Relationship to God
To talk about God and faith.
This exercise should be handled in a sensitive manner. Make sure you tell the participants that whatever they share and hear should be done so in confidence.
Hopefully, the participants will discover that they can understand and even connect with people of other faiths in their experiences of their relationship to God. This discovery will connect them on a deeper level.
Required Material: an object from nature, the close environment or the room.
None
The facilitator tells the participants that they have to find an object that represents their own relationship to God. They can either go out into nature or find something in the room.
They may find anything that represents their relationship at the moment e.g a green leaf, that symbolizes the faith and hope one has in God, or a stone that symbolizes the challenging relationship they have. Give them about 15 minutes to find the object and reflect on why they chose it.
Ask them to turn to the person they are sitting next to and share their reflections. Give each participant 5 minutes.
Ask in plenary session if anyone wants to share their reflection. Try to have a dialogue where you ask open questions on why they chose the object, and whether the object would have been different a year ago, etc.
This is also called think – pair – share. First you give them time to reflect alone, then they reflect and discuss together with the person next to them and finally they share in plenary session.
Thank everyone for their participation, remind that what has been shared is confidential and not for discussion and summarize what was learned.
