Dialogue service

 

If you want to participate in rebuilding the wording of Christian faith,  get together for a dialogue with faithful people (former) catholic, protestant, humanist or like-minded.

 

In dialogues one is listening carefully to one-another. One is trying to get a feeling of what somebody else is telling, to discover how a particular story goes with one’s own experience and notions. Appreciative inquiry can become fruitful.

 

 

 

 Issues

 

  ·        Aim of living

 

  ·        Forbearance

 

  ·        Mutual support

 

 ·         Completed life

 

 ·         Autonomy of Conscience 

 

 ·         Love and confidence

 

  .         Idols of charity

 

            Self esteem

 

Four steps

1  Getting acquainted

2  Sharing of experiences

3  Common sense

4  Action

 

At 1 Participants introduce themselves, not professionally but for instance by telling what they think at a pictures of a statement, song or poem.  

 

At 2 Participants share personal experiences with the issue given with the invitation. What is your experience or feeling with the issue 

 

At 3 Participants can freely give utterance to common sense which they discover in the given stories.

 

At 4 Each participant is invited to to explain  in which action the common sense could be used.

 

 

 

 Opportunities

 

Faithful people in dialogue on six seats can create formulas of common sense on moral issues. Later more people may adopt these formulas as a mirror reflecting collective wisdom of the grassroots, common sense of Christians.  

 


Attitude

 

Before starting a dialogue one should know the very difference between dialogue and discussion.  The rules for dialogues are as follows:

 

1. Tell an applicable story from your own perspective and experience without teaching

 

2. Give one another ten minutes to work out a story completely.

 

3. Be really curious about the experiences, thoughts and feelings of each other. Ask only open questions

 

4. Appreciate the story of others, do not judge. Each perspective and everyone's contribution counts.

 

5. Some people will need more time to think about their answers. Allow people search. Allow or that it is silent for a while

 

6. One of the participants should accept the task to watch that every participant gets 10 minutes, that the proper attitude is maintained and that the four steps are taken.

 

 

 

Strategy

 

A few years ago more than 35 cities in the Netherlands experts accepted a dialogue system in order to give citizens a feeling of togetherness and participation. They used Appreciative Inquiry, the study of David Cooperrider . They experienced that ordinary people preferred telling their story only to a very limited number of participants at a meeting of not more than two hours.

Vision of faithful people copied the four steps of their model and adapted it for moral issues. As such it is used by the Dutch group of critically Catholics Mariënburg. It is put available to organizations and individuals who want a voice in establishing the collective wisdom of faithful people, based on evangelical values.