by Elizabeth | Jan 19, 2011 | Learning Story
Just read a fascinating article by Christopher McCluskey, director of Professional Christian Coaching Institute. In it, he quotes Jesse Rice, author of The Church of Facebook:
…the recipe for the kind of connection we’re trying to define is one that includes authenticity and depth. It is sprinkled with protective safety and dignifying freedom. It contains heaping portions of loving concern for our becoming a better, more whole person. It is seasoned with access to transformative power.”
Chris McCluskey and Jesse Rice remind us that while Facebook and other social media serve some of our needs for relational connection, we were made for more.
As I read their words, I thought of the Discovering Your Story retreat, which I am really fired up about. Why? Because it will give 14 women an opportunity to discover that ‘more’ that they were made for. Engaging Scripture teaching, guided journaling, story sharing, invite women to explore the Story and mission God is writing in their lives.
Rest and refreshment in the gospel, discovery of what your life is meant to be about, renewed vigor for living in gospel hope. Learn more at Discovering Your Story page, or contact Elizabeth.
To read the entire article by Dr. Christopher McCluskey, click here.
by Elizabeth | Jan 17, 2011 | Learning Story
It’s a new year and Living Story, like the people it serves, is growing and expanding in our mission to equip people to learn, live, and love in the gospel! Please explore the site…there’s more than ever here to help you and your friends grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Let’s start by describing what Living Story is really about…
What’s Our Story?
The Living Story C-5 helps to describe our mission and how we accomplish it:
C-Core:
Christ:
Living Story is centered in the core narrative of Christ. Our hope springs from Christ’s story: incarnation as Christ-child, fully God-fully human, perfect sinless life, atoning death on the Cross, and resurrection from the dead.
It is the power of this gospel story that transforms people to learn deeply, live freely, and love passionately in God’s story to the praise of God’s glory!
C-Connection:
Community:
We believe that Christianity was never meant to be lived in isolation. Growing and sustaining authentic, compassionate Christian community is part of everything Living Story does.
C-How:
Living Story accomplishes its mission through…
Conferences: authentic and engaged teaching and leading.
We offer one-day conferences as well as longer retreats for deeper reflection. Conference material may be structured to fit into a retreat format.
Curriculum: excellent materials and resources.
We provide materials to help grow in knowledge of the grand narrative of Scripture and to live the gospel story. Bible studies and podcasts engaging all forms of learning and application are among our offerings.
Coaching: compassionate and gospel-centered alliances.
We offer gospel-centered coaching to help people live fully in the freedom of the gospel. A powerful coaching alliance can strengthen and encourage you as you move to live your mission intentionally.
Living Story Community Connection
by Elizabeth | Jan 15, 2011 | Learning Story
’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”
Refrain:
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!
Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to trust His cleansing blood;
And in simple faith to plunge me
’Neath the healing, cleansing flood!
Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.
I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.
Apologies to those who don’t like country, but this is the song I want stuck in my head today and everyday. I own the version by Trinity Worship, which I love, but can’t find a link to it. Savor the sweetness of Jesus’ love today.
by Elizabeth | Jan 14, 2011 | Learning Story
“I have heard their cries for deliverance.” Exodus 3
Back to our theme of this week — what does it mean that God knows? How does God know? One way is by “hearing. A father may, from behind his newspaper, vaguely ‘hear’ his young son moaning after he has returned from a hot tennis practice on a humid summer day, and he may utter some comfort such as “Yep, sure is hot today.”
But the Hebrew word, shama’, conveys far more than such a hearing. Here is the idea of “active listening” taken to its final conclusion. We hear “God ‘heard’” many times in the Bible. In Genesis 16, God heard Hagar’s affliction, and He intervened (perhaps not in ways we might consider helpful, “Return to your mistress and submit to her…”, but nevertheless, in His sovereign love, He acted on her behalf.) Later in the same story, He heard Ishmael’s voice when Hagar had thrown him in a bush so that she would not have to hear it, for to hear meant to feel the pain. For God to hear means God will become actively involved.
What do you think about God’s hearing? Think about stories that caused you to question whether God was hearing you. Think about stories that showed you how God became actively involved because he heard.
by Elizabeth | Jan 12, 2011 | Learning Story
What does it mean for God to know? It means that God is actively engaged in your story and mine. Continuing the thought from Monday, check out Exodus 3:7-10. Here we see how God responds to the misery and suffering of his people:
7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Too often, I think people associate God knowing with a sense of shame, a desire to hide. (Think Genesis 3!). But consistently, God’s knowing, whether it is the knowing of sin or the knowing of suffering or the knowing of glory, leads God to respond. Look at God’s response in Exodus 3:7-10. Amazing grace, how can it be?
“I have seen…”
“I have heard…”
“I am concerned…” (the only non-verb response)
“I have come down…to rescue…to bring them up..”
“I am sending”
In the next few days, we’ll look at some of the verbs, and what they tell us about God and what they mean for us. For now, spend some time thinking about a story. How might “God knows…” make a difference in this situation? Write a prayer centered around these four verbs.
by Elizabeth | Jan 10, 2011 | Learning Story
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
Exodus 2:23-25
Yesterday, our pastor preached on God. J.I. Packer wrote an excellent book called Knowing God, but this sermon began with the essential reality that God knows …us, our hearts, our stories, the plans he has for us, the struggles and the triumphs.
It took me back to a paper I wrote in seminary on redemption. I’ll spare you a lot of the academic writing, but an explanation from a Jewish scholar about all of the ramifications of the Hebrew verb “to know” help me know what it means to know that “God knows…”
In the biblical conception, knowledge is not essentially or even primarily rooted in the intellect and mental activity. Rather, it is more experiential and is embedded in the emotions, so that it may encompass such qualities as contact, intimacy, concern, relatedness and mutuality. Conversely, not to know is synonymous with dissociation, indifference, alienation, and estrangement; it culminates in callous disregard for another’s humanity. Nahum Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary
What is ahead in your day, your week, your month, your life? Exam week, PT stretching, a wedding, a new business venture? What does it mean to you to know that God is intimately involved, that he knows, that he cares, and that he is engaged in whatever the days hold?
[i] Sarna, 5.
