Family Faith

BTW, a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all the great women in our lives that are mothers or are fulfill the role of mother in someone’s life.

This week, be began chapter 10. Since I’ve felt that this book taught me things that I never expected and am still figuring out things I’m learning as I spend more time quietly contemplating each chapter. So this week I made no bones that we would not be finishing chapter 10 as it to me is the culmination of the book. It is the capture of the nuggets of wisdom captured in each of the areas of text.

This week I discussed the layout of the chapter that the authors laid out. They broke it up into areas of “Pursuits” and “Exchanges.” More about that next time. But the main area I focused on this week was the comparison of David’s story to our struggles. We discussed the reason David found himself in conflict with his wife… she thought he shouldn’t have danced with the townspeople in celebration of the return of the Ark. His life was filled with baggage but he was able to not focus on that, but to focus on “knowing” God. To bring this point home, I shared the following video… of course a Skit Guys video. Enjoy. Here are the slides from this week.

Well, obviously I didn’t get this posted last week.  Sorry, between work and getting the new WMUMC website operational, my spare time has been limited. We spent some time talking about the vine analogy. I gave some personal views about “pruning” and how important it is to the vine producing fruit. The vine relies on the nutrition from the root, but even with that the vine often gets out of control and goes in all directions. It requires “discipline” and “obedience” which comes in the form of pruning to produce the most fruit possible. The vine requires the nutrition of the roots, the pruning that comes with discarding all the extraneous elements, and then the life giving energy from the Sun(Son if you will). So as you can see, I love the vine analogy.

I also challenged everyone to create a pie chart. I finally got everyone to use the pencil and paper I leave on the tables! But the point was to create a pie chart showing the percentage of time you have in your life that is devoted to quiet, uninterrupted time. I gave those with children under 10 a break! But I challenged everyone to find one thing the following week that could increase that time that they spend quietly with God.

Here are this week’s slides.

I also shared with everyone the story of Pearl Fryar. A “a sharecropper’s son, who, with passion and determination, has risen to prominence as an internationally acclaimed topiary artist.” Here’s a video to give you some insight into his work and his beliefs.

Well, I was rather neglectful last week and didn’t post anything from our last class.  Sorry about that.  I could say I got busy and just didn’t have time, but that wouldn’t really fit with today’s class now would it…  :-)  Where is my discipline and obedience!?  So here I am on Sunday afternoon making sure I get this done.

This chapter (as always) has a lot of content hidden within.  It’s been great getting into it a little and seeing where people have found meaning.  Vapor-Sunshine is an interesting concept.  There are things in this life that are but just a vapor.  They are here and then gone.  A quote from the book, “We see signs every day that remind us life is ‘but a breath,’ just a vapor.”   But the great response that we get from God is, “I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.  Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge.”  The authors use a compilation of a number of Bible verses here to illustrate God’s wonderful plan and invitation.  How beautiful.

We talked about our propensity for being compartmentalizers.  We work really hard at putting our spiritual life and our real life in separate compartments.  We manage them, we separate them, we keep them from intermingling.  It’s easier that way.  But we can begin to bring them together by moving out based upon our faith.  And as is stated in the book, “As we move out into the new frontier of our faith, we change.”  It’s that change that scares us as well as trusting that God will be there to support, guide and maybe even pick up the pieces.

What we should be striving for is the wonderful possibility of abiding in Him.  This whole concept of abiding is one that seems so inviting, but comes with challenges since abiding doesn’t come with compartmentalized opportunities.  It requires trust, discipline and obedience.  Oh how we all struggle with those!

Thanks for the last two classes, they have been special for me and have helped me think about areas in my life that I need to consider the way I separate things.  Here are this week’s slides.

Hi everyone.  We finished chapter 8 today.  We also viewed a video that I’ll share later in this entry.  Chapter 8 was a bit pithy at times.  There was a lot of material in there and finished with a lot of Biblical references which was very refreshing.  I wanted to share one of those references as I think it really puts things together for me:

“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if His love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care — then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.  Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top.  Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.  Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage.  Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.”  Phillipians 2:1-4 (The Message)

Many people have the serenity prayer that they read each morning, I may start reading this every morning!

I asked about the feeling of community and didn’t get the chance to ask a few more specific questions about everyone’s feeling about the community of Christ that they find themselves in… what is it that makes it a community for them?  What makes you feel a part of that community?  I see the Men’s Fraternity striving to hold each other accountable and be a community of Men, ‘authentic men,’ and I love what they are doing.  I see the women of WMUMC participating in ‘circles’ and I see other areas that our church is being a community, but I want to be sure we take that spirit with us as we live our lives.  With that in mind I showed the following video.  I found it to express the Bible verse I shared and how I feel that a community should extend their arms to those around them.  I hope you enjoy the video and I hope to see you next week.  Word has it, the classroom may look a little different… Thanks Frank!

Here are the slides from this week.

Here’s the video – thank you Matthew West!

Happy Easter!

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.” – Matthew 28:6

What a great and spectacular week.  Locally it was recognized by great services, great music and a great church family.  Let us all remember that we are loved by a God who sacrificed everything to provide us a way to Him.

As for our class, we continued further into chapter 8.  It is another full chapter with so many opportunities for deep discussions.  We’ve only touched on a few of them so far.  One thing I did learn was that often some of the stories we discuss have very different perspectives.  For instance, there are obviously difference with how the story regarding Panther Falls is received.  It appears that this is one of those stories that has a gender specific appeal.  :-)  It seems that men might view the appeal of this story differently than the women.  But I digress.  The reality is (for me) that stepping out to the edge of the cliff of Christianity and devoting myself to experiencing love and giving it everything I have can be exhilarating and can be scary and invigorating at the same time.  The story tries to get at the fact that jumping into the unknown with complete faith that God will be at the wheel can be totally rewarding.  We often say we want to jump, but cannot imagine giving up the wheel and letting God drive.  We wonder why things so often, no matter how good intentioned we are, turn out bad when we try to steer the ship.  Oh well, the story may have lost something as Gerry said, due to the lack of attire involved in the jump off the cliff!  :-)

Next week we will continue through chapter 8.  We’ll start to discuss the accountability that can come with community.

Here’s the slides from this week.