Hello –
This Saturday, starting at a little after 9am, I’m going to invite all of you who are there into the church and then, after a brief introduction, I plan tell you an adventure story, one where I ask you to imagine that you are not just passive listeners, but participants.
I’m going to ask you to imagine that you’re on an island with me in a Delta. The waters are rising and we must soon leave the island to head across the Sea. How did we get here? What are all these other islands in the delta? What’s across the sea?
When I gave this story its debut in the spring I was nervous but soon got caught up in the joy of storytelling. My joy only deepened as people playfully engaged with the images and the narrative.
This time around, I plan to cut down on the intro and jump more quickly into the story itself. Like a play that has yet to make a stage debut, I then plan to take a generous amount of time to engage with you about your thoughts, ideas and reactions as a way to keep developing the story.
The story is a kind of allegory. It’s based on my deep and careful reading of one of the great books of our time, Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. It’s also supplemented by several other great books that give deep and thoughtful soundings of our time and the place of faithful Christian communities in our culture.
The story as I tell it is meant to give you a kind of mental map of our social, intellectual and spiritual context. Further, I hope to give you some tools to help you make proactive decisions to engage both our culture and your own life in God.
I can’t do this alone. I need you to come listen and playfully engage with the story I offer.
We’ll start with coffee and some social time in Duncan Hall and move into the church shortly afterwards. Although this story is part of the four offerings of Strengthen Your Spiritual Core, you don’t have to have gone to the first one or have any intention of going to the other two to come this Saturday. I expect that we’ll be done by around eleven in the morning.
Come and let’s learn together!
Blessings,
Christopher
p: (415) 456-4842