Each week, we post the thoughts, writing, and reflections of one of the writers in our community, along with the audio and screen art from our Sunday morning experience.
Our teaching team hopes that you will be able to use these materials to take further the experience of learning God's hope for you.
If you have any questions, e-mail Steve Whitby, Pastor of Creativity.
Awkward Conversations
For the next seven weeks we will continue to look on as Jesus creates awkward moments in his encounters with others. Acting unpredictably and controversially, he consistently challenges the status quo of the lives of those he spends time with. Why? Because things as they are won’t do – something needs to change. It takes great courage to challenge the accepted way of looking at life, and the accepted way of behavior and attitude. In the life of Jesus this courage, driven by passion for transformation, emerges over and over.
One of the lines in the Gnarls Barkley song Crazy goes like this:
my heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
and all i remember is thinking, i want to be like them
My prayer is that God will transform us – through exploration and reflection on these encounters – into people with the "heart to lose our lives out on a limb." Never accepting what is, always pressing for what Jesus is calling us, and others, towards.
January 04 : The Homecoming (Luke 4:14-30) / Small Group Curriculum
January 11 : The Moving On (Luke 4:38-44) / Small Group Curriculum
January 18 : The Centurion (Luke 7:1-10) / Small Group Curriculum
January 25 : The Funeral (Luke 7:11-17) / Small Group Curriculum
February 01 : The Parable (Luke 8:1-15) / Small Group Curriculum
February 08 : The Prayer (Luke 11:1-13) / Small Group Curriculum
February 15 : The Obstacle (Luke 18:18-30) / Small Group Curriculum
February 22 : The Return (Luke 24:13-35) / Small Group Curriculum
Spiritual growth is a process of training through the use of spiritual
practices that God uses to re-orient our hearts. During the Awkward series, we will
be adding a new resource, an Awkward blog, to weigh into that process
with you.
Three times a week an entry will be added to the blog.
> Monday morning, a blog entry will reflect on Sunday’s teaching and
offer suggestions on how to utilize it as a tool for spiritual growth.
> Mid-week a blog entry will offer a challenge for how to integrate the teaching into your small group.
> Friday, the final blog entry of the week will orient us toward the teaching coming up on the following Sunday.
Check out what Bruce is writing about here.