Just something to think about...

Nancy sent this in an email to me, and I asked her if I could post it on the blog for discussion by everyone in the group. Please offer whatever feedback or ideas you would like - Jesse

"I have thought a lot about what [Nick] prayed last Sunday night
regarding that maybe our group becoming a bit complacent and that we don’t seem to be blogging as much (although in your prayer you said that might not matter and you could be right). But it made me really sad. I just checked and there is no new posting on what is happening this Sunday yet.

With that thought in mind, I wondered if we might as a group really pray about direction and how we can be a light in our very unstable and uncertain world right now.

I e-mailed my nephew a fairly long e-mail and here is a portion of what has been on my mind…

In the loss of my evangelical belief system and foundation, I am coming to realize how difficult it is to love and worship God without it. Do I need to develop a workable belief system again? What do I really believe? What do I really know? This requires a blind trust that God will pull, teach and connect me to beliefs that continually evolve and perhaps change over time…Am I ok with that? This is radical and problematic for most because then it potentially could become all about one individual’s interpretation and perception of God—“cherry picking” so to speak. Can I trust and have faith that the One True God is revealing himself to me?” And so I ask…Can we trust that as a group God is revealing himself to us collectively? How united are we on what we think? Do we need to be united or is it better that we
do not get caught up on anyone’s collection of beliefs (perhaps there is a balance there)?

These are just a few thoughts and perhaps one of you could put something close on the blog. It’s kind of a “where are we now as a group and what do we think” blog or
discussion. Just something to think about."

The Questioning Disciple

This is a meditation that Greg Newton at Disciples' Fellowship in Birmingham, AL delivered on 8/17/08. Greg humbly suggests that not only is it okay for us Christians to ask questions, but perhaps it is our duty. The video is only about 20 minutes long, and I highly recommend it.

Stream videos at Ustream

A few quotes I really liked:

“In my sense, truth is not something we arrive at or something we possess. It’s something we seek. And our questioning never ends. We’ve done a lot of questioning, but we still need to do more questioning. Because whatever we arrive at … wherever we end up on something, it’s still open to more questioning because it’s not going to be perfect. Anyone [here] think they’ve arrived to perfection on something? Is there no room still for there to be some questions to be asked?” - Greg Newton

“Truth is too important to leave what we’re doing unquestioned and unexamined.” - Greg Newton

“We’re not questioning truth. We’re questioning what we’re doing. We’re questioning our perceptions. We’re not questioning God as much as we’re questioning perhaps our perceptions of God. We’re not actually questioning what God says. We’re questioning how it is we understand what God says.” - Greg Newton