After a hiatus caused by (among other things), a computer crash (the church computer is back online [thanks, Marc!], although the wireless is still down), travel and other events in the lives of congregants, and pastoral busy-ness, we are getting back on track with our book study. Here are the questions for Chapter 14, but if you've recently missed another chapter (like the very important one on prayer) and want to backtrack, we can do that.
Being a Christian means following Christ. That is sometimes a lonely road, especially at times when the world seems hostile to Christian ideas. For example, turning the other cheek is an idea that’s simply not supported in modern culture. What are other ways that Christianity is isolating?
At the same time, being a member of God’s church, the Body of Christ in the world, means worshipping and worshipping in concert with other believers who have been given talents and callings different from our own. How are we strengthened by being members of a community of faith?
How is our work strengthened by our cooperation with others? One way I can think of is that it’s made more visible, to the glory of God.
What are some of the joys of community?
Weaknesses? Do we sometimes censor ourselves?
At base, Christianity is a faith born of a relationship: God’s covenant with God’s people. If we isolate ourselves, are we denying the presence of God in the lives of others?
Let’s talk about the idea that “relationship is the very thing that made us into ‘selves’.”
How does our understanding of the Trinity inform our understanding of what we should be as Christians?
How do different relationships (Lindvall listed marriage and friendship, but others also are relevant) model Christian discipleship? As our world becomes populated with families of increasingly diverse configurations, how can that teach us different, broader ways to be companions on the journey of discipleship?
How can we model Christian values in relationships with people who are difficult to like or love?
Remember that Daylight Savings Time starts this weekend. Alert people will set their clocks back and have an extra hour to sleep. If you arrive an hour early, start the coffee!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
A Geography of God, Ch. 12
There is a lot to discuss and understand in this chapter, so let's work on it for the next two Sundays, Oct. 11 and Oct. 17.
The quote from Charles Spurgeon about defending the Bible by letting it loose would make more sense to me if we were talking about God. People critical of Christianity often hold up scriptures that are not representative of what we believe. An example would be last week's Epistle reading from 1 Timothy about women in the church. Other "difficulties" with the Bible that we have discussed before include archaic language and unfamiliar social structures. In order for the Bible to defend itself, we have to let the whole thing loose and offer some resources for understanding it.
Let's talk about what resources you use in your own Bible study. The Internet offers many that were not available a decade ago.
According to polling data from the Barna Research Group, most homes do have at least one Bible. How can we encourage people — including one another! — to read them?
We say, and I think we believe, that the Bible is the Word of God, or sometimes that it contains the Word of God. How do we, as Reformed Christians, understand that? (I like what Lindvall said: "The written witness to the revelatory things that God has done.")
The newest books of the Bible are nearly 1900 years old. How do we receive the Word now?
In what ways do we consider the Bible to be authoritative — for the church, and for us as individuals?
What do you think of the work of the Jesus seminar?
Do you think that people who use the Bible as a rulebook are missing out on some of its value? Are they abusing its content?
Lindvall says we bring three things to our reading of the Bible: identity, recognition and imagination. Let's talk about how those interact in our understanding.
A good example of the first might be our reading of the story of the Prodigal. Do we identify with the father, the prodigal son or the "good" son? How does that change as our circumstances change? Can we carry our previous understanding forward?
Recognition may be growing less available to us as our lives grow ever more different from the lives of Biblical characters, but we still have times when we can connect very clearly a Biblical story with an occurrence in our own lives. Are you willing to describe some of those for our group?
Imagination in scripture reading is a harder concept for some of us to grasp, yet it is the point at which we stop understanding the Bible as being about what has already happened in our lives and start seeing that it is about what could and will be. How,
though, do we open ourselves to the possibility that God can act in us through the scriptures?
Lindvall asks, "How does Scripture become truth we can trust?" How does it become revelation? Life-changing truth? In other words, how can we really know?
The quote from Charles Spurgeon about defending the Bible by letting it loose would make more sense to me if we were talking about God. People critical of Christianity often hold up scriptures that are not representative of what we believe. An example would be last week's Epistle reading from 1 Timothy about women in the church. Other "difficulties" with the Bible that we have discussed before include archaic language and unfamiliar social structures. In order for the Bible to defend itself, we have to let the whole thing loose and offer some resources for understanding it.
