The second activity of our Go Local journey is to engage in neighbourhood listening walks. Have you noticed a theme yet? If you guessed that our first priority is active listening, both to God and our neighbours, you get a gold star!
In this practice, we want to spend time walking around GNF’s neighbourhood AS WELL AS the neighbourhoods in which we live and work. Below you’ll find a helpful guide for how to do this kind of attentive walking as well as questions for your reflection during and after your walks.
The plan is to set up the big map we have hanging on the wall across from the nursery to post your reflections and observations. Look for a bag of sticky-notes and push-pins for you to indicate where you walked, the day, the time and what you observed.
Listening Walks
A second way we learn to and practice listening on our Go Local journey, is by walking attentively in our neighbourhoods:
a) Around the Church Facility
b) Around our own neighbourhoods
Neighbourhood Listening Walk
Go for a quiet and attentive walk around the neighbourhood. As you do, ponder these questions…
~Who is on the street?
~What are people doing?
~What surprises you?
~What raises your curiosity?
~What creates concerns or questions?
~Is there anything that catches your attention in a way that you want to ask more questions or get more information?
Key Question: What might God be up to in this neighbourhood?
After every walk, do some A(ction) R(eflection) T(heological) Work:
1) What did you learn? [Share answers to questions above.]
2) As you reflect on your responses…
a. What surprises, encourages and/or challenges you?
b. What images, metaphors and words kept coming up?
c. Where is there energy? Anxiety?d.What questions are we asking?
3) What might the Spirit be bringing to our attention?
4) What might we do differently next time?
5) What might be a next step (personal and/or as a church community)?
6) What else?