Praise the living God

My review

Once we master the art of observation and note few things like, verbs,nouns,pronouns,and underline them it will be easy to understand text.

Praise the living God

My review

According to my understanding reading paragraphs requires one to have the art of observation in order to grasp the meaning of a biblical passage.

In order to understand a word or verse you need to first read it in its immediate context and setting within a paragraph.

SENTENCES

In reading sentences there things to note such as,repetition of words,contrasts comparisons,comparisons,cause and effect,lists,figures of speech,conjunctions,verbs,pronouns.

My review

Praise the Lord I have learnt that Preunderstanding is the body of assumptions and attitudes which a person brings to the perception and interpretation of reality.

What we are surrounded by,influences our interpretation of the text.

Preunderstanding can mislead.so the only way is to put aside our ideas and experiences and allow the text to speak to us.

i LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MODULE, IT WAS AN EYE OPENER FOR MINISTRY,WORKPLACE AND FAMILY.

The dynamics of a team advanced by our instructors are down to earth and practical guides to having effective team operation. Our instructors spiced up the course with practical examples and I also note that these mirror the operation of our teams on the ground and the solutions advanced would help our teams be more effective and help us fulfil our church and ministry objectives better and this also applies to other organisations. Our instructors have taken an objective view rather than the view usually taken by our churches by only emphasizing on strengths and sometimes completely ignoring our weaknesses thus losing the chance to learn from our mistakes and shortfalls,and also losing the opportunities to learn an unedited review of the working of our teams. The details of the dynamics of a team as narrated by our instructors are explained in the paragraphs below.

You need to be prepared for conflicts as long as you deal with people. Conflict is not bad but is sometimes beneficial can build teams but depends on how you handle it. If handled poorly the relationships may be permanently damaged but if handled properly it can develop an individual and the team. Conflict can build trust, can teach us to think for yourself, it can enhance creativity and innovation, help the team use the best of everyone and can assist build truly strong relationships. Conflicts may be caused accidently sometimes where one is misunderstood in what he says or does or in crossing boundaries/rules.These are easy to resolve. Sometimes conflict however is caused intentionally may be easy to resolve if one is merely stating known boundaries/rules and does so without malice but where it is intentional with malice it may be difficult to resolve and very damaging. Conflict can also emanate from bad character of a person who is say ungodly, unloving,seeking power/influence, manipulator,and a control freak. We should be careful to practice pure theology and not by doing sin and hiding under the cloak of grace. Task related conflict can be healthy but relationship based conflict can be damaging. Other people are bent on deliberately causing conflict and damage for such resolution is usually not possible.Generally we should not be afraid to address bad behaviour if it arises in our teams. It is also very important to note that crossing boundaries sexually starts with non sexual seemingly innocent boundary crossing and it can be nipped in the bud by building a culture of not crossing boundaries/rules at all.

2016 conflict research conducted using representative community function sample of different types of people in Spain using Game theory without a prior model found that there are five different types of people; where 30% of the population represented the Envious, 20% represented the Optimists,20% represented Pessimists,20% represented the Trusting and the remaining 10% were Undefined thus in a team you are bound to have such different personalities.For the envious result does not matter so long as they choose an option where they are better than others while optimists believe every body will make the best decision for all.Pessimists on the other hand select an option that is the lesser of two evils while the Trusting will collaborate regardless whether they win or lose. No further research was done on the Undecided group we can only speculate that they may exhibit mixed traits from all or some of the four other different groups mentioned.These findings conflicted with the view put forward by rationalist theory that people act from thinking and reason, and will choose best option in competitive scenario though best is also relative to ones perception. At the conclusion of the video the presenter encourage us to find out where we belong among the five groups and also find out where our team members belong,and know that decisions may not always be made based on rationality as evidenced from the research.Members of our teams will often choose options or make decisions that we would not because we have different personalities,experiences,backgrounds,motivations and assumptions. We should approach conflict by having it at the back of our mind that people will not always make rational decision. In general other things may motivate our responses to conflict, say our ego, another factor would be world views i.e. optimist or pessimist and behaviours or traits i.e.trusting or undecided.

In having an awareness of personality types you will be positioned to know why people act the way they act and adapt to other personalities other than your own.Stress can be both the cause and can also emanate from conflict.Under stress our weaknesses come out. During periods of stress and conflict everyone will revert to their natural personality styles of behaviour (as per DISC). The “D” personality will revert to forcing, the “I” personality will revert to persuasion, the “S” personalities will seek support and present their case and the “C” personality will provide adequate information to support their cause. It should be noted that in most cases not any of these views may be wholly right for instance the “S” may provide inadequate or even biased information, or the “I”may resort to persuasion while all that is needed is for an individual to accept his mistake and apologise. Each type of personality controls and conflicts in its own way thus the need to know our personality and the personality of others. We should also note that even our strengths taken to extremes may be detrimental.

