Our Events
We have a variety of different events that we can bring to you in listening, healing, and reconciliation. For more information on each of these events take a look below.
Listening
Acorn Listening Pathway
We live in a busy world. Social media screams headlines and conversations extend to the length of a tweet or the time it takes to drink a cappuccino. We tire quickly, and long for space to breathe, talk, be heard. Acorn’s Listening Pathway responds to this longing because listening is a vital part of the healing process.
For more information and to book click here.
Module 1: Effective Listening Practice (ELP)
Module 1 provides an opportunity to identify bad listening and learn what good listening entails. You will learn an effective and safe method of listening that will enhance your ability to bring healing and wholeness into the lives of those around you. As part of the course, in pairs, you will have two opportunities to speak (and then listen) for up to five minutes.
Through attending this event you will:
- understand the value and impact of good listening
- identify what stops you from listening well
- discover the importance of feelings and grow in your capacity to listen to feelings.
- consider non-verbal communication and the impact of technology
- recognise the difference between sympathy and empathy
- practise active reflective listening skills.
Module 2: Applied Listening Practice (ALP)
Building on the previous training, module 2 will enable you to apply active listening in the context of your professional or personal life or ministry. As part of the course, in pairs, you will have two opportunities to speak (and then listen), one for five minutes and another for up to twenty minutes.
At this event, you will:·
- discover more about listening in context
- be introduced to the Acorn conceptual framework
- understand further non-verbal communication
- reflect upon listening as ministry
- learn and understand Acorn’s full listening model
- reflect on how you react to emotions and silence
- develop and practise your new listening skills
Module 3: Professional Volunteer Listening (PVL)
Module 3, the final event in our listening pathway, will prepare you to listen in formal situations, in a professional, safe way. During the course there will be times of self-reflection, short discussions in small groups and practical listening sessions. You will also be allocated to a group of three people and will have two opportunities to speak (and then listen) for up to twenty minutes and one opportunity to observe the listening process.
Through listening to ‘our whole selves’, listening to others, and observing other listeners, you will:
- ·increase your awareness of feelings and reflect on your own emotional wellbeing (personal reflection, not shared with others!)
- ·recognise that listening to yourself is an essential part of healing and wholeness
- ·consider the elements involved in developing a listening relationship in a formal setting
- recognise limits of competence and discuss when to signpost
- ·be enabled to listen better to others by practising the mirroring method of listening
Programme for the event:
- Listening to 'our whole selves': Entering our inner world / Examining wholeness / Exorcising the past / Exploring our emotions
- Listening to others: A professional approach / A practical approach / A pragmatic approach
- Listening to the listeners: Observing the listening process
healing
Acorn teaches prayer ministry in the context of healing and wholeness, ministering to the whole person, body, mind and spirit. We have various events at which you can explore and learn about this opportunity to serve others.
School of Healing
Our School of Healing events run monthly on a Saturday morning on Zoom Webinar. Through worship, learning, discussion and debate, you will explore the Christian healing ministry and consider a diverse range of subjects.
As the School of Healing enters its 5th year - can you believe it! - we have given it a new look and a fresh approach.
This year, based around the first year syllabus we are going back to basics to renew our connection with the ministry of Jesus. As well as picking up a theme fundamental to the practice of Christian Healing, we will be adding some insights from the lives of those we looked at in the second year syllabus to ground the teaching.
As well as all that, there will an opportunity for a 15 minute appointment for personal prayer for healing, and no Acorn ministry training event would be complete without an 'And now!' To htlp you take your learning further.
We look forward to having you with us whether this will be your first steps or you want to go even deeper in the Healing Ministry of Jesus.
Prayer Ministry Training
This event will provide you with a clear conceptual framework for the development and practice of a competent and compassionate prayer ministry in a church or community setting. It examines the biblical foundations and establishes a clear understanding of personal and ministry boundaries by assessing realistic ministry scenarios.
