Spiritual Growth Study – For the Love of God

School of the North – October 18 & 19, 2010

Session 1 – Monday 1:00pm – 2:00pm (Slides 1 – 30…10-15 min bleed time)

SLIDE 1 - Up- Gathering Music “All You Need is Love” – Beatles

SLIDE 2 – Up for Song- Welcome, Introductions, Song – “I John 4:7-8”- The Context and Identification

SLIDE 3 – Mapo The Happening World (show slide of Early Church)o Drop Arrows Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Egypto Epistles…but not really; Johannine, but not reallyo Come up against a wall in tracing origins

SLIDE 4 – Song - Sanctuary

SLIDE 5 – Serenity Prayer

SLIDE 6 - Blank Slide for Talk Overviewo 3 John appears purely political with rivalry between leaderso 2 John connected to “proper” teachingo 1 John meant to be largely a work of encouragement and challenge to a

koinonia, a fellowship, a community, growing up in a setting of conflict and division. (Timothy Luke Johnson)

o 1 John longer and deals with doctrinal and pastoral disagreements…conflict from within (very different from Gospel of John and Revelation where conflicts are largely generated in and by “the world”)

Shift from unbelievers to fellow Christians- False prophets, antichrists (1 Jn 2:18, 22; 4:3), deceivers who have gone out into

the world (2 Jn 7)

o A Three-Letter Packet from the Elder…Offering Light

SLIDES 7 – 21 1, 2, 3 John highlighted themes

SLIDE 22 – Walking in God’s Light Contrasting “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy” While not clear on nature of heterodoxy, clarity of orthodoxy based

on “ifs”

SLIDE 23 Series of IF – BUT passages1 John 1:5-2:2

o Talk without walk we sin, deceive ourselves, BUT if we walk in the light we have Koinonia

o No sin we deceive ourselves, truth departs BUT if we confess he is faithful and cleanses

o If say not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. BUT we have an advocate (2:2)

SLIDE 24 – The Wall

- Introduce “The Wall”o Wailing Wall – Reflecting Wallo Stick Notes Carry With Youo What issues at your church block koinonia? What are the “ifs” and “buts”

waiting for the work of the Advocate? Write Discuss Stick to Wall when leave

SLIDE 25 Wesley - Koinonia Do No Harm Do Good Stay in Love with God

SLIDE 26 Prayer

- Worship o SLIDE 26 Prayer o SLIDE 27 Confession ( o SLIDES 28 – 30 “We Are Called”

SLIDE 31 – Shift to Session 2

Session 2 – Tuesday 8:40am – 9:50am (Slides 32 – 59)

SLIDE 32 – “Church Pictures” from 4 Places

SLIDE 33 – Practicing God’s Truth with Love (“What the World Needs Now is Love”)

SLIDES 34 – 37 (37 Love Takes: Visioning, Planning, Skill, Motivation, Time)- Love requires: CLICK - visioning, CLICK - planning, CLICK - skill, CLICK -

motivation and CLICK – time1. God’s Love – for us - freely given which strengthens and forgives 2. That love moves us to see others and respond to their needs as

thankfulness3. And God loves us!4. Love cannot be possessed or captured

It is fully alive when it is being shared with another person.

SLIDE 38 – Angels and Abraham- The Talmud states (page 13 of Study guide) that when the strangers arrived

Abraham was talking to God (“my Lord”). But when they came he stopped the conversation and offered them hospitality. This was to teach that extending hospitality to the stranger is even more important than our private conversations with God.

So how do we Practice God’s Truth with Love.

SLIDE 39 - What is a Martyr…on the screen.

SLIDE 40 – Pictures of the Martyrs (Evangelistic Tools)

o Who listened to them? o Who rejected them? o What truth is being heard still or now. o What makes truth relevant to today. o Would you be convicted today of being a Christian by the truth you have revealed in your life? o What would that truth be? o What would make it yours?

