Youth Villages with Aisha Ellerson

This coming Sunday, Septermber 22, we're pleased to host Aisha Ellerson who works with Youth Villages in Johnson City. Aisha is going to tell us more about Youth Villages where she is a recruiter and trainer for potential treatment foster parents. Aisha writes, "I absolutely love what I do. I would like to come out and speak with your group on how they can help make a difference in these children’s lives. Many of the children have experienced so much trauma and the one thing they need is a good, loving home. I would like to present this idea to the group and give them a little more information on what that would look like."

Aisha is a Memphis native who "loves to stay involved in the community and working with children". She has volunteered at a few after school programs in the area. She's also a mentor at my church and works with the children’s ministry. She says that her desire is to one day start a non-profit that focuses on the betterment of our community and creating positive and future oriented experiences for youth of this generation.  Here's the link: www.youthvillages.org

Please join us. We'll be happy to see you.

Painting the Stars, An Evolving Faith

This Sunday we'll continue the Painting the Stars series with Chapter 4, An Evolving Faith.
From the included literature:

"“Christ is the evolver, the centrating energy of the evolutionary
movement. But Christ cannot be the energy of evolution unless the
incarnation is allowed to be continued in us.”—Ilia Delio

“Stress is the only thing that creates evolution.” —Elisabet Sahtouris

Scholar Phyllis Tickle claims that every five hundred years or so the church
holds a massive rummage sale. These are the times when it becomes
necessary to go through all the theological and ecclesiastical baggage that we
have been carrying with us over the years, and do the hard work of sorting out
what we need to let go of, what we intend to keep, and what we need to make
room for. The last big rummage sale was the Protestant Reformation. With the
advent of the printing press, and a rise in literacy, it became possible to take the
Bible out of the hands and dominion of the priesthood and entrust it the laity.
These rummage sales are evidence that the church has always been in the
process of evolving in response to shifting life conditions.
In an evolutionary paradigm, shifting life conditions represent provocations to
adapt. When these life conditions represent a deep enough challenge, sufficient
creative tension is produced that give birth to a whole new set of values, beliefs,
intelligences, and technologies. A new worldview emerges in response to crisis
requiring the church to evolve. Modernity, for example, challenged priestly
authority with the mantra of “no more myth and no more superstition.” German
scholars, one hundred and fifty years ago, began to distinguish between the
Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. The church was compelled to find out
what Jesus, the first century Mediterranean Jew, actually said, and what the
early church said about him. It is now commonplace for us to differentiate
between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus. Radical
postmodernism began to challenge the legitimacy of any grand narrative, realizing that “truth” is contextual, and arises in and through perspectives.
Postmodernist philosophers noticed that the interpretive keepers of the grand
narrative tended to gain a disproportionate amount of power in society.
Eventually, the “myth of the framework,” (all we can really know is the frame
we’re looking through), replaced the “myth of the given,” (the traditional idea that
Truth is revealed from on high). In response, the church has needed to update it
truth claims and the basis of its faith.
It’s time for another rummage sale.""

Please join us. We'll be delighted to see you.

Painting the Stars -- Getting Genesis Wrong

This Sunday, September 8th, we'll explore the 3rd chapter in Painting the Stars: Getting Genesis Wrong. 
The reference is to Genesis 1:28 -- 
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Sometimes we've abuse an interpretation of "subdue it."

The tone for our session is set in two verses:

An absence of a sense of the sacred, awe, is the basic flaw in many of
our efforts at ecologically or environmentally adjusting our human
presence to the natural world. It has been said ‘We will not save what we
do not love’. It is also true that we live neither love nor save what we do
not experience as sacred.” —Thomas Berry

and,

Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush, afire with God
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Please be warmly invited to join us.

Painting the Stars, A Renaissance of Wonder

Last Sunday we viewed a lesson from the Living the Questions dvd, Painting the Stars. That lesson was on "Healing the Rift," ie., the rift between science and faith. It was good.
This coming Sunday, September 1, we'll view the second lesson, "A Renaissance of Wonder." The study materials include the following:

"Much of modern life is lived in a state of what sociologist Max Weber called
'disenchantment.' By this he meant that over the course of the modern period—
roughly the last 500 years—the cosmos has systematically been voided of
Spirit. A distinctive feature of the modern period is that if somebody were to walk
into your home and find you on your knees praying, or catch you with your arms
flung open in a gesture of thanksgiving to the cosmos you would be
embarrassed. This is the first period in the history of humanity in which this was
true."

and this from Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

"Love all Creation,
The whole of it and every grain of sand
Love every leaf
Every ray of God’s light
Love the animals
Love the plants
Love everything
If you love everything
You will perceive
The divine mystery in things
And once you have perceived it
You will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly
More and more everyday
And you will at last come to love the whole world
With an abiding universal love."

These are but tips of the iceberg. Please join us for what will hopefully be an intelligent, thoughtful discourse on the intersection of science and faith.

Why Jesus Matters

In a recent talk, Marcus Borg said, ""Jesus matters for Christians because he was for us the decisive disclosure of God." This coming Sunday we will watch and discuss a portion of Borg's presentation on "Why Jesus Matters, which you can preview at this link: Click here. We'll also have a look at, what I think, are two of the most telling passages in the New Testament, Mark 7:9-30, and John 10:30-34. These passages may speak volumes to the common humanity we share with Jesus.
Please join us for some thoughtful discussion. 

Our Labyrinth at FPCe

This coming Sunday, August 4, Aubrie Abernethy will talk about our unique Labyrinth at FPCe, its history, and its application in our lives. 

"Have you ever imagined that by simply putting one foot in front of the other and walking a labyrinth you might quiet your mind and find yourself in a place of mystery and discovery?? For thousands of years, across a myriad of religious traditions and cultures people have walked labyrinths in search of meaning and life's purpose. Please join us as we explore a subject that has intrigued many for centuries. Learn how our own First Presbyterian's labyrinth came about and you may be inspired to venture out to walk the labyrinth."

Please join us. We'll be delighted to see you

Deconstructing Original Sin

We all know the story of original sin. Eve did it, suckered Adam into it, and now we're all guilty of it, and the only way we can be saved of it is through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. I've had such a hard time with this narrative. It is so beautiful and compelling for some, and completely unconvincing to me. Some find joy and meaning in the story, and I'm not one of them. I just don't believe it. the story is logically inconsistent, and morally indigestible. We'll look at the why on Sunday morning.

Here are two important links: Rimsha Masihi and Eve.

On the following Sunday, we'll talk about what is beautiful and compelling within Christianity, apart from original sin.
Please join us. We'll be delighted to see you.