The Art of Community 
Season 4, Session 3 
One Body, Many Gifts 

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12
Podcast Episode: One Body, Many Gifts 
Song: We’re United 
Meditation: A Body Scan Meditation 
Art: Dancing Together 
Book Suggestion: A More Perfect Union 

Curriculum

Theme

It's not about division of labor but rather recognizing our interdependence. We need each other! All parts are unique, distinct, yet woven together to allow for fullness and perfection (holiness).

Welcome and Opening Prayer

O God, we thank you for this holy space where we can be with you and one another. We dare to name ourselves before you. We are broken, and beautiful, strong, and struggling, blessed and burdened. We are those who build bridges to unite and those who build walls to divide. We are those who invite and those who exclude, those who reach out and those who drive away. You set a place for us at your Table. May that welcome direct our life with one another. Amen.

 Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe. ~ T’Challa, “The Black Panther”

Gathering Exercise

Name one strength/ability/trait you really like and can celebrate about yourself.

Feasting on the Word/Group Discussion

1 Corinthians: 12:1-31

Focus verse: 12:7 “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

This chapter includes one of Paul’s most well-known analogies. He compares the Church to the human body. The image of the body as a communal reality is not unique to Paul (although he’s the only writer in the New Testament to use it). Other writers in the Roman world (especially politicians and philosophers) used the same image. Most often, it was used to support the social hierarchy (whether of the family, or the city, or the empire as a whole). In other words, to teach and keep people in their place. 

For Paul it’s about caring and recognizing our need for one another and one another’s gifts. The diversity within the church community isn’t something to be tolerated, regretted, or manipulated for one’s own advantage. It’s something to be received and celebrated. It’s a gift. For Paul, it’s not only diversity, but it’s unity in that diversity. That’s the reality without which the church (we as a society) can’t live.

  1. Paul uses the analogy of the human body to talk about our “connectedness”. He stresses that we’re brought together for a purpose. What other analogies would you offer to convey this message? 

  2. Claire and Dana talk about what is meant by “the common good”. They note that its original meaning is “to bring together”. How have you heard that term used? What does it mean to you? 

  3. In their conversation Dana and Claire discuss our tendency to strive for individuality and independence in contrast with Paul’s idea of “interdependence”. What are some ways we can put the whole (the community) rather than the self first?

  4. How might we as a community “build one another up”? What has been your experience of this?

  5. Paul stresses the idea that we “need one another”. Which is easier for you: to give help or to receive it?

Closing Exercise

Share one gift you would like to give or receive from this community. After each gift is named those present reply by saying, “Thank you.”

Closing Prayer

Give the group and opportunity to share joys or concerns.

Thank you, O God, for this time together. May what we have shared, said, and learned here shape us to live in the days ahead. May our time of being in this blessed space empower and encourage us to make such spaces for others. Strengthen our relationship with you and with one another. In those relationships may we find a way forward for the common good.Amen.