serve as coordinator.  The coordinator will be responsible for the usual preparatory arrangements with the institution, including supervision of luncheon arrangements and preparation of minimal refreshments.  He/she will also serve as the assistant to the Leader to aid program flow.
4.	Two Team members to serve as Servants/Stewards.  These two could be residents from earlier Kairos Weekends IF they are grouping.
5.	One person as the musician

The Team should arrive at the sally port 45 minutes prior to the opening of the reunion and assemble at the gate in an order as required by the prison (usually alphabetical).

The participants will be those who have just recently completed the Kairos Weekend, so the Chaplain may use the same call out list which was used for that event.  It would be helpful to send a letter to each participant inviting him/her to the Instructional Reunion.  This letter should be prepared prior to the Kairos Weekend so that it can be mailed on the day after the Closing.  It should be stated in the letter that, as in the case of the short course, the agenda is a highly structured one and requires a commitment to attendance throughout the day.

LARGE  name tags should be made for participants, similar to ones used on the short course or 2-Day Retreats.  The names should be written on them with a marker pen in letters large enough to be easily readable from across the room.  The name tags should be strictly utilitarian, not decorated.

If you are not going to organize the Prayer and Share Groupings as the Table Families from the Kairos Weekend, then the name tags should be pre-numbered in 4 sets of numbers, 1 thru 10 and stacked in those sets.  This will break arriving groups  up into different Prayer and Share Groups.  In the event of an odd number of participants in more than one group, move one to another group to form six in one group and four in another.  

Seat participants in groups of four (unless using the Table Families), with a facilitator, in such a manner as to give as much intimacy and privacy as possible to each small group for their discussions as well as to subsequent pairs for their times of sharing with and praying for each other.  Under no circumstances are they to be seated at a table.

If seated in pews, investigate possibility of turning every other pew around, so that you have “pods” in which the participants can face each other within groups.