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A15 Dreaming dreams
- Preparing and discussing information gathered from timelines, mapping and role-plays will highlight the key issues facing the community. Now it is time to decide on the way ahead. Remind people of all they have learned and achieved so far. Do we want things to continue as they are? If people are not satisfied, ask them to consider the future and to dream dreams.
- Encourage people to spend time dreaming about how they would like their community to be in 10 years time, then 20 or even 30 years time. This could be in silence or in small group discussion. Imagine how it will look, how life will be and what will be happening. Gather together all these thoughts and write them down on a chart to keep.
- Now return to the present day. Together, list on a chart the problems that are preventing these dreams being achieved. Let each person vote once by show of hands for the problem they think most serious. Those with the highest scores will be the priorities for action. But remember, we also need to seek God’s priorities too! Gain agreement on one priority that is achievable within a couple of years. Later another priority can be tackled.
Discussion
- Which dreams are easy to bring about? Which may seem completely unrealistic? Discuss which dreams could be practically achieved within our local area and which seem totally out of reach.
- How can we seek God’s priorities and values for our community and for our lives?
- Prepare a chart to record all the dreams and put this in a public place. Divide up those that could be achieved within a few years from those that may take 20–30 years.
- How can we make sure that the priority selected is something that can be achieved here? Choosing an issue that is so big that local people will not see any change, will make us lose enthusiasm. For example, clean water supplies may be a priority, but if this needs a lot of money for drilling wells, we should first choose another priority that we can achieve ourselves without outside help.
- Discuss whether people should vote by show of hands to indicate which problem is the most serious. Will people be influenced too much by other people’s views? If so, consider using beans to enable people to vote in secret – placing the beans under the problems they think are most serious (with illustrations for those who can’t read).
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This page was last updated on 10 August 2005
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