Letters from a Skeptic

We are discussing the book "Letters from a Skeptic" in our Sunday School class (I can't remember if I'd mentioned that before or not) and it makes for lively discussion. Granted, I don't always agree with the defenses that the author makes (or the way he chooses to employ a defense that I do agree with) but that keeps it more interesting for me. The discussion has been really good and Lily has been posting some of her notes here.

A couple things about this class have given me pause to think: 1) The specific "attendees" and 2) The reaction to the book.

The people who have been coming into class for the discussion have been, for the most part, people (like myself) who were raised in church - traditional evangelical church, too boot. The Sunday School teacher, the pastor and myself were all thinking that this would be a good "entry class" for people new to the faith with some still unanswered questions, but we haven't been overwhelmed with "newbies". At first I was dismayed by this. But not any more.

You see, we have been running a "blurb" about the class for a few weeks in the bulletin and I've made sure that a slide promoting the book and class has been in our announcement "slideshow" that runs before the worship service starts. This would generally include cover photo of the book, class location and the next couple specific questions coming up for discussion.

I was so pleased when Lily told me this morning that nearly all the books are gone! My wife and I are sharing a copy and I know that other couples in the class are also sharing a copy and I only knew of one person outside the class that said she and her husband wanted a copy to read. But lo and behold, other people are picking them up!

Okay, so I'm rambling. The point is that people are not afraid to confront this material! One of the guys in class put it really well this morning - he said "as I've grown older, I've been thinking more about things that I used to just accept". (he's younger than me) Some of us sometimes like to "discuss" things too much (that would be me) - I am so charged that people want to "read the hard questions" and I will be perfectly happy if we need to order more books!

V-B-S ! V-B-S !!

Yes campers, it's that time of year again, time for Vacation Bible School (cheer)

This will be the third or fourth year that we have used VBS from Group Publishing. We started using stuff from Group (instead of our denominational publishing house) because Group had a "rotation stations" type of setup. What this amounts to is that each day (or night) of VBS you are teaching the same lesson to each age group using the different methods of learning. So one station is a video emphasizing that night's "Bible Point", another is a crafts station (emphasizing the same Bible Point), a games station and, my favorite, the station were a lesson from the Bible emphasizing that day's Bible Point is acted out. Its kind of fun building the "sets" for that Bible lesson station but they're different every day!

We have spoken to the representative from our denominational publishing house on more than one occassion about the fact that we were not using "in house" VBS materials and why. I am now seeing an interesting example of "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". Over the course of the past five years our denominational publishing house has come to, bit by bit, imitate this form in their VBS program. I am one of the greatest proponents of any church using materials produced by their denomination's publishing house (for a number of reasons) so we have, on occassion, reviewed the literature available in this department [children].

I am very blessed on my Sunday School Committee to have children's teachers with (literally) more years of experience than I am allowed to tell. (One of them started teaching little children's Sunday School when she was 12 and another started teaching little children's Sunday School when she was 14, so they think if I tell how much experience they have, that it will make them sound old)

So based on these ladie's expertise, we have continued to use the material that is most suited to the children's ages. When the material from the denominational publishing house is age-appropriate, we will buy it. (i'll shutup about that now :-)

Lost in Translation

Today was a really great day with an awesome Sunday School class (could i clone myself so i can attend both the classes i want to?), great worship and super messages. My friend Johnny spoke this evening on Post-Modernism. [i can read your thoughts] - well, you see that was the whole point - if we are going to effect our culture we have to understand our culture.

The District Assembly was way cool - Dr Rick Rigsby was one of our speakers - he rocked the house. [Awesome] so naturally i bought his book (signed, thank you very much :-) i ate too much chocolate (if such a thing is possible), rested well (and much) and didn't check my email from Tuesday afternoon until just a couple hours ago.

Okay, the "translation" bit. At the assembly i saw some old friends and met some new ones. Wednesday night, several of us were seated around a table and the couple to my left were valiantly trying to have a conversation with another couple at the table but the first couple speak only Spanish and the second couple speak only English. Long story short - the background noise (the dinner conversations of several hundred people), our table's proximity to a large speaker (belting out Bavarian folk tunes - not a joke) and our juxtaposition at the table all made it quite "interesting" for me trying to translate for the two couples. Hopefully, not too much was "lost in translation".

Now, after taking three days off from work i can hardly wait to see what Monday brings (and i *know* some of the machinery at work is on the fritz (and i was having so much fun in Austin that i forgot to go to Red's Guns ;-)

Coming back from the assembly, we stopped for gas (and the obligatory potty call) and one of my friends said "Hey, i heard some people talking the other day... - what is a 'blog'?". i just told him that i would have to come over to his office one day and show him. Sometimes i feel like a (very inadequate) translator between generations...

You know, this month i had every intention of blogging at least two or three times a week. Well that didn't quite go as planned. And May doesn't look any better.

New Small Group

It hasn't been "officially" announced yet but at 6pm on Saturday, April 14, we will have the first meeting of our Sunday School teachers as a "small group" in our home. One reason that my wife and I bought the particular house that we did was so that we would have room to have people over.

I cannot claim to have *everything* figured out (not by a long shot) but it's time to "Just Do It" and see what happens. We are hoping to build community in our Sunday School and encourage each of our Sunday School teachers to do things to build community within their classes.

We are tentatively thinking of meeting (with this group) once a quarter on a Saturday but we might meet more often. The plan that we have is just that - a plan. We will have to see where it actually goes. I am excited. Please be in prayer for us in this positive new step in connecting people in our Sunday School ministry.