Monday, August 8, 2005

Good Morning!

Good to see everyone on Sunday. Hope you have a good week. Just an fyi on Alex Lloyd, Monica's nephew, who has been on our prayer list for a while. Monica updated the class on Alex's condition Sunday -- he is doing great, he is out of his cast and is zipping around to the point that Monica says we should take him off of the prayer list, which is great news.

Also, given our discussion about Scientology yesterday in class, here is a link to good overview article -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology. One point that it corrects is something I alluded to in class -- Scientology is different from Church of Christ, Scientist, or "christian science", which is a completely different group. There is a link in the article above to an entry about that group as well.

The new unit for this week is Unit 15 -- Holiness of Life

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Peter 1:15

As he who called you in holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct.

Today's Scriptures: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Today's Discussion:

-- scripture today is a great starting point for the unit, as a way of getting at what this unit is about. The Reflections section also does a good job of summarizing this unit as well, and the thing that I immediately notices is how much that sounds like what the mission of our class is about. So, in some sense, this unit should be particularly useful for fleshing out what it is this class is about.

-- note that in the Reflections section, there is a reference which some may not be familiar with -- it mentions "societies, bands and classes" -- those are terms for various Methodist small group gatherings in Wesley's day -- one could argue that, given the purpose of our class, that we would have been considered a "band" in Wesley's day rather than a "class", but that is just an interesting aside.

-- in verse 12, there is an interesting reflection on our conversation yesterday about celebrity and Christianity and Hollywood -- verse 12 says to" make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands." How many celebrities do we you know who lives a quiet life and minds their own business? Maybe this is one reason why Christians in Hollywood are not as visible as the Scientology types.

-- on the other hand, our cultural obsession with the celebrity publicity runs very much counter to the instruction "to mind your own business". The energy that our culture has expended in the minding the business of the weekly drama that is the Jessica Simpson - Nick Lachey marriage is proof that that is good advice.

-- one of the key ideas underlining the Thessalonian scripture is the idea of respect as a way to open the door to witness -- Paul's admonitions to the Thessalonians in this section are intended to also have the effect of winning respect for Christians so that they can share their message.

Question for Sunday:

-- how quiet a life do you live? What does living a quiet life in today's world mean?

Today's prayer request: Space shuttle crew and families

Space shuttle's return has been postponed until tomorrow due to weather, but let's pray for their safe return.

Today's class member prayer:

Valerie Waters

Have a great day.

Jay