BOOK CLUBS
God Talk Book Club: This book club reads and discusses books with a “spiritual” theme. We just finished reading Interior Castles by Teresa of Avila and are currently beginning sessions on The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler. Our meetings of the God Talk Book Club give us the chance to explore our faith within the context of the book.
Peace and Justice Book Club: This book club reads and discusses books with a social justice theme. We have read Hope on a Tightrope by Cornel West, Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss, and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Our meetings of the Peace and Justice Book Club give us the chance to explore the social justice world and to reason on how we might act to make a difference in this world.
LECTURE SERIES
Soup and Spirituality: Lent is a very special time in the life of the church. For this Lenten series, we invite speakers who represent the five major traditions to speak on a chosen topic. Recent topics include “Prayer,” “Heretics and Mystics,” “Who Do You Say That I Am? A Perspective on Jesus.” After a light dinner of salad and vegetarian soup, we enjoy the speaker and a question-and-answer program.
Fall Lecture/Discussion Series: Each fall we explore a topic relevant to modern life. We just completed four sessions on “Dying with Dignity” – discussions of “living with” instead of “dying of,” hospice and care, pre-need cemetery arrangements, and making sure your church knows your desires for the service.
BIBLE STUDY
Bible Study: We have just completed a 12-hour series called Bible 101. Led by Dr. Brad Elliott Stone, this series featured an overview of the Bible, beginning with the session on the Torah and ending with a session on Revelation. Each session featured a “unit” on the books of the Bible. Weaving history and facts into the discussion, we talked about the writers and the times of each set of books.
In recent years, again under the tutelage of Dr. Stone, we studied individual books of the Bible: Romans, Revelation, Daniel, John. With Dr. Stone’s wide knowledge of Bible history, these sessions are always most interesting.
