Beginning on January 24th the ICGR launched a new program tilted "Discovering Many Faiths" (DMF) – Richmond's Hidden Treasures. DMF's mission is to enable participants to gain insights and appreciation for diverse Faiths through dialogue with believers of other Faiths and visiting their worship services. This will be accomplished through a series of featured Faiths, explored through panel discussions among diverse faith practitioners, personal interactions, and opportunities to visit worship services of each featured Faith.

The program is a grassroots/ participatory program that shares how people believe and worship, not a lecture series on World Religions. The program has three parts:

• A panel consisting of a Religious Leader (when it applies), a male believer, a female believer and a youth, who will share the basic tenants of their faith and what it means to them to be a member of that faith.
• Questions and Answers: The participants can ask questions of the panelists in an informal setting of round table discussions.
• An invitation to attend a worship service. Each worship service is on a different day and will be held at the Faith's place of Worship.

DMF is being managed by the Festival of Faiths committee. The committee members are: Kusum Jain, Sharon Clayton - Secretary, Glenda Thomas, Ann Loxterman, Lynn Johnston, Midge Falconer – DMF Chair, Julie Vaisvil – Consultant, Dr. Baljit Sidhu - ICGR Programs Vice President, and Annette Khan – ICGR President.

The NAIN conference last July helped us start an exploration of Religious Freedom. All who attended developed a better appreciation of the many facets of Religious Freedom. Religious Freedom enables members of a society to choose how they express their spiritual path and how belief is used as a guide on that path. The theme of our President, Annette Khan, is "Many Faiths –One Community" and the success of the NAIN Conference inspired this program.

The DMF committee invites the members of ICGR and their faith communities and friends to attend our FIFTH Faith exploration which will be on the Bahá'í Faith:

PROGRAM 5 EVENT 1: Discussion - Exploration of the Eckankar Faith DATE/TIME: Thursday, May 8th, 2008, from 6:30 to 9:00 pm PLACE: Ukrop's Celebration Room- 2250 John Rolfe Parkway, at its intersection with Ridgefield Parkway in Western Henrico Co. MAPS: Click here for a map. Please click on http://ga4.org/interfaithcenter/events/discmanyfaiths5/details.tcl and let us know you are coming.

EVENT 2: Eckankar Worship Service DATE/TIME: Sunday, May 18th, 2008, 2:00 pm. PLACE: Eckankar Center of Central Virginia, 581-A Southlake Blvd, in the Southport Office Park, Richmond, VA. 23236 MAPS: Click here for a map.

Follow-up details – locations, etc. to follow in future ICGR Newsletters.

Please invite anyone you think wants to develop their insight of how the Richmond community practices faith.

If you are interest in helping with this new program or have any questions contact
     Kusum Jain - 746-5103
     Sharon Clayton - 598-5952
     Midge Falconer - 740-2411

For information, send Email to  Lynn Johnston,   or   Sharon Clayton,

This Website maintained by Bob McEachern, .