No. 38 Welcoming the Stranger

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Bob Zeeb)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

I have argued that the church, picturing itself as a close and warm family, tends to suppress conflict, depriving its members of a vital lesson in public life. That same familial image undermines the public life in another way – by excluding the stranger from its midst. If the church is to serve as a school of the spirit, and as a bridge between the private and the public realms, it must find ways of extending hospitality to the stranger. I do not mean coffee hours designed to recruit new members for the church, for these are aimed at making the stranger “one of us.” The essence of hospitality – and of the public life – is that we let our differences, our mutual strangeness, be as they are, while still acknowledging the unity that lies beneath them.
- Parker J. Palmer

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
There are times in our lives when we are open to the stranger, when we see the connections between all of us and feel secure enough to welcome the stranger into our lives. At other times we simply are not secure enough, we can not welcome, can not even let the stranger be. These are times when our need for belonging, our thirst for the familiar, lead us to spurn the stranger. It happens to all of us. Talk about a time when you could not or did not welcome the stranger, and another time when you did.

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

Mark 3: Verses 28-35

28 Verily I say unto you, . . .
31 There came then his brethern and mother, and standing without sent unto him, calling him.
32 And the multitude sat about him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek thee.
33. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother? Or my brethern?
34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.