For the next week I will be on staff at the North East Leadership School affectionately called NELS. This is my last year in a three year rotation of being on staff and I am excited and a bit sad that this is my last year. We hold it on Cape Cod at the Craigville Conference Center. I attended as a participant in August of 2004, and was asked to be on staff that fall. Days start at 7 am with a worship service before breakfast, and sometimes finish as early as 9:30 pm . It is a long and rewarding week. Participants learn leadership skills and they also participant in a Credo group, where they spend a week with a small group exploring their beliefs and composing them to share in this small group. They also are thrown into the task of putting together a worship service to share with their fellow participants. I have been brought to tears more than once during these lay led worship services.
Each year is different and each year is wonderful. There are 2 places that I go to where I detach from the TV and electronic world, Star Island and NELS. Since this is my last year, I will be looking for a replacement to have next summer,
. . . but to not wish this experience away, I am detaching now from this electronic media to travel to the Cape and enagage one last time in an experience where a staff of 8 put together a powerful learning experience for 28 other Unitarian Universalists from the North East and enable them, if they are willing, to return to their congregations, transformed leaders.
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