In 1983 Rahim synthesised earlier christian works and discarded non relevant material on conflict styles to come up with his model.Two axes on Rahim’s Model are concern for self and concern for others where dominating displays high concern for self and low concern for others; obliging has high concern for others and low concern for self;avoiding displays low concern for self and others;while integrating displays high concern for self and high concern for other. The four conflict outcome preferences are Win – lose (Active Aggressive), Lose – win (Passive Yielding),Lose – lose (Compromise) and Win – win/No deal put forward by Convey in 7 habits. Reflect on what you think your conflict styles are and what are your growth areas.

If one on one resolution doesn’t work you seek assistance of a neutral and objective witness and if this fails you may go for mediation. One of the reasons given for conflicts continuing was that people won’t take responsibility for their own actions.

Respect your functional and relational boundaries and your teams will work much better and you will also avoid compromising your Christian values and purity.Three important ingredients to ensure functional boundaries within our teams are clear responsibility,authority and accountability.Crossing boundaries significantly damage trust in a team and bullying,exclusion and sexual harassment are examples of crossing personal boundaries.

When addressing bad behaviour of a team member we were advise to address the behaviour one on one, address specific behaviour related to specific situations and when addressing the behaviour avoid shaming.Grant advises us to handle difficult people by getting to know them better outside the task/function.As leaders, when dealing with difficult people, we should look for opportunities to engage the difficult person within the team. To do this it is important that we remember that everybody brings something relevant though not always in appropriate manner and that everybody bring something relevant not always relevant to that moment.

Team leader would intentionally focus on sharing information, working against site based groups or divisions and encourage empathetic communication to avoid potential disadvantages associated with virtual teams. The presenter described virtual teamwork as allowing people to work together even if separated by time zones or location. The disadvantages identified for individuals in working in virtual teams are isolation, decreased interpersonal contact with team members, conflicts. If managed properly virtual team can be a powerful force for us corroborate and achieve our team objectives.

Teams members can be more effective concerning group pressure to conform by better respecting the team dynamics when helpful and identifying when it is not helpful.Take time to reflect. Good communication and organisation help group pressure working to effect good change or lifting up ones performance. Benefits where trust is established in the team are there are more positive pressure to conform, you are less defensive and you are focused more on goals of the team than self.

If the team is given an unethical request a team would tell the authorities why they think what they were advised to do is unethical and offer an alternative solution. Grant identified that the breaching of confidence within a team will cause a breach of trust between those directly involved and also create trust issues amongst team members.

We can lift the level of creativity in our teams by raising our focus on purpose/vision, ,displaying commitment to excellence of end product/goal, nurture safe environment,create space and time, value difference and diversity, have demarcated responsibilities and implementation plans.Andrew used an illustration of collaboration from a leading Melbourne restaurant. Chin Chins collaborative process was to refine the product, maximising customer popularity to illustrate that it is important for us who serve God and want to see God’s best intentions realised to bring resources together by corroborating so that we have an excellent end product.Creativity is the coming up with new ideas and innovation is turning the new ideas into reality.

We need to continually reflect on our team experiences and adjust to changing circumstances for our teams to learn from the experiences and grow. Reflexivity can be on tasks or on social issues. Social reflexivity refers to how a team is relating to each other as a team; how conflicts are resolved;how team members are supported;social state and condition of teams.Task reflexivity involves review the relevance of team objectives, reviewing progress towards team objectives and identifying potential challenges to team objectives. West expounded better by dividing reflexivity in high task reflexivity,low task reflexivity, high social reflexivity and low social reflexivity where a resilient team is high task and high social oriented characterised by high task effectiveness, high team well being and cooperation, creativity and long term viability; a complacent team exhibits high social reflexivity and low task reflexivity characterised by poor task effectiveness,average team well being,short term viability,low innovation and moderate inter-team conflict; a dysfunction team has low task reflexivity and also low social reflexivity is characterised by poor task effectiveness, poor member well being,low viability, high member conflict and low innovation; a driven team has high task reflexivity and low social reflexivity and exhibits high short term task effectiveness, poor team member well being, moderate innovation,short term viability and high inter team conflict.

There is a strong link between encouragement and commitment when it is done genuinely and frequently. Encourage by rewarding Christian character, personal development,positive attitudes,loyalty,decisive action,wise risk taking and creativity in our churches,ministries and even other organisations. Encouragement sometimes also depends on culture well crafted ‘insults’ can be a means of encouragement using jokes it works in high trust relationship may problematic in low trust relationships and across cultures. We however have to look out that though people are encouraged by both negative and positive encouragement too much negative encouragement may be a demoraliser and overdoing positive ungenuine encouragement may also become a demotivator.

The lessons learnt if applied to our teams be it in our churches or ministries even other organisations would make teams to deliver the desired result and avoid or resolve a lot of problems that have beset or destroyed the effectiveness of our teams. This will help revamp the working of our teams in my church, in ministries and even our day to day team works. Our instructors have unpacked a wealth of advice to make us realise the potential of our teams and to make us as individuals to be an effective part of a team.

I found the course to be extremely interesting overall. Each lecturer played a significant role in its success.