These weekly posts explore how we are both introducing and living into the Way of Love in our Adult Christian Formation offering. My hope is to provide accessible experiments to live more into this way of following Jesus.
Goal: We will be able to answer, reflect, and experiment with different postures toward scripture. In particular, we will practice asking questions of the text as a different posture from the text as the answer-giver, reflecting on the various literary genres found in Bible and the more long-term meditative approach of reading the scriptures.
Opening
Start with teaching and modeling a round of Questions Only. To see the game in action, check out this video. Play a few rounds as a way to start thinking about asking questions.
Reflection
Ask the following questions, offering especially a specific way something didn’t work as a way to gain data, reflect, and adjust.
- What was your plan to read scripture?
- What was helpful?
- What didn’t work?
- What did you notice?
- How are you listening to:
- yourself?
- God?
- neighbors?
- How are you listening to:
- How will you adjust for next week?
Content
How do we approach the Bible?
How do we work to ask questions of the scriptures and allow the scriptures to question us?
Learning occurs when we question our assumptions – the problem is many times we do not even know the assumptions we have.
Watch the following videos. As you watch each one, reflect on the following:
- Name an “ah-ha” moment you had as you watched and
- Name a moment which made you uncomfortable – it might be a sign that something that was shown/said challenged an assumption you may not even know you hold.
Discuss after each video.
The Bible as Jewish Meditation Literature
Experiment
Today’s scripture experiment is generating questions.
Read the gospel for the day. Set a timer for five minutes and see how many questions the group or small groups can generate.
Reflect on the process. Brainstorming questions generate questions that are really helpful and some which are not connected with the text, some questions are easily answered, other questions caused us to ask more questions, many questions had to do with context.
This week’s experiment is to read scripture daily. On can use apps online or the daily lectionary. Participants have access printed sheets of two-week Bible reading plans based on topics and a low-tech option.
Closing Liturgy
The closing liturgy is based on the We Seek Love page associated with the Way of Love.
holly rankin zaher 