Interfaith Engagement: Discovering Stories | By Rev. Vicki Garlock, PhD
It all started the day I realized I would need to leave my office. I was serving as the Nurture Coordinator and Curriculum Developer for Jubilee! Community Church in Asheville, NC, and I was tasked with developing an interfaith curriculum for our Sunday School program. I was raised very Christian, attending a Lutheran Grade School (K-8) and a Catholic High school, so I had some form of religious education six days a week from age 5-15. I was pretty sure I knew how to teach kids about the Bible. But, on this particular day, as I sat looking out my office window, I realized I was stuck. I had been immersed, for months, in the sacred texts -- the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur’an, the Rig Veda and Puranas, the Buddhist Dhammapada, and the hymns of the Guru Granth Sahib. Based on what I was reading, I simply could not figure out how the grown-ups from other faith traditions taught the kids in their communities! That’s when I decided it was time to stop reading and start doing. I