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Passionist Family Group Movement Formation 2010

Feedback from the regions

Some photos from the Palmerston North Diocese Formation Weekend held at Arataki in the Hawkes Bay

Photos from the Auckland Formation Day

Photos from the Hamilton (Bay of Plenty) Formation Day

Out theme this year was:  Celebrating what’s right with the world

In his song ‘Cootamundra Wattle’, Australian singer John Williamson says: ‘Good news never made a paper sell’. As we know, news reports thrive on ‘bad news’. We can find ourselves always looking for what’s wrong with a situation. How often do we complain about the weather? Think about what you say when someone asks you ‘How are you?” Many people reply “Not too bad”. What does this suggest?

Think about the miracles that have enabled you to sleep, to wake, to get out of bed, to have water to shower, o have tthe food you were able to have for breakfast etc etc etc.

What a difference it would make if we focused on ‘what’s right with the world’! Even when we talk a about our PFG, it’s easy to focus on what could be better, instead of rejoicing in what we have, and appreciating that we have all we need to keep our PFG alive and healthy. That’s what we want to focus on today. Every member, whether an appointed leader or not, can positively contribute and affect others.

It helps to stop and give thanks for the things in life for which you are grateful and to catch yourself if you start complaining and say ‘what’s right with this situation?’

On each formation day we spent just a few minutes compiling a list of the qualities we thought Jesus exercised as a leader. It was amazing what a comprehensive list this was each time.

Following this, everyone was engaged in a one-to-one interview, and sought to learn from the other person, about ‘a highlight experience’ when they felt they had exercised leadership well in any environment (not necessarily in a PFG). These interviews were greatly appreciated.
Following the interviews some time was spent extracting the components of leadership that had been effective, and these were shared in small groups as people summarised the story they had shared or heard in their interviews.

When these were written up there was a remarkable similarity to the qualities of leadership that had been used to describe Jesus. Since these had come out of the real and lived experiences of the people in the room, it was reassuring that all the qualities needed for good leadership exist already, and on every formation day the experience was the same.
We then watched an excellent DVD titled “Celebrate What’s Right With the World’ by Dewitt Jones. This can be viewed on:
http://www.trainingabc.com/Celebrate-Whats-Right-With-The-World-p-16229.html

Discussion around the message proved to be very positive and we sharing together about some basic questions such as: What’s right with your world? with your family? with your PFG?

Finally we shared about how we might appreciate the pluses of our PFG? How we might celebrate this? What we need to do to keep it good? And recognizing who can help us to do this.       

The only handout this year is the summaries each regional day made of Jesus’ qualities as a leader, and the groups own list of qualities of leadership they have exercised.