Friends for Good
Welcome to Friends for Good!
As social polarization and national discord increase, four diverse North Texas religious congregations are quietly re-shaping relationships through shared meals, intentional discussions, and genuine friendships despite profound differences.
Friends For Good is an initiative built around shared meals and directed discussions. Each year a select group of participants from a Muslim, Jewish, Unitarian and Evangelical Christian congregation commit to four dinners together, each hosted by a different congregation. At the dinners, participants meet new people from other faiths, eat together and engage in facilitated discussions both fun and thoughtful.
After the introductory dinners, participants can take part in quarterly service or learning activities and other meet-ups. But most importantly, through the dinners new individual relationships get made and the real value of FFG manifests itself in the informal meals, meetings, and outings that take place outside structured events.
FFG doesn’t pretend that our theological and cultural differences don’t exist, or that they are unimportant. Differences matter. The goal is not to eliminate or minimize differences but to interact with respect and affection despite them. FFG is about conversation; within it participants represent who they are as people of specific faiths. Through discussion they can, as friends, share uncompromisingly from their own faith perspectives but they earn that right by being willing to listen to others who are doing the same from a very different set of beliefs.
Some join Friends For Good to celebrate American diversity, others enjoy learning about groups that have seemed strange and unfamiliar to them, still others participate to take a stand for tolerance and grace and against fear and discrimination. Whatever the motivation, all are obeying the call of their own faith tradition to model spiritual precepts to others in love and, in doing so reminding American society that it is possible to disagree with respect, and experience real affection for those who may not be exactly like us.
Want to learn more? Click the tabs above to read about our history, founders, participating congregations, and events.