Adult Forums, Lent 2021
We dig deep with an open spirit into questions of faith and life. Currently adult forum meets from 10:20am-11am Sundays. Use the Sunday worship zoom link (website front page) and join the Breakout Room when invited.
Beginning February 21: The Heart of the Gospel
Which version of Christianity is right? What’s taught in evangelical mega-churches, Catholic cathedrals, small town parishes or none of the above? Are we all getting it wrong in some ways?
When religion seems irrelevant or troublesome to so many, are there some basics we need to get back to as people of faith? Can we shed what weighs us down and get back to root beliefs and practices? (Will the ELCA be gone in 30 years?) What’s the living heart of the good news?
During Lent we get back to basics – and in adult forums we’ll look at what was surprising and fresh about Christianity when it emerged in the ancient world. New Testament scholar C. Kavin Rowe says it was: 1). Its story of hope, 2). A vision of what humans are, 3). Institutions like care for the poor, education, hospitals and church itself.
In what ways are these aspects of Christianity still surprising on some level? Can they be sources of renewal today?
Christianity is still so much here with us that it is utterly familiar and has receded from us so far that we do not know what it is. This is not a step-wise process—here, then not here—but a simultaneous reality. Christianity is at one and the same time here and gone, familiar and forgotten.
Rowe, C. Kavin. Christianity’s Surprise
