Conscience Studio and our partners work in friendship and cooperation, joining together as a family committed to building peaceful relationships for a safer and better world. We:
- Seek and trust the power of the Living Spirit to guide our individual and collective search for truth in our actions.
- Seek goodness and truth in each person and regard no person as our enemy, joining together to oppose actions or conditions of violence, abuse or neglect and to value all peoples regardless of status, religion, race, age or gender—children, women and men and their contributions.
- Believe in the transforming power of love and nonviolence as a challenge to injustice and violence and as a force for reconciliation.
- Accept that our understandings are incomplete and have faith that new perceptions of truth will continue to be revealed both to us and to others.
- Respect the dignity of each person and as partners agree to bring to each others’ attention any acts considered prejudicial or discriminatory so that we may examine and transform our lives, words and actions in line with our belief.
- Will not take sides in any conflict, knowing that it takes all of us to achieve peace and invite all of us to join together.
- Practice discipline, honesty and integrity in all our dealings, work within the law, and openness in our activities and financial accounting.
- Guard, to the best of our abilities, environmental sustainability for future generations.
- Respect all peoples’ choice of religion, do not proselytize to those we serve, and invite all people to practice universal dictates of faith including community, integrity, simplicity, equality, and peace.
This is a cooperative agreement among us all.
Community Practices |
Personal Practices |
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Meeting for Worship Pray without ceasing; live a sacramental life. Gather into silent. Let go, let your self pass away. Wait for the Spirit to wash over & through you, cleansing. Let the Spirit connect you to each person, plant, animal, air building, land, everything that is. Hold up your life, wounds, queries, concerns to the Spirit. Ask for guidance and revelation for you and the group. Acknowledge simple truths; speak as you are moved. Close in greeting your neighbor & renewing your faith. |
Sacramental Living Wake up to be baptized by the Fire of the Living Spirit. Breathe and feel Spirit fill you and connect you to all. Bathe and feel Spirit cleanse and restore you. Prepare and eat conscious of Spirit’s communion. Be open, let the Living Spirit move through you. Know one another in that which is eternal. Attend to each thing, action and interaction as a ministry. Discard those things and acts that take you out of the Spirit. Be thankful for the day and everything given you this day. Sing and rejoice, ye children of the Creator. |
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Worship Sharing Gather and settle into silence. Read the queries aloud that were prepared beforehand. Share from your personal experience and life. Listen deeply to others; do not respond. Allow silence between speakers. Give everyone a chance to speak before speaking again. Give folks of all ages time and support to share. Settle into silence and close. |
Reflection Queries How have I experienced the Living Spirit in daily life (since the last time I reflected on this)? What do I need in my life to keep me conscious of the Spirit? What do I need to let go of? What is the Spirit revealing to me? For me? For my community? For my society? What truth is working within me to shape and guide my life? What suffering for conscience sake is asked of me? How is truth prospering in my life and circles? |
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Spiritual Friendship In pairs or a group of 3-4 meet regularly for 1-3 hrs. Open with a period of silence. Take turns speaking about your spiritual life dividing the time equally among you (see queries for reflection). Listen deeply and worshipfully; don’t respond. Query or reflect back if the person requests & listen again. Settle into silence and close. |
Healing Take time to feel your wounds— cry, scream, sign, heave, yawn, laugh—physically discard. Share your trials and struggles with others. Ask for a clearness group. Use professional counseling as appropriate. Let go of / lay down that which keeps you from the Spirit. Do not use alcohol, drugs or weapons. Speak directly to those who hurt you; if still unsettled ask a Friend or two to go with you; if still unsettled bring it before the community. |
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Clearness Groups Focus person briefly writes of his or her promptings or concern and gives it to 3-6 spiritual friends. Gather and settle into silence. Read the written statement out loud. Focus person speaks from the silence until finished. Friends hold the person in prayer, ask genuine questions, and listen deeply without responding, advising or judging. Friends reflect back what they heard and listen again. Decide whether to meet again; continue to labor and pray. |
Advices and Testimonies Build spiritual friendships. Be a regular member of a faith community. Be peaceful in all your relationships or let them go. Listen to where things come from and name the source. Speak plainly your sense of the Spirit in things. Be honest and authentic; Let your yea be yea & nay be nay. Keep only what you use regularly or reflects the Spirit. Put personal finances in order; pay debts promptly. Require respect for one’s self, others and all of life. |
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Friendly Scripture Study Gather and settle into silence. Read a passage aloud (selected in advance). Write or reflect on responses to the queries. Share responses giving each person a chance to speak. Settle into silence and close. How is the Spirit revealed in the passage? What is the author’s main point in this passage? What new light do I find in this passage? Is this passage true to my experience of the truth? What are the implications of this passage for my life? What problems to I have with this passage? |
Daily Devotion Be still and know that the Spirit is real and all is well. Read a passage and hold it in silence. Write in your spiritual journal. Take a walk in prayer. Hold yourself, people and the planet before the Spirit. Ask for how to shape and guide your life, for revelation, for truth working within you. Sit with insights to see if they persist in the silence. Challenge yourself to listen to the hard things. Yield. |
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Meeting for Business Identify promptings, concerns, leadings of the Spirit. Draft minutes for group discernment. Gather and settle into the silence. Set aside your self, opinions and desires. Read a draft minute & respond to questions of clarification. Share freely and openly on everyone’s sense of how the Spirit might be moving in the matter. Ask for further silence, floating ideas or sense of the group. In silence, write a minute, read it back and note accord. Close in greeting your neighbor & renewing your faith. |
Test of Discernment The Spirit to tries all opinions & end all controversies. Persistent in the silence, simple, plainly spoken. The cross—not what I would have chosen for myself. Scripture—unchangeable, yet interpreted through our experience of the Living Spirit which is the key. Withstands writing in journals, epistles and minutes. Test informally among spiritual friends. Discernment in the faith community. Experiment and see the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance (Ga5:22) |
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Bearing Witness Live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all war; utterly deny all outward war and strife. Testify to your experience of the Power and Fire of the Spirit and its adversaries. Be changed yourself before setting about changing others. Give up possessions that have the seed of war or injustice. Identify promptings, concerns and leadings in the Spirit and ask for discernment from the faith community. Ask for peaceful and just relations with people & the earth. Recognize and change institutional inequality and injustice. |
Spiritual Journaling Write reflections on spiritual texts. Record messages that come to you. Write epistles on messages that are for more than yourself. Record your experience of the Spirit. Record what the Spirit reveals to you, teaches you. Record how your life is being changed in the Spirit. Share and test your revelations with your faith community. |
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Publishing Our Truth Testify to revelation and acknowledge transgressions in the recorded minutes of the faith community. Test recorded minutes in the broader religious society. Publish in pamphlet or book how one’s life speaks. Shape and abide by law in accordance with the Spirit. Bear witness in court to unconscionable law. Be willing to suffer for conscience sake. Dispatch business promptly to turn one’s attention to communion with others in the Spirit. |
Prepared for Service Be active in your spiritual life. Approach others through friendship and cooperation. Regard no one as an enemy. Oppose conditions and acts of violence, abuse and neglect. Use what you need and pass on the rest. Maintain integrity in dealings and transparency in finances. Accept, with humility, that understandings are incomplete. Call each other to practice principles universal to all faiths: integrity, community, simplicity, equality in diversity, peace, nonviolence, compassionate justice, and reconciliation. |