January 4th, 2007

The Adult Education hour planning session tonight fascinated me. Both Teresa and Debi came up with a number of great ideas and, in the end, the planning was complete and Teresa volunteered to type everything up.

We went over and selected relevant passages in the book to discuss each Sunday. Reading Faithful and Courageous was an ambivalent experience for me. I understood and agreed with what was written and simultaneously felt it fell short of what it espoused. I think, in part, I was groaning about facing how I fall short as a Christian.

This can be best illustrated with a passage we chose for our reflection, namely Christian lamentation. The passage highlights an aspect of the Christian life that is not often emphasized in our churches today, the element of Christian sorrow.

Too often there is a tacit assumption or hope that the person of faith lives with a kind of perpetual smile on the lips. Faith means an upbeat frame of mind. Of course, this is not true, and nothing in the New Testament or in Christian experience could justify such an attitude.

Christians have no secure and happy vantage point from which to view sorrow or pain. Rather, we must acknowledge and accept the shocking impracticality of Jesus’ teaching. If you live in this way, you will be used up by others. . . they will take everything you have and as a Christian you should expect this self-expenditure to lead sooner or later to your death.

The book talks about having the evangelical courage to state “I am a Christian”. I wonder if I am anywhere near what I profess and confess be the deepest part of my life. Am I any nearer to the kind of love for fellow man that Jesus taught or is there an inherent distrust and a need to keep myself divorced from loving neighbor as myself?

And oddly, what happened in this planning meeting became a microcosmic example of the courage and faith the book describes. Teresa and Debi introduced ideas and passages that would allow conversations about the core of our faith without fear. I recently worked on the Hunger Awareness Adult Ed hours. I questioned if the Adult Ed hour was an appropriate forum for deep explorations due to a 40 minute time constraint and whether people attending really wanted to address issues like these.

I agreed wholeheartedly with the effort but I was struck by a remark Debi made about being unsure where the kinds of conversations we could talk about could occur and I think it addressed the heart of why we don’t have conversations with one another about the deepest part of our faith.

I tried to imagine who and where this kind of sharing could take place if not at the Adult Ed hours. Obviously this is one of the purposes of this blog but so far this kind of “sharing” is predominantly one-sided.

In our society we are so purpose-driven in the times we meet with one another I don’t imagine it happening at those meetings where there is something on the agenda or a topic to meet about. There is a chance for it to happen during fellowship after the service, and I have shared faith stories during fellowship, but usually there are other activities to attend to as well.

I look forward to these sessions on Faithful and Courageous and I pray they strengthen our fellowship and deepen the dialog we have with one another.