faith club

I attended the first meeting today of what will likely develop into a "faith club." I borrow that title from the name of a book that describes three women's effort to find understanding between their separate religious identities as a muslim, a christian, and a jew. My group consists of several members of our interfaith council who decided that in addition to meeting to organize community service efforts like our annual CROP Walk, we also wanted a place where we could learn about each other's faith and talk about our various answers to the important issues of theology. In particular we wanted a place where it would be OK to talk about our disagreements and to pose the challenging questions we have for each other.

For our first meeting we read the book recommended to us by one member of our group, an Episcopalian priest who had read the book with a group in her church. Today we also had a Buddhist lay man, and a Jewish lay women. We also hope in future meetings to be joined by a second episcopalian priest, a Reformed Rabbi, and a Mormon lay woman. And we have a contact to a Hindu woman who may be able to join us as well.

I'm very excited about this opportunity. That I already know these people through several years of work on the council will make our initial meetings easier. But I'm looking forward to having conversation with them in a way we never have before.