3Practices
A tool for exploring the difference divide between us and others who hold diverse perspectives
What is a 3Practice Circle?
The Next Generation Leadership Initiative invites you to explore 3Practice Circles. The purpose of 3Practice Circles is to help us gain clarity and understanding about our differences. We use the 3Practices to explore the difference divide between us and others who hold diverse perspectives. It is a tool for open, honest dialogue that offers space to learn from each other’s lived experiences.
What are the 3 practices?
A 3Practice Circle is not a discussion or debate. It’s a workout designed to prepare us for real-life encounters at home, school, church, and work. This workout applies three practices that help us to exercise and strengthen emotional muscles that are underdeveloped or atrophied.
I'll be unusually interested in others.
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Philippians 2:3
I'll stay in the room with difference.
“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
Romans 14: 1-4
I won't compare my best with your worst.
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
Matthew 7: 1-2
We don’t often change the minds of our ideological opponents in a 3Practice Circle, but we frequently influence people, giving them a chance to hear why we may think differently. From there — equipped with greater clarity and understanding — they can continue to wrestle with the chosen topics, alone, with others, and with God. Read on to see the 3Practices and watch the 2-minute video to see how it works!
The Next Generation Leadership Initiative is invested in raising leaders for the next generation of the ACNA who exemplify these three practices. We believe strengthening these muscles will be integral to navigating our context and culture over the next decade and beyond.
For More Information
More information on 3Practices and those who created it, visit the 3Practices website. The 3Practices organization is not promoted as a Christian organization because it was created to open dialogue among ideological opponents, not to evangelize, though that may come when the listening-church can be seen as a witness. The creators of 3Practices recognize and support the impact this can have, and is already having, through the church. Lessons from Psalm 39, Matt 5, 7, and 18, Luke 15, Romans 14, and Philippians 2 serve as foundational for these circle experiences.