Some interesting responses to the question, “Any ideas for themes for the next few months?”
All suggestions were about some of the big themes around faith and life – so we will have a go at all of them. The idea of exploring a theme is for that purpose. Some things are just too deep to bump into for a few minutes on a Sunday, so spreading them over 4 or 5 weeks is just a little bit better, but even then, quite inadequate. But let’s have a go anyway.
Themes suggested so far are:
- Prayer – What is it? What are we doing when we participate in it. How does it fit into a 21st Century understanding of psychology and science. This is a biggie!
- Redemption – One of those big theological themes that has shaped religion, especially Christianity for centuries, but is it relevant for our current time? If so, in what way?
- Power – This is one of those concepts that means different things to different people. Power in and of itself is morally neutral but how and when it is used defines its value. I suspect we will look at things like use and abuse of power.
- Death – Our particular faith story is intrinsically linked with the experience of dying and death. Suffering and health. Life and living. This is one of those topics we seldom explore but probably think about often, even if it’s only for a fleeting moment before avoiding it, quickly moving on and thinking about the good things about living.
- Dignity – This theme is often associated with dying, but in all honesty, it has so much more to do with living. How we live. How we treat others. How we regard ourselves.
- Humour – We don’t often associate religious life with humour and although there are a few ‘funny’ moments in the gospel stories in the main it is serious stuff. But I know from my own experiences that unless we look at the funny side of things life can become all too bleak. The film, The life of Brian, has to be one of the most theologically insightful yet funniest films of the modern era. We will use excerpts from the film to explore this theme.
So, during August, let’s start with ‘looking’ at this thing called prayer.
Shalom
David