- Give Out Cards to Be Read

SLIDES 41 – 47 Pictures as Read

SLIDE 48 Letty Russell on “missing persons”, those on the margins

SLIDE 49 UM Missionaries Sponsored in West Michigan

- take a profile or two and right letter of affirmation and encouragement (from home)

- pray for that one as s/he is a witness, a martyr

VIDEO CLIP FROM “The Pursuit of Happyness” (if time)

SLIDE 50 “Guide My Feet”

SLIDE 51 Placeholder “Living in God’s Love”

SLIDES 52 – 57 All Love

SLIDE 58 – Love is at the Cross (Bottom line for Johannine community is always love and Jesus…ultimate love at the cross)

SLIDE 59 – Tutu on Ubuntu

Bishop Desmond Tutu shares an understanding of living in love. [Slide of Tutu]Ubuntu is an African philosophy focusing on people’s alle¬giances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a traditional African concept. A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, p. 4, Alive Now, May/June 2008

Session 3 – Tuesday 1:35pm – 2:35pm (Slides 60 – 82)

SLIDES 60 – 64 (hands)

Small Group - Does this track for you? Does your culture have something similar? It is critical for all believers to not only love each other in thought and prayer but also in deed and service. Is this the test for believers today?

Does this philosophy enable the beloved community to become a reality? Can the beloved community become a reality?

How do we deal with diversity and dissent?

The early church pondered how to exist with a culture that was so diverse. How could a church embrace unity when there was so much diversity? How can a congregation claim to be one body when there are so many different persons, with different perceptions and opinions?

SLIDE 65 – 66 Janet Wolf on community

Comfort ZoneIt is hard to build a beloved community and stay within our comfort zone. Neither John nor Jesus says it is going to be easy. Quite the opposite. Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain what kind of love he was talking about. It is no easy sit in your living room and love people on the television, computer or cell phone. It isn’t even as easy as going to church. Hear what Janet Wolf has to say about what difficult rewards come from setting outside your comfort zone. [Slide 2 of Janet’s words]

SLIDE 67 – “Embracing the Beloved Community” (Placeholder)

SLIDE 68 – Hands In Circle (McCutcheon song)

SLIDE 69 – Parker Palmer

SLIDE 70 – “Unity”

SLIDE 71 – BELOVED COMMUNITY – use readings p. 33-34 in Study Guide

SLIDE 72 - The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is president of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. The first woman to head the 174-year-old nondenominational seminary, Jones came to Union after seventeen years at Yale University, where she was the Titus Street Professor of Theology at the Divinity School, and chair of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Jones is a prolific and popular scholar in the fields of theology, religion, globalization, and gender studies. Her most recent book, Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World , explores the devastating social and personal effects of violence on the human psyche and the role religious communities can play, both negative and positive, in healing wounds. Her book, Feminist Theory and Christian Theology , is a standard textbook in feminist theology. Jones is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ.

SLIDE 73 - Ada María Isasi-Díaz was born and raised in La Habana, Cuba. Brought up in a practicing Catholic home, early in her life she discovered a concern for the poor and the oppressed and a love of religious practices. At the same time, her mother taught her the importance of struggling (la lucha) for what one believes without ever giving up. She left Cuba and became a political refugee in the US in 1960. She lived three years in Lima, Peru as a missionary. “This experience has marked me for life. I often say that it was there that the poor taught me the gospel message of justice. It was there that I learned to respect and admire the religious understandings and practices of the poor and the oppressed and the importance of their everyday struggles, of lo cotidiano. It was there that I realized the centrality of solidarity with the poor and the oppressed in the struggle for justice.” Dr. Isasi is Professor of Ethics and Theology at Drew University Theological School.

SLIDE 74 - Wahu Kaara is a globally renowned Kenyan educator, activist and campaigner for social justice. A prolific writer, poet and speaker, Wahu has devoted her time and energy to civic engagement and incisive analysis of the global political and economic architecture, with a special focus on the impact of globalization on the countries of the South, especially Africa. She has campaigned and written extensively on debt, aid, privatization and human rights and has been a leader in the Africa and Kenya Social Forum councils that organized the inaugural World Social Forum in Africa in Nairobi in January 2007. Though widowed at an early age, she is a committed Christian, the happy mother of four, and proud grandmother.

SLIDE 75 - S. Wesley Ariarajah, Methodist Minister from Sri Lanka, served both in the pastoral ministry of the church and as lecturer in the History of Religions and New Testament in the common Protestant seminary of the churches in Sri Lanka.  In 1981 he was invited to join the staff of the World Council of Churches, where he led the Councils Interfaith Dialogue for over ten years.  From 1992 he served as the Deputy General Secretary of the WCC.  He has given lectures, conducted seminars, led conferences in many parts of the world and written a number of acclaimed books on ecumenism. Rev.

Dr. Ariarajah is currently the Professor of Ecumenical Theology at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

SLIDES 76 – 79 Faces of Diversity

SLIDE 80 – “I Love You, Lord”

VIDEO – Closing of “Places in the Heart"

SLIDE 81 – Going Forth

SLIDE 82 – Getting This Stuff on Line