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The Meaning of Service (MoS)

The Meaning of Service (MoS) is a national reading and discussion program for service volunteers featuring discussions that use short philosophical and literary texts on the nature of justice, service, and related themes.

This collaboration betwen the Illinois Humanities Council, Interfaith Youth Core, and Project on Civic Reflection contains a rich selection of short readings-prose, verse, and sacred text-from some of the great faith traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as secular writings. These selections and accompanying discussion questions are designed to explore the connections between faith, service, and social justice using the themes:

  • Why do I serve?
  • Whom do I serve?
  • How do I serve?


These readings and suggested discussion topics are designed to foster greater understanding of faith-based service and to inspire others to reflect on their commitment to improving the world. Hearing the Call Across Traditions was edited by Adam Davis, senior research and teaching associate at the Project on Civic Reflection, and features a forward by Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core.

PRAISE FOR HEARING THE CALL

  • "There are ‘interfaith textbooks' and reference works, but we have lacked materials which can speak directly to people of many faiths and more situations. So this is original and necessary work which deserves to be passed on to reading publics and citizens who gather to make things better in a spiritually and ideologically warring world."
    - Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago
  • "Here is a book that takes wisdom from across the spectrum of time and faith traditions, and distils it into a usable, wonderful instrument designed to take our dreams of action and make them real."
    - Michelle Nunn, CEO, Points of Light Institute; Co-founder of Hands On Network; Author, Be the Change! Change the World. Change Yourself
  • "This book inspires marvel at the ferocious drive of the human spirit-across time and space-to take responsibility for self and others. What does it mean to live with our fellows? By all lasting accounts, an answer can be achieved only through journeys into one's self, hard experience, and the kinds of marvelous conversations about service that this book both presents and calls forth."
    - Danielle Allen, Professor, Institute for Advanced Study and author of Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education


MORE ABOUT THE MEANING OF SERVICE
MoS presents participants with the opportunity to examine, refine, and regenerate the beliefs underlying their work. It assists participants in developing confidence in thinking and speaking about complex and pertinent matters (such as service and justice, to name two). The discussions also provide opportunities for colleagues to come to understand each other more deeply, to build solidarity and support in new environments, and to add to the communicative capacity of the group. The hope is that these discussions assist participants in enhancing their understanding of why they do what they do – and thereby improving what they do.

The discussions aren't trainings meant to impart specific knowledge but conversations meant to establish or re-establish connections—connections to motives for coming to this work, connections between those who are sharing in the discussions, and connections between underlying commitments and daily choices. Selected readings may include poems by Pablo Neruda and Langston Hughes, essays by Jane Addams or Martin Luther King, Jr., or short stories by Toni Cade Bambara and Dave Eggers.

MoS currently engages close to 200 young volunteers at ten sites in Illinois: City Year, Public Allies, Literacy Volunteers of Illinois, Project YES, Neighborhood Relations VISTA, Asian Human Services, PCC Westside AmeriCorps, Notre Dame Mercy AmeriCorps, East St. Louis AmeriCorps, and Southwestern IL College AmeriCorps.

In 2005, IHC received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand The Meaning of Service nationwide. Through this grant, thirteen other states have joined Illinois in offering The Meaning of Service to young people engaged in community service. Each state presents MoS in at least two sites. Rhode Island has expanded the program to reach all 200 AmeriCorps volunteers in the state, and Ohio hopes to expand the program to reach all of the AmeriCorps volunteers across the state. States involved in MoS are working with service organizations such as the Vermont Center for Independent Living, Rochester AmeriCorps, the Montana Conservation Corps, Leadership Anchorage, and the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service.

Participants engaged in MoS report that the experience creates an environment in which they can reflect openly and comfortably on their service, while building cooperative skills which support their work in helping communities. Based on the success of The Meaning of Service, the IHC is considering other civically-engaged communities that might find reading and reflection programs similarly fruitful. IHC has piloted a program with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, a community organization that builds relationships, trains leaders, and works to create better schools, affordable housing, sustainable land use, immigrants’ rights, neighborhood safety, and youth and senior citizen activities in the Logan Square Neighborhood. IHC will also be exploring opportunities to pilot reading and reflection programs for teachers and law enforcement.