aligns. He is not only concerned with practical rationality of a person, he aims to answer two questions regarding communal ways of knowing: how are congregations both communities of memory and communities of practical reason? (cf. Browning 1991:3).De Roest and Browning's focus on the collective is also relevant in view of what some facilitative practitioners believe. Hunter, Bailey and Taylor (1995:4), writing in the mid-1990s note that we (i.e. society) are on the forefront of what can be described as a quantum shift in human consciousness. By this they refer to a movement from individual personal development mindedness to group consciousness. They refer to this quantum leap as having been foreshadowed by family therapy, organisational development research and experience gained by living in communities. Practical theological academic preference for a coalescence of approaches and complementarity of methods were key phrases, also, in the 1990s, as noted by Dingemans (1996:91). It says something about the acknowledgement of different perspectives found in the collective. These approaches had taken the form of what Osmer (2011:3) refers to as the reflective equilibrium of the discipline, referring to practical theology's tasks of being descriptive-empirical, interpretive, normative and pragmatic with the relationship between them part of a hermeneutical circle (ed. Osmer & Schweitzer 2003:1-5). One of the seminal works on narrative therapy, also published in the mid-1990s, namely, Narrative therapy. The social construction of preferred realities (1996), by Jill Freedman and Gene Combs, underscores the epistemological importance of social constructionism in the shaping of realities. Kenneth Gergen's landmark book on social constructionism appears late in the 1990s, and saw a revision in 2009. Although many influences informed what would later be known as practitioner facilitation the formalisation of the International Association of Facilitators came about only in 1994 (Hunter et al. 2007:316). By no means least important, one has to keep in mind that South Africa's first democratic election took place in 1994. From the interest in the democratic collective ensued phrases and concepts such as 'It takes a village to raise a child', 'I am because we are', Ubuntu culture, the Batho Pele (people first) principle, and so on.More recently, Debray (2008), mentions his awareness of a backwards swing of the spiritual pendulum in history with the effect of an ancient sense of tribal grouping, 'by the revealed religions according to their natural, territorial inclination.' This, particularly as a consequence of 'spiritually empty economism of our prosperous liberal societies'; 'lack of freely granted civil religion'; 'the lack of agnostic spirituality'; and, 'the lack of credible political and social ethics' (Debray 2008:35). Thoughts regarding some of facilitation's influencesThe 'once upon a time'Group facilitation is said to have a rich history and many influences (Hunter et al. 2007:105). History and different cultures are filled with aspects of facilitation that were used by the wise of their time (Hogan 2005:256). She refers to Shamans, Inca people, Lao-tzu, Socrates, Buddha, Christ, and others (Hogan 2005:256). Doyle (2007:xiii) notes that Alaskan natives report of this kind of role in ancient times. With specific mention to consensus5 - it being a decision-making mode