Two recent conferences have prompted considerable pause and reflection. During the weeks to come we’ll share reflections and many resources from the 5th Annual Cornell Global Service-Learning Institute. But this week we’ll kick off a series of posts relating to faith, values, and service-learning with a summary of lessons and insights from Messiah College’s 7th National Faith-Based Service-Learning Conference. Those posts will include contributions from:

Faith and Service-Learning: Embracing Difficult Questions by Jessica Friedrichs, a Faculty Member in the School for Social Change and Coordinator of Service-Learning at Carlow University.

Teaching Catholic Social Thought through Global Service-Learning by Rachel Tomas Morgan, Associate Director of the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame.

Serving our Neighbors: Learning Across the Lines that Divide Us by Chad Frey, Director of theAgape Center for Service and Learning at Messiah College.

The Goals of Jewish Service-Learning by Jon Levisohn, Assistant Professor of Jewish Education and Assistant Director of The Mandel Center for Studies  in Jewish Educationat Brandeis University.

Three-part series by Richard Slimbach, Professor of Global Studies, Sociology, and TESOL at Azusa Pacific University.

Part 1 – The Hole in our Helping

Part 2 – Service versus charity, institutional self-interest, and individualist ethos

Part 3 – Entitlement, sentimentality, & assessment constraints

And perhaps a few more contributors!

If you’d like to be certain to see all of the posts mentioned above, follow us on Twitter or keep tabs on the conversation by providing your email in the box on the right. We hope you’ll contribute your own questions and reflections in the comments as well!