Let's talk about what resources you use in your own Bible study. The Internet offers many that were not available a decade ago.
According to polling data from the Barna Research Group, most homes do have at least one Bible. How can we encourage people — including one another! — to read them?
We say, and I think we believe, that the Bible is the Word of God, or sometimes that it contains the Word of God. How do we, as Reformed Christians, understand that? (I like what Lindvall said: "The written witness to the revelatory things that God has done.")
The newest books of the Bible are nearly 1900 years old. How do we receive the Word now?
In what ways do we consider the Bible to be authoritative — for the church, and for us as individuals?
What do you think of the work of the Jesus seminar?
Do you think that people who use the Bible as a rulebook are missing out on some of its value? Are they abusing its content?
Lindvall says we bring three things to our reading of the Bible: identity, recognition and imagination. Let's talk about how those interact in our understanding.
A good example of the first might be our reading of the story of the Prodigal. Do we identify with the father, the prodigal son or the "good" son? How does that change as our circumstances change? Can we carry our previous understanding forward?
Recognition may be growing less available to us as our lives grow ever more different from the lives of Biblical characters, but we still have times when we can connect very clearly a Biblical story with an occurrence in our own lives. Are you willing to describe some of those for our group?
Imagination in scripture reading is a harder concept for some of us to grasp, yet it is the point at which we stop understanding the Bible as being about what has already happened in our lives and start seeing that it is about what could and will be. How,
though, do we open ourselves to the possibility that God can act in us through the scriptures?
Lindvall asks, "How does Scripture become truth we can trust?" How does it become revelation? Life-changing truth? In other words, how can we really know?
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Geography of God, Ch. 11
This week's chapter talks about worship, and about how churches offer a very pale, tame approximation of God. Annie Dillard says we should wear crash helmets to church. Let's talk about times in our life when God surprised us by seeming bigger and more present than we were accustomed to.
Do we, as individuals, let God be all that God can be in our lives?
Do we, as churches?
How can we improve?
Lindvall's question, "What did I lose in worship?" is a different way of looking at the worship experience. How does that question make us feel?
How can we, the worshippers at Rico Community Church, make sure we are facing in the right direction?
Do we, as individuals, let God be all that God can be in our lives?
Do we, as churches?
How can we improve?
Lindvall's question, "What did I lose in worship?" is a different way of looking at the worship experience. How does that question make us feel?
How can we, the worshippers at Rico Community Church, make sure we are facing in the right direction?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Chapter 10 for real this time!
Those of you who came for book study last week know that we got distracted. Let's try Chapter 10 again this week.
Meanwhile, be thinking of songs you want to have included in the supplemental song book. They can be praise songs, older non-hymn Christian music, hymns that aren't in the blue hymnal, spirituals — any music that you believe would give glory to God in our worship services.
You can call me at 560-1407, e-mail me at RicoCommunityChurch@gmail.com, call or e-mail Karyn Reid, put a note in the collection plate or leave one in the church office. You can also leave a message on the church phone, 967-2463. Please include your name in case we need more information about the songs you request.
And, you can use the same mechanisms to tell us what songs from the hymnal you'd like to sing in worship.
Meanwhile, be thinking of songs you want to have included in the supplemental song book. They can be praise songs, older non-hymn Christian music, hymns that aren't in the blue hymnal, spirituals — any music that you believe would give glory to God in our worship services.
You can call me at 560-1407, e-mail me at RicoCommunityChurch@gmail.com, call or e-mail Karyn Reid, put a note in the collection plate or leave one in the church office. You can also leave a message on the church phone, 967-2463. Please include your name in case we need more information about the songs you request.
And, you can use the same mechanisms to tell us what songs from the hymnal you'd like to sing in worship.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Geography of God, Ch. 10
"If something matters to you, you devote yourself to it." That seems so simple, and yet daily "devotions" are rare today. There's much to distract modern humans. Do you think our relationship with, and understanding of, God has suffered because of that?
