Greater Good Group
INTEGRATING SOCIAL PRINCIPLES INTO OUR CHURCH AND SOCIETY
What we do:
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How you can get involved:
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GREATER GOOD GROUP OPPORTUNITIES
- Prayer Circle
Sunday, September 20, 10:35-10:55am | Den
We invite you to a brief, casual prayer circle to pray for our contemporary world as we embrace the call to prayer in the United Methodist Church's Book of Resolutions: "The United Methodist Church believes God's love for the world is an active and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty. We cannot just be observers. So we care enough about people's lives to risk interpreting God's love, to take a stand, to call each of us into a response, no matter how controversial or complex." Bring coffee, bring what's on your mind and in your heart, and join the Greater Good Group in prayer for peace, justice, and liberty for all of God's children. - Guns to Gardens Event
Saturday, October 10, 10:00-1:00pm | WUMC Parking Lot
"They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. . ." Micah 4:3b (NRSVUE)
As a means of living into this vision of God’s kingdom, the Greater Good Group of WUMC and the James River Chapter/VICPP (Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy) invite all to anonymously give their guns to be safely dismantled and forged into garden tools. At the event, a blacksmith will demonstrate turning gun parts into a garden tool. The community is even invited to come to the anvil and beat on the gun parts.
Safety will be a top priority:- Donors, please leave unloaded guns to be donated in the trunk of your car;
- Donors, you must be present while the gun is being dismantled;
- No ammunition will be accepted.
Questions? Want to help? Contact Deacon Troy Sims ( ).
- Braver Angels: Families & Politics
Space is limited! Register Here!
Sunday, November 8, 2026, 2:00-5:00pm | WUMC
Family relationships are becoming casualties of our toxic political environment. Family members are having nasty political arguments, avoiding each other, or even cutting off lifetime relationships.
If you want to preserve important family bonds while still being true to your
values and political beliefs, this workshop will offer you:- Insight into why family differences over politics are uniquely challenging;
- Recognition of common roles that family members play in political conversations (for example, the Gladiator, the Defender, and the Sniper);
- Strategies and skills for handling family political differences in a constructive way.
The Social Principles of the United Methodist Church represent “prayerful and earnest efforts . . . to speak to issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation that is in keeping with the best of our United Methodist traditions.” In addition, they are “a call to faithfulness and to social engagement and intended to be instructive” as well as a challenge to “all members of The United Methodist Church to engage in deliberative reflection and encourage intentional dialogue between faith and practice.”
The Greater Good Group includes WUMC members who are intentionally seeking to live into the Social Principles and to invite the greater congregation to reflect on these values and respond faithfully to meet the needs of the greater good.
GREATER GOOD GROUP LINKS AND AFFILIATIONS
The United Methodist Social Principles
United Methodist General Board of Church and Society
HART - Historic Area Religions Together
Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy
United Methodist General Commission on the Status & Role of Women
United Methodist General Commission on Religion and Race
For more information about the Greater Good Group,
contact Deacon Troy Sims (
or 757-229-1771, x108).
