About This Journal

Using This Journal in Groups
One exciting use of Sustaining Simplicity may be your congregation’s formal or informal small group ministries. Think of how this book’s content—and conversation around it—might benefit the people you know and love. They might be part of a:

• formal small group
• book study group
• Adult forum or Bible class
• Women’s or men’s group
• coffee klatch
• exercise group
• group of friends who eat together regularly
• group of young adults
• parent support group
• congregational team (stewardship, hunger/justice, family life)
• staff team
• sermon preparation group
• family retreat

In those settings and with those people, you might facilitate ongoing conversations that lead to the kind of relationships in which people find the courage to change the way they think and live. Sustaining Simplicity could be helpful for that process to occur.

In those settings, you might:

• Read sections of the book together, talking honestly and openly about your reactions. The Leader Guide for the book can help you in this task, with its variety of discussion/sharing items, action ideas, prayer starters and Bible conversation starters.
• Present sections of the books as dramatized soliloquies, asking the readers or actors to fill in details, imagine themselves as the book’s author, add wisdom from their own lives.
• Move from discussion and sharing to “circles of simplicity”, groups that hold their members accountable to each other, and thereby give courage and support for the sometimes-difficult task of simplifying life.
• Write and share entries from your own journals, with time for reflection, affirmation and support.
• Write and share poetry, essays, letters to your children, Letters to the Editor, e-mails to corporate marketing departments.
• Move from this book towards significant shared actions such as legislative or corporate advocacy, congregational programming, or the funding of financial appeals for hunger ministries.
• Compare and contrast the book’s entries with current events, marketing emphases, congregational or community programs.
• Explore other simplicity Web sites.