The purpose of team formation meetings is to build a spiritual community and become the Body of Christ in order to minister to the participants attending any Kairos Weekend. Notice that that they aren’t ‘team meetings’ but ‘team formation meetings.’  The goal for all three Programs is to take a team and form a family out of the people. The people are never the same on any two Kairos Weekends; it is different with just one new member! There must be new members, veterans doing different jobs, and there will be different leadership each Weekend, no matter if it is Kairos Inside, Kairos Outside or Kairos Torch. 

Regardless of how many meetings are planned, the total amount of time spent together must be between 34-36 hours. Scott Peck, in A Different Drum, says that you can’t purchase community cheaply. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time. It takes sharing and it takes vulnerability. Kairos has the theme of one team formation meeting vulnerability for this purpose. Kairos has found this to be absolutely true for the success of the Kairos Weekend – the vulnerable speakers have a huge impact on everyone listening. This is also the same way a team bonds – via time and vulnerability. Peck talks about four stages to work through, similar to in Kairos we know the four stages of Group Dynamics must be worked through to form a team. Team members who do not attend the meetings find it difficult to feel a part of the community. Once team formation starts, any change in the dynamics of the structure slows the formation of the community. Those who attend sporadically not only hurt their own absorption into the community, but they handicap everyone else’s progress.

The Weekend Leader is responsible for providing team meetings that are interesting, informative, and spiritually enriching. The Kairos Leader’s greatest challenge is forming the team into a spiritually unified body prepared for their assigned positions and talks in a way that both new, as well as veteran team members find interesting. This can be quite a challenge. (Kairos Inside Program Manual pp.100-106).

There is a lot of logistical and spiritual training that must occur which fills those 34-36 hours. Excellent training would eliminate many of the issues that occur during a Kairos Weekend. At AKT attendees are asked to remember their early Kairos memories and if they felt trained well for the job they had been assigned. Most people say no.

For example:

• People need to know the prison system regulations for religious volunteers and any changes.
• They need to know the Kairos method and that we are here to build community inside the facilities.
• The team needs to know who is doing what job (and to stay in their lanes).
• The team needs to understand the importance of Agape and be encouraged to individually obtain as much as possible.  This training should not be just reading the form that EZRA provides.
• They need to know the Weekend Schedule and daily themes and purposes of each day.
• They need to know and be trained on their specific job responsibilities (very important and not always done well to make the team comfortable and confident in their job).
• The team members need to know those people well who they will be working closely with – Family members, the music team and the servant team are examples.
• The team needs to know how to train and create expectations for the Kairos Graduates serving.
• They need to practice all the talks and meditations to provide feedback and give reassurance to speakers who are often nervous.
• The team needs to understand anonymous servanthood.
• The team needs to practice listen, listen, love, love with each other.
• The team needs to be prepared and practice several events that happen during the Kairos Weekend.
• The team needs to be fully knowledgeable about Kairos Outside and know how to get a loved one to attend to speak to the participants.
• The team needs to deeply understand the importance of the Continuing Ministry of Kairos.
• The team needs to understand the process of Group Dynamics driving the Kairos Weekend- especially the importance of the step of Inclusion on the first day.
• The team should be trained on pages 112-114 of the Kairos Inside Program Manual.

Probably the most important thing is that the team needs to have enough time to work on Spiritual Preparation to be emptied of themselves, to be vulnerable with each other, to pray and develop a care and concern for each other. Why? To know and be filled with the love of Jesus- in order to give it away. This should be a main focus of each team formation meeting and take a fair amount of time- not just tacked on the end of a meeting.

The Kairos Leader is responsible for ensuring that the team is transformed from a group of individual Christians into the spiritually unified Body of Christ. Team members should come with a desire to do the work of God, and they just need the Weekend Leader’s guiding hand to give them spiritual direction.