New Format for Discipleship Class
Beginning on the first Sunday in January out Adult Discipleship gatherings (still 9:30 a.m. each Sunday morning) will engage Scripture in a new way. Rather than reading and discussing Scripture thematically by using the passage that are read and preached upon in worship, we will take a narrative approach. We will engage the stories of selected Biblical characters one at a time, and do so over the course of several weeks with each one.
In January and February we will walk with Moses: from a basket in the Nile, in the face of a burning bush, through the Red Sea, into the wilderness, and across a river into the Promised Land. each week we will read, act out, talk about, and respond to a particular episode in the life and ministry of Israel’s great prophet at liberator.
The goal and vision in using this approach is to gain a deeper understanding of the people who serve as models of faith: that we would see their humanity, share with them in their struggles, and rejoice with them in their triumphs. We also hope that by reading such stories in succession we will appreciate more fully the larger Biblical narrative, finding hope and comfort in the continuity of God’s journey with all of God’s children.
Most importantly, we dream that in reading about the very real – human – struggle of our Biblical parents that we would better understand out own. Scripture is a living and dynamic gift given by God – through very real humans – to be a compass, gauge, and guide for living full and faithful lives. Our great hope is that through the stories of those who have come before us we would better understand out own stories, and set the path for those whose stories have not yet begun.