www.onespiritinterfaith.org
December 1, 2014
OneSpirit IMPACT Open Your Heart | Awaken Your Mind | Offer Them To The World
Measuring Results Last Summer, we asked our graduates about how they were ministering out in the world. What we learned was breathtaking: OneSpirit Ministers spend an average of 18 hours each in monthly volunteer service. This means that over the course of one year, our graduates are giving the equivalent of more than 14,000 workdays of service around the world, making peace, consoling the grieving, feeding the hungry, and helping people navigate life's most challenging transitions through ceremony, counseling, and selfless work.
How Do We Serve? Percentage of graduates who serve in the following ways: Prayer ..................................76% Ceremonies ........................71% Counseling .........................66% Community Service ...........57% Education ............................41% Familial Support .................39% Healing Arts ........................36% Sacred Activism..................26% Congregational ..................23% Chaplaincy .........................20%
Minister is a VERB, Not a Label A OneSpirit education makes such a difference. Through our training programs, students make a commitment to look deeply within, surface old beliefs, challenge perceptions, and open themselves to a new awareness, a new appreciation of life, and a new call to action. Once opened, once awake, once aware of the profound interconnectedness and the sanctity of all life, there is simply no other way to be in the world, but to be of service.
Meeting the 21st Century’s Unprecedented Needs While millions of people around the world are seeking meaning in life outside the boundaries of traditional religious forms (the most rapidly growing group in the United States label themselves as “spiritual but not religious”), we simultaneously have the ability to avail ourselves of ancient wisdom from every culture, tradition, and corner of the Earth. OneSpirit ministers are uniquely qualified to bridge the sacred and secular, and to celebrate both diversity and unity, in service to anyone in need, no matter their worldview or tradition of origin. Over 60% of our graduates minister outside of an organizational structure. These “freelance ministers” hold an important key to humanity’s future.
“Grow spiritually and help others to do so. It is the meaning of life.” — Tolstoy