Posts with the category “elemental-season-1”

INTROThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion. Feel free to add or subtract or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Spirit to lead in all things.OPENHave you ever h...  Read More

Before we end this part of the series, and remember, there will be a second season of this series, I wanted to say something that I think is important. It is okay to doubt, to question, and to want to...  Read More

If you are going to build back, you need to lay a foundation that will be strong, flexible, and will be true. That means you are going to need to get your priorities straight. You are going to need to...  Read More

Now, it can’t all be bad can it? Everything that we learned, everything that we lived. When we deconstruct our faith, are we just standing in the rubble asking to have it all thrown out the window? Or...  Read More

When the disciples began to follow Jesus, they seemed to experience a life that was not exactly what they were looking for. In fact, in Matthew 8 Jesus talks about how difficult following will be. The...  Read More

Some fear deconstruction because they are afraid they might lose their faith. However, we are confronted with a much greater issue; the fact that the faith of many people is simply slipping away. With...  Read More

When we deconstruct our faith, it is certainly not always a loss of faith. Rather, it is a reconfiguring and reworking of some of those universal understandings. It is also an opportunity to look at t...  Read More

INTRODUCTIONThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion. Feel free to add or subtract or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Spirit to lead in all things.OPENThink ab...  Read More

I was recently watching the movie Silence, about 17th-century priests and their journeys to Japan. It is a difficult movie and quite brutal. It is not a simple watch and the book by Shūsaku Endō i is ...  Read More

I have a few thoughts on this. Firstly, for those of us who have been in the church for most of our lives and who have also gone to Christian schools for a portion of that time, simply going to Genesi...  Read More

I don’t know how you have interacted with the Bible throughout your life, but if you are like me, it is a on-again-off-again relationship. While I love scripture, there are times in my life where I am...  Read More

Growing up, I used to be terrible at Bible quiz time at school. I just couldn't remember chapter and verse as they wanted us to. I wasn’t great at memorization and that seemed to be a prerequisite for...  Read More

Does the bible give us a particular type of certainty? And is that what it is supposed to be used for?The great Protestant tradition, beginning with Martin Luther, has always been a great search for t...  Read More

Deconstruction - how you take your faith apart matters (deconstruction, tools of deconstruction, inspiration, interpretation, what can we really know, epistemology)INTROThe following is a guide to hel...  Read More

So is this really a question of truth, or is it a question of what you can know and what you can’t know? Or is it a question of what is possible to know, or is it something else? The philosophical ana...  Read More

This is a fair question. If the biblical narrative is not as simple as we have perhaps been led to believe, how can we really know what is happening in the Bible at all? This is one of the reasons we ...  Read More

So why can’t we just say that we believe what the Bible says and that we live our lives according to it? Wouldn’t that simply make things a bit easier? Yes, of course, it would.But unfortunately, that...  Read More

I was in a songwriting seminar with Rich Mullins, and he made an interesting comment. He asked if any of us had been in a talent show or had seen one where someone said: “God woke me up and gave me th...  Read More

When I was in high school, I got the best job opportunity. It was the opportunity to work maintenance at the school. Doesn’t that sound good to you? Then you are not a 15-year-old boy with a driver’s ...  Read More

INTRODUCTIONThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion. Feel free to add or subtract or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Spirit to lead in all things.OPENHow woul...  Read More

Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. —Psalm 40:4Have you ever felt like going to church was a little like going to scho...  Read More

Trust is hard. It is difficult for us to trust one another, to trust institutions, to trust our spouses even. When I do premarital counseling with a couple we talk about intention and how they need to...  Read More

Let me be CLEAR, we should think about God, and we should even seek to think correctly about God. But we are super complex beings. We have big brains, and we have deep spiritual thoughts and experienc...  Read More

Here is a question or two to ponder; does our understanding of God limit God? Is God beholden to the words that we say about God? I guess another way to ask the question is to ask if we create God in ...  Read More

Great question. I have felt like in this series and in this discussion we sort of have to figure out why and how we ask the questions first before we jump into the scriptures. You see, it is too easy ...  Read More

Do you follow the Bible? I think we all want to. There was a journalist by the name of A.J. Jacobs, who wrote a book called; “The Year of Living Biblically.” and I got a chance to hear him speak after...  Read More

INTROThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion. Feel free to add or subtract or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Spirit to lead in all things.OPENWhen you were a...  Read More

As we finish this first week of dipping our toes into the deconstruction pool, I want you to understand a bottom line that I think is important: “I can choose to trust God with a childlike trust regar...  Read More

Orthodoxy, in its simplest definition, is right thinking. And we were taught to think rightly, or correctly, or whatever. From my first memory of church, we were taught to think about God correctly. W...  Read More

Thus far, we haven’t encountered much scripture. I hope that is okay. Through the Elemental series, we have to set the background for what we are attempting to take on. The growth that is needed is no...  Read More

Church should be the safest place to take risks. Let me say that again. Church should be the safest place to take risks. The Church should hold a place of value in our lives because we can ask questio...  Read More

If you have ever had a moment when you question your faith, or feel some doubt, then you know that the people around you get pretty nervous and anxious about what you are going through. People don't l...  Read More

Have you ever had something that triggered a response you were not expecting? Something that brings you back to either you didn’t want to go or somewhere you have never been before and are not sure yo...  Read More

Deconstruction is a big word with a significant meaning when having to do with faith. You have probably encountered it in the last couple of years, as it has been a big topic in the world of belief. I...  Read More