This week we’re exploring how to become a church community united by common learning goals, even when we are busy!

We’ve seen that the church is made up of many different complementary gifts and passions, but all put to use pursuing the same goal.  The Bible described this as “maturity, the full stature of Christ”.  The learning goal is learning and emulating Jesus’ character in everything life throws our way.

How?

Well, most topics are learned through a mixture of learning styles, like a textbook, lectures, discussion and homework, and experience.

These are many different learning styles, but the same content is meant to be communicated through them all.

Textbook: We’re going to start to read Bible together.  We study it in in our challenges, but only a little snippet at a time.  Now we’re going to start reading longer portions in sync together.

Lectures: These challenges are obviously one form of teaching, and our live Christianity 101 course that just concluded in Whitby.  Take advantage of whatever future learning opportunities you can!

Discussion: This is critical, so I encourage you almost every day to start a discussion group based on our challenges.  Have you?  This means you’ll be getting encouraged and challenged by those you know, and can see and learn from others trying to follow Jesus.  Make sure to contact Ryan with the good news, and to enjoy some leadership coaching and encouragement.

Lab Experience: Every Thursday we give a challenge, and although they are easy to ignore, this learning process depends on you actually trying to live out Jesus’ teachings in your life, where they will transform you!

In our case, Jesus’ character, lifestyle, spiritual maturity that comes from God alone, is learned through many forms.

Challenge: Start with the textbook learning.  We are going to start to read the Bible in sync as a community every day.  We will add a Bible reading plan to our web site and app, where you’ll find a daily Bible reading starting next Monday!

Ryan Sim - May 13, 2013

Monday - A New Idea - Forgiveness

Sermon on the Mount

On the news last week, we heard about how no one wants the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombings. No cemetery seems to want the body, and the funeral director is under attack for his involvement. You can hear the anger in people’s voices. They cannot forgive this man for trying to kill them, their friends, their families. One man said, “dump him off a boat like Bin Laden”. Maybe it would be different if he was alive, and people could tell him off, see him stand trial, explain his deeds, and see him convicted and put away. But they can’t – he’s dead, and so they can only try to deny him a proper burial – many seem unable to forgive this man. A few columns and blogs here and there have spoken of forgiveness. You can tell it’s hard – more often than not you can tell they wish they could hate, but are held back by something, someone, who compels them to go against their baser instincts and forgive someone who they want to hate. Question: Can you forgive someone who won’t apologize, or forgive you? Why or why not? One example of a blog advocating forgiveness: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-martha-r-jacobs/is-a-person-bad-or-does-a-person-choose-to-do-bad-things_b_3200740.html

From Series: "Sermon on the Mount"

Discuss the Daily Challenge

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