We held the fourth Vision Enablers Training Event on October 14-16, 2002. We trained twenty-four Vision Enablers at St. Columba Episcopal Retreat Center. The event was well attended and well led with our original leadership in attendance. There were 13 presbyteries represented among the participants.

In addition to the regular curriculum of group process, prayer and meditation, worship, Bible study and basics in discernment, we added several "testimonials." Fran Vickers talked about the discernment process at her church, Poplar Grove Church in Halls, Tennessee. Lisa Anderson spoke about her experience in leading the Cumberland Presbyterian Children's Home board through the discernment process. Both conveyed the process and the actions of the Holy Spirit in their time.

We also used the video "Everyday Creativity" as a teaching tool to begin a discussion about the importance of being in the right place for creativity to happen and how these suggestions can be translated to the discernment process.

Participants were still prepared for working with discernment task forces through each Vision Enabler participating in a small group to role-play scenarios throughout the event. This fostered a special bond for many of the Vision Enablers while equipping them with valuable skills.

The leadership for the event included Davis Gray and Roger Ricketts with discernment how-tos, Fran Vickers and Frank Ward with group process, Margaret McKee with prayer and meditation, Lisa Anderson and Nancy McSpadden with worship, and Elinor Swindle Brown with the brass tacks of the TOUCH THE FUTURE process.

Page updated on April 19, 2005