Notes from Week One - Hypocrisy

WOW!  What a great start to "When Christians Get it Wrong" today!  What follows are a few items from the video, the Leader's Guide, or the Participant Guide that moved me:

Jesus warned us about four different expressions of hypocrisy: 
- Wrong motives
- Pointing out the sin of others with out seeing our own
- Majoring in minors - Hamilton said, "When you focus on the minutia, you forget the really important stuff."
- Being two-faced




We are ALL recovering Pharisees
One young adult said, "I don't mind that you Christians don't live up to all of your ideals.  I don't live up to all of my ideals, either.  In the end, I guess we're all hypocrites, it's just that my friends and I recognize that we're hypocrites.  It seems that many Christians haven't figured this out yet."

"When Christians get it right, we love and give, work for justice, and demonstrate kindness.  When we Christians get it right, we, like Jesus, befriend those who are outside the church rather than condemning them.  And when we Christians get it right, people are drawn to, rather than repelled by our faith."

Closing Prayer:

Dear God, we want to be filled with your heart and goodness all the time.  But we're not there yet, so sometimes we're tempted to fake it - and that can get ugly.  Help us to live authentically in your love and grace, letting go of our need to look good even when we aren't.  Teach us to own our struggles and claim your power to transform us.  Amen.

Week Twelve - Matthew

Next week our focus will be on the twelfth film in Rob Bell's Nooma series - "Matthew."  Sheila will lead us in this casual discussion.

Suffering the loss of someone we love can be the most difficult thing in life to deal with.  One moment we have them and the next they're gone.  What are we supposed to do?  How are we supposed to feel?  The truth is, there's no certain way that we're "supposed" to feel.  Whatever we're feeling, it's okay.  It's okay to feel shock, anger, denial, or whatever we may feel.  It's okay.  And if we don't feel anything at all, that's okay too.  It's okay to have no answers and no explanations.  Because sometimes all the reasoning and comforting words in the world don't really help and everything can seem hopeless. What might help us, however, is to understand how Jesus dealt with this kind of loss.

Watch the trailer for the film we'll watch on October 14th:

 

Remember, we meet in the Fellowship Hall during Sunday School (9:45-10:45).  Everyone is welcome!!