Seekers Church School of Christian Living

School of Christian Living
6 Tuesdays: October 31- December 5
7:00pm Community dinner ($2)
7:30pm Classes start

Faith and The Historical Jesus

This class is for people who would like to explore who Jesus can mean for those who aren't sure about virgin birth, miracles and resurrection. We'll work on the assumption that the New Testament accounts of Jesus' life and death, and of the early church's faith, can help us know who God is, even when we aren't willing to take some of the supernatural accounts literally, or don't know what we believe. It is clear from Scripture that Jesus was experienced as a powerful spiritual teacher, in whose presence many felt that they had experienced God, and had came to understand God in a new way. Working from Scriptural texts and excerpts from some modern writers, we will discuss together what we can learn about the God of Jesus:

What did Jesus believe to be true about God that led him to teach and to act in the ways that he did?
What did the followers of Jesus experience in his company that moved them to claim that in his words and deeds they had come to know God?
What would it mean to orient my life toward the God known by and reflected in the life of Jesus?
What could it mean to be a Christian if one can't take all scriptural accounts literally?

This class is open to all: whether you don't identify yourself as Christian, but are curious about the scripture; whether you've been part of the Christian tradition, but now are working with questions of what you truly believe; or whether you are firm in your faith but are curious about recent thought on the historical Jesus.

A Study of the Psalms

This class will focus on the Psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures as an example of how one community approached God. This ancient poetry will be studied for what we can learn about the passion and praise that the writers thought was appropriate to bring to God, to bring to communal worship. Our objective will be to help each of us be more open and honest in our public and private communications with the creator.

We will study the Psalms as poetry, a means of divine passion. In searching for the soul of these odes to God, we will look at imagery and emotion with a view to enriching our own religious experiences. Another part of the study will focus on the form and substance of the Psalms as hymns. We will compare them to our own songs to examine the underlying assumptions we express in our worship. And we will discuss the relationship between the individual and the group in the Psalms.

Class members will be expected to read most, if not all, of the Psalms during the six-week period of study. Class work will consist of discussion, personal recounting, and small group review of assignments. Assignments will be focused on particular Psalms, or groups of Psalms, and will often include extra-biblical material provided by the facilitators.

In addition, class members will be encouraged to find new and exciting methods of expressing to God our praise, fear, rage, and hope - methods that are related to the material we are studying. Visual, physical, musical and verbal expressions of individual and group messages to God will be solicited and supported as part of the classroom experience.

Come celebrate and grow in community on Tuesday nights!

If you live in the Washington DC area and you wish to sign up for the classes, or have other questions concerning the classes, please Write us.

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