We want to make our Wholeness Summer as inviting and complete as possible for our congregation. In addition to our Arizona summer residents, we are reaching out and creating ways for our summer sojourners to participate each week. Below is your guide for participating in reading A Hidden Wholeness and being a part of our 10 week program.
1. A Hidden Wholeness
We recommend that you get a copy of A Hidden Wholeness by Parker J. Palmer. We recommend this most emphatically for our summer sojourners; without the details of the book it will be challenging, but not impossible to participate. Individuals who are able to come to Sunday worship will be led through by our worship leaders through all of the ideas and the journaling.
If you would like one we are able to order a limited number of copies. Please contact the church office, [email protected], requesting we order and send you one.
If you would like one we are able to order a limited number of copies. Please contact the church office, [email protected], requesting we order and send you one.
2. Journaling
Journaling is an essential part of getting the most from Wholeness Summer. As you will be learning, guided journaling is the means to listen to and reflect on your inner voice. Every week, from July 28 to August 30, questions will be taken from A Hidden Wholeness and asked during the worship service to prompt your journaling.
We will have journals to offer to anyone who wishes. If you are on a summer sojourn, we will send you a journal we will at you request, just contact our office, [email protected], and we will send one out to you.
We will have journals to offer to anyone who wishes. If you are on a summer sojourn, we will send you a journal we will at you request, just contact our office, [email protected], and we will send one out to you.
3. Weekly participation
Each week during the worship service a chapter will be introduced, questions will be asked, time for silent journaling offered, and an invitation to share your journal entries extended. We have listed questions corresponding to the chapters and the Sundays on the QUESTIONS page HERE.
If you would like to share something you have journaled and perhaps have it become a part of the corresponding worship service, you can fill out the form on the bottom of the QUESTIONS page HERE. All entries will be forwarded to the designated Sunday Reader and they will correspond with you about what you have offered.
Additionally, the Reader may invite individuals in the worship service to share their journaling voluntarily.
If you would like to share something you have journaled and perhaps have it become a part of the corresponding worship service, you can fill out the form on the bottom of the QUESTIONS page HERE. All entries will be forwarded to the designated Sunday Reader and they will correspond with you about what you have offered.
Additionally, the Reader may invite individuals in the worship service to share their journaling voluntarily.
4. Touchstones
This during worship we will be observing "touchstones," from A Hidden Wholeness study guide. As you progress through the summer, you will come to find that these don't replace our covenants, but enhance and deepen how we have agreed to be together as a congregation.
- Extend and receive welcome.
- Be present as fully as possible.
- What is offered is by invitation, not demand.
- Speak your truth in ways that respect other people’s truth.
- No fixing, no saving, no advising, and no setting each other straight.
- Learn to respond with honest, open questions instead of counsel or corrections.
- When the going gets rough, turn to wonder.
- Attend to your own inner teacher.
- Trust and learn from the silence.
- Observe deep confidentiality.
- Know that it’s possible to leave with whatever it was that you needed when you arrived.