Read this document carefully. It is your simple guide for organizing and will save you many steps as you undertake creating an Interfaith Celebration in your community.
STEP TWO:Review the Table of Contents. It will give you a brief summary of the tools enclosed in your toolkit.
Call a meeting of key people in your church, spiritual community, or organization. These
would include, ministers and executive assistants, program directors, staff, core
volunteers, members. Use your toolkit to prepare handouts and discussion points. Check
out the Religions Resources. The online resources listed are hand-picked to bring you to
the best interfaith resources available as quickly and easily as possible. We have already
done the extensive research for you, so take advantage of this opportunity.
Next Steps: Ask meeting participants to read doc and think about possibilities. Schedule a
brief meeting or conference call to determine if the group wants to go further.
AT THIS POINT: Please check-in with Dr. Barbara Fields (Barbara@agnt.org) at AGNT headquarter office and let us know that your group is exploring further participation. We are here to mentor, guide, provide resources, brainstorm, and optimize your efforts./
Note: If you represent a New Thought church and would like to create a regional event, contact other New Thought ministers within working distance of your center. AGNT will be happy to provide local New Thought contact information if you don't already have it.
STEP FIVE:
Use the Religious Directories as a guide to find and invite representatives from other religions to join your next meeting as a strategic partner. In your letter of invitation, describe the Interfaith Celebration for A Season of Interfaith Celebration in your own words. The Religions Directories in your toolkit will also steer you toward a mailing and contact list to invite the broader multi-faith community to your interfaith events.
Host a meeting at your church, or other agreed upon venue, with your New Thought colleagues and representatives from other religious traditions. If they feel called to invite key members of their communities this is a good sign and should be encouraged.
Make room for everyone to play, and share leadership! Our first task is to model new leadership and collaborative, non-hierarchical principles, including the power of collective wisdom based on spiritual foundations, shared vision, affirmation and empowerment.
Host leaders and members from other local faiths. Begin the meeting by asking if other faith leaders there would share a blessing, prayer or invocation with the group.
Make a basic presentation about the Season of Interfaith Celebration and then create an interactive dialogue.
In preparation for, and throughout the Season of Interfaith Celebration, your group will have the extraordinary opportunity to participate in a global-scale collective prayer and meditation experience hosted by AGNT/SPAN partner organization: Common Passion (see folder 5 on cd rom).
Season for Interfaith Celebration participating groups have been invited to contribute their own recommendations for the collective intention on which the global community will focus during these well-monitored experiences.
In order to arrive at your interfaith group's recommendations, your group leaders and facilitators are encouraged to conduct a meaningful dialogue that asks the question:
What prayer/meditation intention can people share from every faith and wisdom tradition that is most inclusive of diverse ideologies and theologies?
Please see folder 5 on cd rom for document entitled: Dialogue for Creating a Shared Global Intention.
a. The outcomes of these your dialogues should be forwarded via email to SPAN@agnt.org
b. Individuals may engage directly in an online forum for this dialogue at the url: www.commonpassion.org/forum
Go to your local newspaper and television affiliates. Ask them to cover your Interfaith Celebration in articles and stories. Tape events and meetings where respectfully possible. If there is multi-media expertise in your group, edited clips of activities will become increasingly valuable when incorporated into the context of all other Interfaith Celebrations in progress.
DO REPORT your activities on a regular basis. We will use the Interactive Calendar on the AGNT/SPAN website for event posting because it is familiar and easy to use.
1. Have details of your calendar event available for reference
2. Click on link below to go to Calendar of Scheduled Events and Projects
3. Click on the "Add Item" box and fill out the form with your up coming or completed event information. Be sure to fill in all sections as completely as possible, especially "Time", (AM or PM and time zone), and "Location" (with town and state included). Keep the description brief but do include the name of the facility or site and any costs involved.
4. For completed projects or events, briefly describe what happened, how many participated, comments or experiences, etc. that you want to share for the anthology.
5. Comments may be added to your postings after they happen as well. For example you can add a brief summary or comment on the event at the end of the body of text that you posted previously by finding your event date and opening that day on the events calendar. Click on "Modify Item" and scroll to your event. Click on the dot by your event and make changes or additions. When finished, scroll to the bottom and click on "Modify Event". That's it! Please note that what you post to the events calendar will be published in the anthology so remember to identify your organization name and location,(city, state, country).
6. If you will be having ongoing or recurring events, please fill out the "Recurring Events" section as carefully as possible.