The idea of practicing Christians vs. nominal Christians is actually somewhat antithetical to the Reformed definition of Christianity, with its emphasis on God's actions in our lives and our imperfect responses. At the same time, it's a useful concept. How do we "practice"? How do we devote ourselves to God?
How do we keep our practices from growing empty and meaningless? What is the tipping point between tradition as an aid to understanding and tradition as a barrier to personal investment?
What are some of the traditions that you find valuable?
A few weeks ago, Karyn mentioned that outdated language and imagery of the Bible can make it difficult to read and understand. One prescription for that is group Bible study, in which we can supplement one another's understanding. What is your favorite translation of the Bible. Do you sometimes check others?
The idea of practicing Christians vs. nominal Christians is actually somewhat antithetical to the Reformed definition of Christianity, with its emphasis on God's actions in our lives and our imperfect responses. At the same time, it's a useful concept. How do we "practice"? How do we devote ourselves to God?
How do we keep our practices from growing empty and meaningless? What is the tipping point between tradition as an aid to understanding and tradition as a barrier to personal investment?
What are some of the traditions that you find valuable?
A few weeks ago, Karyn mentioned that outdated language and imagery of the Bible can make it difficult to read and understand. One prescription for that is group Bible study, in which we can supplement one another's understanding. What is your favorite translation of the Bible. Do you sometimes check others?
Thursday, September 9, 2010
A Geography of God, Cha. 9
Last week, Barbara, Marc and I talked about ways we experience God. This Sunday, Lindvall says, we will begin to "sneak up on the Trinity." The doctrine of the Trinity has inspired many volumes of commentary, but let's spend a little bit of time talking about the ways in which we understand Trinitarian belief.
"Faith as an escape route out of life and its troubles" is presented as one wrong (or at least incomplete) way of thinking. Do we need an escape route, or is what we need a better way of thinking that, as Lindvall says, "leads us deeper into and straight through this world." What does it mean to live our lives in relationship with God?
"Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer" is one way of thinking about the Trinity. In each of those three ways, God is acting in love.
The illustration of an upstairs and a downstairs to the cosmos is very like the older illustration of fundament below and firmament above, which at some points in history was linked to the concepts of the sacred and the profane (or perhaps ordinary). If we think of "heaven" and "earth" in that way, where do they intersect?
In the Reformed tradition, we speak of God as being transcendent and immanent, that is, God transcends all boundaries and is present in all places and times. What, then, explains our feelings of distance from God?
Lindvall says that the God of creation and incarnation is God with us — incarnate in Christ and present to us in the Spirit. In what ways do we recognize that? How can we learn to be more aware of it? How can a pastor invoke awareness?
"Faith as an escape route out of life and its troubles" is presented as one wrong (or at least incomplete) way of thinking. Do we need an escape route, or is what we need a better way of thinking that, as Lindvall says, "leads us deeper into and straight through this world." What does it mean to live our lives in relationship with God?
"Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer" is one way of thinking about the Trinity. In each of those three ways, God is acting in love.
The illustration of an upstairs and a downstairs to the cosmos is very like the older illustration of fundament below and firmament above, which at some points in history was linked to the concepts of the sacred and the profane (or perhaps ordinary). If we think of "heaven" and "earth" in that way, where do they intersect?
In the Reformed tradition, we speak of God as being transcendent and immanent, that is, God transcends all boundaries and is present in all places and times. What, then, explains our feelings of distance from God?
Lindvall says that the God of creation and incarnation is God with us — incarnate in Christ and present to us in the Spirit. In what ways do we recognize that? How can we learn to be more aware of it? How can a pastor invoke awareness?
Saturday, September 4, 2010
A Geography of God, Ch. 8
I apologize for the lateness of this post. It's been a hectic week. My house is now restored to some semblance of order, and our company will leave on Monday. After that, I hope my life will settle into a routine again. Thank you all for your patience and understanding!
For this week, we will discuss just one question:
How is God "present" in our lives?
For this week, we will discuss just one question:
How is God "present" in our lives?
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