Training
Guidance For Churches Considering Starting A Sozo Team
Churches and Ministries offering Bethel Sozo, whilst autonomous, have agreed to be accountable to Bethel (i.e those with delegated authority in the UK) for their practice. Both training and mentoring are available and, once teams are ready to launch, one of the regional coordinators, will spend time with the team and observe their practice to ensure they are fully competent to offer this ministry.
How To Get Started?
1. Contact. If you are interested to start a Bethel Sozo ministry in your church and you are not the senior church leader/pastor, then the first step is to talk to your pastor before contacting your nearest Regional Coordinator. If you are a pastor then it is generally worth identifying one or two people who would be interested to lead such a ministry, before contacting the Regional Coordinator. There are regional coordinators in several regions and acting coordinators in others, which you can find near you under the “Find Your Region” section.
2. Personal Sozo. The next step is to book appointments with the Regional Coordinator for the potential team leaders to have sozos, because all those who offer this ministry must first have experienced it for themselves. It also makes sense for the Pastor and maybe their spouse or another of the pastors/leaders to have sozos themselves to confirm ‘first-hand’ that Bethel Sozo is a ministry that they want in their church. We suggest that no more than 4 people have sozos during this step.
3. Initial Training. Get hold of the training DVDs (available via our shop) and begin to go through them as a team, either weekly as a team or individually. Each group is permitted to make up to 10 copies of the DVDs and CDs before purchasing a new set.
4. Training Course. Book on to a Basic Sozo Training course as soon as you can. The leader(s) and as many of your team as possible should attend the training course normally lasting 2 or 3 days. Keep an eye on the events page for dates and venues.
5. Team Training. Contact your Regional Coordinator who will arrange to meet with you to discuss the process and advise you. The main purpose of mentoring is to help you reach the stage where you have a nucleus of people who have both received sozos and have also reached the stage when they can start to lead Sozos themselves. Normally this will take 2 days, arranged to suit your needs. During this time you and your team will be able to observe experienced people who will ‘Sozo’ some of your team members. You will also have the opportunity to sit in on Sozos as observers (thirds), and to gain experience as a second and for one, two or more of you to lead a sozo yourself with an experienced leader sitting in to assist you if needed. At the end of these 2 days the leader(s) and team members who are ready, will be observed leading a sozo themselves. Once you have one or two people who have been cleared to lead sozos, training up the team is in the hands of the local leader(s). Regional Coordinators will continue to be available for advice and support.
During the 2 days mentoring there will also be time for a Q & A session. At the present time it is generally not possible for our mentoring teams to give sozos and mentoring to all of your team over 2 days.
In a sozo session, there are always 2 people; one who leads the sozo and the other who seconds. Seconds are there to pray, hear from God and support the one who is leading. During training new team members will sit in as a third, with the permission of the sozoee, before they progress to seconding and eventually, once confident and competent, will be able to lead a session themselves as a first.
This very brief overview of the process gives you some idea of what to expect. More detailed information is available from your Regional Coordinator.
How To Receive Advanced Sozo Training?
The Sozo team from Bethel Church strongly recommend that people do not progress to the Advanced Sozo training until they have 6 months experience using the basic tools. Once this has taken place, you and your team may buy the Advanced Sozo Training CD or DVD to go through as a team and then book in to an Advanced Sozo Training course to further your experience in Bethel Sozo ministry.
