Life-Giving Wounds

Guidelines for Sharing

The following rules ensure that the small group is a positive, safe atmosphere for everyone.

1.) Confidentiality. All sharing (including by the presenters) should be kept confidential to the program. However, any present suicidal thoughts or abuse situations are the exceptions for confidentiality. Out of a desire to help you, the team leaders may need to discuss these issues with a third-party to assist you or those involved.

2.) Be honest about your feelings and experiences. A key to the success of this small group is to be honest about your feelings. What is most important is not necessarily sharing these feelings with us or any of the participants, but for you to be honest with God about your feelings and thoughts. He can handle them, and He wants to hear them.

3.) Listen respectfully without judging any person’s feelings and thoughts during the small group.

4.) Small groups are for sharing feelings, experiences, and thoughts on the topics and questions at hand. Please refrain from offering advice when people are sharing their experiences (unless they ask for advice) and don’t interrupt. Also, try to stay on topic and allow everyone a chance to speak.

5.) We know that in some cases adult children of divorce themselves divorce and remarry. Feel free to mention it as part of your story, but please do not dwell on this or discuss it in detail in small groups. If you would like, simply talk about the difficulty of maintaining and forming relationships, which is a topic we cover. There are two reasons for this rule. 1) There are other ministries for divorcees, but our ministry’s focus is on healing the wounds from our parents’ divorce. 2) This topic can be a tremendous emotional trigger for adult children of divorce. They may feel inclined to close up and not share their own negative experiences about their parents’ divorce out of fear of offending you. If you feel you have to talk about your personal situation of divorce in more detail, then please seek out one of the team leaders to discuss it one-on-one. We are more than happy to listen to you.

6.) Please DO affirm, relate to, and confirm other people’s experiences with reference to your own. This makes us all feel less alone and helps us to process our own experiences. One caveat to this rule is to please be careful and respectful not to “take over” small group time by dominating the entire conversation with your thoughts and experiences.

7.) Please DO offer encouragement and support. This is an invaluable help, to connect with one another, to be willing to share and to seek support, and again makes us feel less alone.