Depending on where you’re from, the idea of creating a safe room may seem like a non-issue.

Depending on where people in your group come from, creating safety may be Job One.

Maybe it’s just over here where we live, but we’ve noticed a lot of power issues around religion and spirituality. A lot of folks feel overwhelmed by people who throw their weight around and, by all appearances, a lot of those people are happy enough to leave it that way.

Group Learning never thrives in an atmosphere where some people feel inferior because they believe others are smarter, stronger or faster than them.

If you want a healthy learning group, take responsibility for creating a safe room.

• Don’t ask questions you’re not willing to answer. Which is not to say, “keep it shallow to keep it safe.” Quite the opposite. If a question carries much emotional freight, you should go first (at least until your group really gets going).

  Going first establishes that you’re not better than anybody else and it suggest the depth you expect in the conversation. If the question is, “Tell us something you lacked as a child,” let your answer go deeper than “I always wanted a BMW.” Model the depth you want to encourage. For example (this is a response from the writer Jim Hancock):

  I lacked a sense of emotional safety when I was child. My father was absent a lot. When he was home, he was pretty distant. When he wasn’t distant, he was mostly angry. My parents fought a lot and I hid out in the back yard or escaped to the bathroom with a book.

  That answer says, I’m ready to tell truth at an emotional and behavioral level. Could it go deeper than that? Sure. But probably not without hijacking the proceedings (assuming the proceedings are dedicated to the meaning of work and not to group therapy).

• Be real. Don’t make things sound better or worse or other than they truly are. Don’t withhold the nature of your weakness and failure (but spare us the gory details if you can). Describe your motives without making excuses.
• Make room for silence. Silence may mean everybody’s confused. Silence may mean everybody’s asleep. Silence may mean everybody’s gone. Silence may mean everybody’s thinking. Silence may mean everyone is listening for God. The only way to find out what silence means is to ask. People pretty much always tell. Then you can decide what to do next.

  Whatever you do, don’t distract people from thinking or listening to God. You might think that would go without saying…

• Respect privacy. Agree to maintain each other’s privacy by not repeating what you hear in the group—not even as a prayer request.
• Don’t compete. No one-upmanship, no bragging, no embellishment, no interrupting, no conversations on the side while someone else it talking.

  Listen more than you talk. Respect as you wish to be respected.

• Seek first to understand, not to judge or fix people. Transformation is God’s business. The more honest we are with each other, the more weakness and wrongdoing we’ll discover. In 99 cases out of 100, that doesn’t amount to a deal breaker. If you think you’re looking at the hundredth case, call us and we’ll try to help you walk through it.