Living into Wholeness Archives - Friends General Conference

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Grounding

Introduction to the Topic

Introduction

In radical-progressive faith communities, the “Kingdom of God” is often translated as the “Beloved Community,” a concept popularized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This vision of the Beloved Community included not only the redemption of the oppressed but also of the oppressor. Some feel the term, Beloved Community, has been co-opted by majority white faith communities that have not fully embraced the radical notion of agape love, or God's love. So, we've chosen to express this idea as Living into Wholeness.

Scripture

Ground your work in scripture. Quaker faith and practice can be compared and combined with a wide variety of other traditions: such as Buddhism, or ethical humanism. But we will find our deepest and fullest reasonaces with the biblical Christian traditions that nurtured early Friends and with the Jewish traditions that nurtured Jesus.

Friendly Voices

Learn from Friends near and far through video and podcasts. From informational histories to instructional guides, to deep ministry, we can use these media to learn more and build community.

Videos and Podcasts

Learn from Friends near and far through video and podcasts. From informational histories, to instructional guides, to deep ministry, we can use these media to learn more and build community.

Practicing

Experiential Activities

Experiential Activities

Activities like yoga, labyrinths, and mandalas are designed to help focus and calm the mind and body. Explore what happens in your mind and your body when you try simple yoga poses or use a finger labyrinth.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

Noticing Living Wholeness as Beloved Community

Make noticing wholeness a spiritual practice.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

Spiritual Practice: Our Life is Love

For this spiritual practice, you are invited to engage with the writing of an early Quaker using the process of lectio divina.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Living into Action

Agape means understanding, redeeming good will for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Duration: 1 hour
Age Range: High School and Up

Sharing

Conversation Starters

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

Make a collage of images. What do they say altogether?

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

Resisting the Temptation to Polarize

Finding true peace, the peaceable kingdom, involves hard work and a lot of faith. It requires listening – listening with God’s ears as well as our own, so that we might learn from each other and from our differences, so that we might find our way together to unity that exists in God.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Spiritual Language, Spiritual Metaphor

This exercise invites participants to share “wow” moments and better understand each other’s spiritual experiences.

Duration: 1 hour
Age Range: High School and Up

The End Goal

In the late 1950’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr introduced the concept of a “Beloved Community.” The idea was that as humans we are incredibly alike...and different all at the same time; when we learn to embrace difference as both important and good we will truly understand “community.”

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

An Ethic of Love

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote and spoke extensively about Beloved Community and agape love, the love that promotes understanding, nonviolence, and the restoration of community. Let's see what we can learn from Dr. King about co-creating wholeness.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Painting the Bible

Explore the spirituality of art and the art of spirituality.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

Make a “Listening Mural”

Make a “listening mural” where everyone represents in words or imagery what they experience in the silence of worship.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: All Ages

What Does the Lord Require?

What the world needs as much as ever is to hear that still, small voice: a voice that asks us not to fear the fearful; that reminds us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust; and that directs our moral obligation away from ourselves and toward the stranger, the poor, the incarcerated prisoner, and the victims of violence and oppression.

Duration: 45 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

Outsider Experiences

The experience of being either an insider or outsider in a group is a universal human experience. The quotations we share in this exercise are real life experiences of contemporary Quakers -- some affirming and some marginalizing.

Age Range: High School and Up

Move in Our Midst

Stumbling blocks and white supremacy cut us off from God and from each other; these separations offer a false security. For God to move in our midst, we must strike from our feet the fetters that bind, and lift from our lives the weight of our wrong.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

A Framework of Hope

Struggling to find a personal response to these desperate times, this framework, these truths, infused with God’s grace, have helped ground me and have given me hope.

Duration: 30 minutes
Age Range: High School and Up

For Children

Living into Wholeness for Children

Children are delighted by the diversity in our world. Share these books with children to help expand their understanding of community.

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