WATCH THIS SPACE!!!
- Welcoming the Stranger deut 14.28-29
- Recovering Vision zeph 3.14-20
- Connecting to Neighbor luke 14.1-13
- Serving Needs Acts 4.32-35
- Healing Brokenness Matt 25.35-40
Each talk needs to include:
- reference to the provided scripture:
- you can use one sentence,
- you can use a children's version,
- you can use the message version (biblegateway has the best search features)
- your story
- how gathering changes others
- what the guests need to hear about gathering as a christian community
- a video clip that connects to the topic and your talk.
- THE WORD GATHER AND THE WORD BECOME (OR A SYNONYM OF EITHER)
A few hints on how to get started.
1. read the scripture. write down any ideas or words that stand out. does it bring forth any memories?
1.5 look up the definition of the words gather and become. also the thesaurus. write down one synonym for each word.
2. focus on the action word. how have you known that action word in the world and in the church? can you quickly tell a story about either of those?
3. how have you been changed/impacted/improved by a gathered community? can you write about that?
4. what do our guests most need to know about this that can connect them to the blessings of gathering in christian community?
5. is there a video that connects to this for you??
THEN..
PUT THAT ALL ASIDE.
GO DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR A WHILE.
THEN COME BACK AND WRITE A FIRST DRAFT.
YOU MUST WRITE IT OUT.
NO EXCEPTIONS.
If you like quotes try looking for quotes on good reads, or brainy quote. below are a few quotes I like regarding these topics. many of these would work for many talks.
WELCOMING THE STRANGER
“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly
prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and
welcome good.”
―
Maya Angelou,
Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer
“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”
―
Dorothy Day,
The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist
RECOVERING VISION
“In the company of these friends, questions and doubts were met with
sympathy, not fear. No one felt the need to correct or understand or
approve. We just listened, and it was sacred.”
―
Rachel Held Evans,
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your
enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
―
Steve Maraboli,
Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
“But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone.
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can
be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of
escape.”
―
bell hooks,
All About Love: New Visions
HEALING BROKENNESS
“This
is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs
gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but
because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room
for more.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of
others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he
or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or
she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are
humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”
―
Desmond Tutu
“Jesus is the thrilling, scary Boyfriend who's going to dare you to do
things you'd never dreamed of, shower you with unreasonable presents,
and show up uninvited at the most embarrassing times. Then he's going to
stick with you, refusing to take the hint when you don't answer his
calls.”
―
Sara Miles
CONNECTING TO NEIGHBORS
HELPED are those who risk themselves for others' sakes; to them will be
given increasing opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a
vision of the word in which no one's gift is despised or lost.
HELPED
are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that
in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or
of war.
HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world.
HELPED
are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil
done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new
Earth.
HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator's
magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment
without ceasing.
HELPED are those who laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous.
HELPED
are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love
all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor
any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden
from them.
aLICE wALKER
“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our
life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success,
popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their
seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much
larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the
voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity,
and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap,
however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes
me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself
thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My
dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside,
forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy
of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that
calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of
our existence.”
―
Henri J.M. Nouwen
SERVING NEEDS
There's a hunger beyond food that's expressed in food, and that's why feeding is always a kind of miracle.”
―
Sara Miles,
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious
and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified,
least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and
makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry
will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all
things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food
without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious,
and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn't promise to solve
or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one
another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that
by opening ourselves to strangers,”
―
Sara Miles,
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
the new humanity that is created around Jesus is not a humanity that is
always going to be successful and in control of things, but a humanity
that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by
the hand of God.”
―
Rowan Williams,
Being Christian
“Christians will be found in the neighbourhood of Jesus – but Jesus is
found in the neighbourhood of human confusion and suffering,
defencelessly alongside those in need. If being baptized is being led to
where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and
the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.”
―
Rowan Williams,
Being Christian
