Thursday, May 26, 2005

Good Morning!

If you haven't been to this page before, here's what's here: all of our daily emails, links to Wesley's 22 questions, the Pleasant Hill web site, and the main Methodist church web site. It also has what I call "Culture Corner", which are book, movie and music reviews done by Methodists. I hope to continue to expand this into a site you can use everyday, or just when you can't get to your email.

Note - I found out yesterday that I will definitely not be in class this Sunday morning. Is there someone who can volunteer to lead the discussion this Sunday?

On other interesting thing -- I just happened to find two other Methodist churches that have just started this study. The Aldersgate Class at Fairfield Glade United Methodist Church in Tennessee is doing the study, as well as the full church at Pinehurst United Methodist Church in North Carolina, so I thought that was neat.

This week, we are working on Unit 4, Life in Christ

Focus Scripture for the Week: Colossians 2:6

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him.

Today's scripture: Philippians 2:1-11

-- note that as we have moved through the scripture readings for this week, we have moved from encouragement for living for Christ to some specific instruction on how to do that. In that direction, the key scriptures for us in this passage are verses 3 and 4, which provides a starting point on how use Christ's life as an example for our own.

-- the commentary in my Bible notes that nothing in verse 3 (consider others better than yourselves) should lead you to putting yourself down, but instead it is a mindset that is focused on others. There is a sacrificial element to this approach to living, since we are giving up our "me first" approach

-- today, I read the Wesley segment that starts on the bottom of page 40 (From the preceding considerations . . . ), and I'm not sure exactly what he is getting at. It seems to me that he is saying that one of the principal ways that non-believers knock Christianity is by saying "he/she is a Christian, and look how they are living -- what good is that" I think he goes on to say, essentially, that there are a lot of people who call themselves Christian, but they really aren't, because they simply don't live a Christ-focused life. This goes back to our discussion and reading for Monday -- there are lot of people who do what it takes to be considered by the world to be religious, but very few who do what it takes to be Christian.

Today's prayer request: Megan's student Natalie

As Megan wrote yesterday, Natalie is actually having open-heart surgery today.

Today's class member prayer:

Joey Harbarger

Have a great day.