watershed: a community church

It was good to be together on Sunday. I appreciated our discussion and look forward to continuing it in the coming weeks. As we discussed, life is full of questions, and yet our greatest need is not for more information, but for a relationship with the One who is true and good and beautiful.

what is God like?

As we work through/wrestle with the questions you have posed, we are driven to the question, "What is God like?" In order to approach the other questions we must consider what we believe about who God is and what his character is like. So, at our next gathering we'll dive into questions like these:

 

• How do I live as You desire (love You - love others) when there is so much else that must be done to live here? Err - maybe I know the answer - give me the ability to execute ...
• Why do you allow suffering especially of the innocent?
• How do I know when You are pleased with me? How do I know when I'm good enough?
• How do I know what God has planned for me?

searching for answers

These are questions about how we relate to God - about what he is like. We agreed together on Sunday to spend some time on our own this week considering that question: what is God like? Consider your own experiences, but also please spend some time searching the scriptures, asking God for a deeper understanding of what he is like.

While this may be a "big" question, please don't be overwhelmed by it. Maybe a way to approach it would be to consider the themes and stories of the Bible you are already familiar with...what do they show you about what God is like?

plenty to talk about

I think we'll have plenty to talk about on Sunday. :) If you'd like to begin sharing your thoughts before then, please comment below.

We had a good gathering last Sunday. With the beginning of the year, we took our time together as families for prayer...and we had several interactive family friendly prayer stations set up around the building that gave us each a chance to reflect on the past year and look forward to the coming year, asking God for his direction.

questions

One of the stations invited people to write questions that they have...if they could ask God something, what would it be? There were some very thoughtful questions, and we're going to use these to provide direction for our times together over the next several weeks. I'm looking forward to some good discussion as we explore the scriptures together and see what they say about our questions.

 

We'll take 1+ questions each week and wrestle with it together. Some of these may have some clear answers, while others may propel us to embrace mystery and the unknown. We'll also talk briefly about the whole idea of having questions and doubts, and what that means to our faith. Here's a 2 sentence preview of what I'm thinking:

Questions are central to our faith - they acknowledge that we don't have all of the answers and need to look beyond ourselves for guidance. Questions propel us to search for and discover more of God.

What do you think?

the questions

Here are the questions that you wrote last week - from adults and kids alike:

1. How do I live as you desire (love You - love others) when there is so much else that must be done to live here? Err - maybe I know the answer - give me the ability to execute ...
2. Why do you allow suffering especially of the innocent?
3. Can you help me ride my bike? 
4. Why do you make hiccups?
5. How do I best work through decisions with co-workers in a kind but not door-mat way?
6. How do we live a life like Jesus showed us in a world that is so different and often so far from God?
7. How can I become like a child in your presence without losing my ambition? 
8. How do I know when You are pleased with me? How do I know when I'm good enough? 
9. How do I know what God has planned for me? 
10. How do I stay focused on serving you when I'm so easily distracted and exhausted?
11. What does it mean to be who you created me to be? How can I grow more confident in Christ?
12. How do I let go of my need to be liked by others?
13. Where did God come from?
14. What is heaven like?
15. What does "salvation" mean? What does the Bible really say about it? (from a previous discussion)

more questions

And, some questions about the questions: Are there any recurring themes here? What do these questions tell us about ourselves and how we think about God?