You will:
- Explore the theology of prayer ministry: the nature of God, prayer, faith, and the Kingdom of God.
- Relate the gifts of the Holy Spirit to practical ministry settings
- Learn the importance of building a prayer ministry that is respectful, inclusive, holistic and team based.
- Consider guidelines covering safety, relationships, confidentiality, respect and responsibility.
- Discuss ministry scenarios and identify relevant areas for prayer intervention.
- Minister in prayer using the Acorn prayer pattern: interview, prayer, assessment and follow up.
Finding a New Vocabulary in Prayer
Prayer is part of the very fabric of a disciple’s life, but far from being a formula, it is a living relationship which has all the hallmarks of interaction and responsiveness. We can find prayer difficult - not knowing what to say - or so easy that it trips off the tongue almost too easily and just out of habit.
During this event we will meet together to rediscover prayer as communion with God and also a new vocabulary to help us pray. We will also be looking at 'what on earth am I doing' when I pray for others! And remember…’He who sings, prays twice…!'
Healthy on The Inside
Life, people, and circumstance can wound us and leave us broken, or bitter or bereft of hope and so removing the ‘thorns’ that have wounded us, is key to finding health on the inside.
In a safe and sacred space, we can allow God’s healing grace to touch our hurtful memories and damaged emotions, and find a freer path for our feet.
Ps 36:5 encourages us with the words...'Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies...'
Mind Matters: to God
In his wisdom God made us in his image. It meant that we would have the capacity to think, feel, act and will like God himself could.
Part of this was that our minds would serve as agents of his kingdom and his grace.
No wonder then the mind is an intense battleground over which many an internal conflict rages.
So how do we find health for our minds, how do find healing when things are out of joint and how do we live with the mind of Christ within us, because Mind Matters: to God
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Grief and Loss: a Journey of Hope (revised for current situation with COVID-19)
We have all felt and continue to feel the impact of loss and sorrow due to the outbreak of coronavirus.
In addition to the 'life losses' we might expect to encounter we have faced new challenges and new losses - the absence of human contact and touch, the loss of the ability to come and go, the loss of the joy of gathering with other disciples.
We will meet together to share our common journey, through searching out the pathway God has made for us as we encounter grief and loss. He is after all 'the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort (2 Cor 1:3) and he knows they journey we take.
Do Not be Anxious
We will explore the phrase Do not be anxious that comes throughout the Bible and specifically from the lips of Jesus.
It is an invitation to find a secure place in God in times that are less than easy and in moments where we feel vulnerable.
So do come and join us in opening up a subject that may well save your sanity and help you find a rock 'in a hard place'.
Growing a Healing Ministry (downloadable resource)
‘Growing a Healing Ministry’ is a great resource for following on from a Prayer Ministry Training event. It has been produced by Acorn to help Christians learn about the healing ministry and to apply what they learn in and through their local church. It is designed as an interactive course for large or small church groups, and assumes no prior knowledge of, or experience in, Christian healing. It can however also be used as a refresher training course, and leaders or groups may wish to adopt the material to suit their circumstances. Each session builds on the one before, so it is desirable that group members be committed to the whole course.
Reconciliation
Reconciliation is not just about finding solutions to conflict, but learning how relationships, impacted by conflict, can be healed. Understanding how conflict starts and ends is essential for healthy, life-giving relationships.
Reconciliation: Transforming Conflict
Many Christians regard conflict as intrinsically unspiritual and to be avoided at all costs – with the result we either hide from it or handle it badly. This event will explore the process by which individuals and church communities can understand what is happening in times of conflict, directing them to the appropriate, biblical mechanisms of handling ‘difference’ before it becomes destructive. You will be provided with a biblical and theoretical framework for engaging with conflict and suggested approaches to transform the relationships involved.
If you would like us to bring any of our events to your church or community, or would like further information, please contact us and we'll be happy to help.