Adult Education

Adult Christian Education

I recently had someone say to me that the reason they are not coming back to church is they can not forget what has happened over the past couple of years.  After some discussion they said they were able to forgive the wrongs that were committed but because they still remember them they would find it hard to come to church on a regular basis.

Martin Marty, Church historian and theologian, found this quote from Mirslov Volk, who wrote a book entitled, “Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World.”  It deals with the idea of remembering, forgetting, reconciling, and forgiving.  “In a sense, forgetting is given to us as the gift of a healed relationship.  It’s a gift of the new world, which God gives us.  Then we can not remember.  And then our experience is like a person who is sitting in a concert hall and listening to a wonderful piece of music.  Even though just two hours ago she was experiencing hell at her job, she’s taken up into that music.  It’s not that she tried to forget so that she could be in the music; it’s that the music took her out of the remembrance of the past.  God gives us the gift of the healed self, healed relationships, and a reconstituted world, and then we can not remember.”

I would like to extend an invitation to those who struggle with hurtful and painful past:  God has the capacity to give us gift of a healed self that can let go of the past and to allow a new future.  Allow yourself to be “caught up into the music” of God’s word of promise and hope and you just might find yourself gracefully forgetting.”  It means “Letting Go and Letting God” work God’s healing touch in all of our lives.

NEW ADULT EDUCATION CLASS BEGINS JANUARY 6, 2008
9:30am to 10:15am  Weekly  

HOW YOUR CHURCH FAMILY WORKS

Based on the book by Peter Steinke
Led by Pastor Kate Schlechter, MFT 

The goal of this class is to conceptualize emotional processes so that we can recognize them and ultimately, let them serve rather than corrupt the purpose of our life together in a faith community; “For the sake of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phillippians 2:11). 

Using the Bible as our basis, we will discover a new way to think about and work through emotional processes, we will examine “family systems” or “systems theory.” The class is not about technique or “how-to” it is about theory and events, using our everyday family, work and church experiences to discover how we can function in a healthy way in order to create a vital, trusting community of faith. 

The Bible Stories of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, personal faith sharing,  genograms, videos, movie clips, and interactive, experiential group activities will be used to illustrate and teach in this class.

We will look at “How” things happen.”  It is intended to sharpen awareness of emotional processes.  Understanding alone will not change these processes.  But if understanding is translated into new ways of being and doing, emotional processes can be directed toward health and well-being as we live the divine vocation entrusted to us.

The Church is not a family.  Families are more committed and intense.  Their relationships are repeatedly reinforced and deeply patterned.  Nonetheless, the church is an emotional unit.  The same emotional processes experienced in the family operate in the church.  Utilizing and looking at how the church family works as an emotional system, we will address such questions:

• Why does the church family resist taking steps toward change and growth in new ways?
• How can the church family change the way it functions with each other?
• How can the church family respond when it is threatened by its own emotional processes?
• How can the church family remain “calm” in the midst of anxiety? 
• What is anxiety in the church setting?  Anxiety generated by financial concerns, new worship liturgy, new pastoral style of leadership, past unresolved conflicts, etc….

This will be an interactive class that will draw on your personal experiences both in your family of origin and in the church.  This will be your chance to add an “amen” to the ‘aha’ of discovery through the benefit of finding out your “role” in the complex relationships of the church family unit. 

Join us from January to April for this journey into the “known and the unknown” of “How Your Church Family Works.”   

Meets Sundays at 9:30am Conference Room