NB TALK OUTLINES

WATCH THIS SPACE!!!

1. Welcoming the Stranger  deut 14.28-29      
2. Recovering Vision  zeph 3.14-20
3. Connecting to Neighbor  luke 14.1-13
4. Serving Needs  Acts 4.32-35
5. 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