Dr. Harry Serio is Pastor at Christ Church in Temple and prior to that he was the Pastor at St John’s UCC in Kutztown. Dr. Serio says the notion of A Spiritual Exploration Project “begins with the recognition that every person is on a spiritual journey …. It will take them in many different directions based upon their culture, ethnicity and people that have influenced them.” Dr. Serio talks about his colorful tenure at St John’s where they encouraged people to give expression to their faith journeys. Consequently there were members who were Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Wiccans and Jewish. We would listen to what they had to say and help them on their journey.
The whole experience led Dr. Serio to the Spiritual Exploration Project. He says “there is a great deal of validity and truth in so many different faith expressions …. The common thread would be one’s own existence and how we came here is the question that people are asking”. Dr. Serio says “the goal of the project is to enhance the spirituality of persons who are looking to express their faith in different ways”.
There are three initiatives in this project which is still evolving. The first is an Interfaith Dialogue to include all faiths and no faiths. An event is planned April 17. Dr. Serio says that, “So many are misguided about the Islamic community … Because of the attacks perpetrated by ISIS they think that Islam is a terroristic religion and that is absolutely not true”. Every religion has its own expression of violence and so the initial presentation will be a community forum on ‘God and Violence’. The hope is gain a better understanding of all faiths
Another initiative is the development a contemplative spiritual community that would also become involved in social justice concerns and social actions. Dr. Serio suggested this community will be modeled after the protocols of the Iona Community of Scotland and become a group that would look in and then also look out. They would go out into the community and do constructive work.
The third initiative is storytelling. “We want to gather stories of people and hear where they come from, what their hopes are, what their dreams are ... What was in their background to bring them to this particular place in time”. Dr. Serio is encouraged by the response to this Spiritual Exploration Project so far and invites you to join the journey.
