Prepare to transmit this Wednesday!
October 22, 2006
So we’re coming up on our next gathering, and I had some ideas about what to do:
1) I’d really like to get some music going, but I’d like to do it without relying on paper. Music should be a welcoming, gathering, and mutual experience while paper tends to alienate people from each other. Maybe some niggun? Maybe Taize? I’d love to do some easy part-singing, especially since we’ll be doing it a capella.
2) Keeping in mind Renata’s desire to keep things rooted in the Word and John’s desire for “more Jesus, less Christ,” I was thinking it’d be fun to unpack the story of Jesus and Bartimaeus (mark 10), maybe in the style of my good friend, Peter Pitzele. It’s a story which is frequently used to impress people with how badass Christ is, but there are a lot of more subtle Jesus-moments to be pulled out of it. Additionally, I just finished writing a ten-page commentary on the pericope for school so I’ll actually be able to contribute something…
The basic idea behind Peter’s method is that the congregation gets to discover meaning in the text for themselves by placing themselves in the story. For example, “you are Eve and you just took your first step outside of Eden. How do you feel?” The leader (i.e. me)facilitates the discussion rather than preaches his or her own opinion.
How does that sound?