we make theroad by

walking

spiritualand religious?

4

The Bible is a library showing how our ideas of God have grown and changed through time ... and we are part of that unending conversation.

six marksof a truereligion

true:fulfilling its authentic purpose

religion:re-ligamentingre-connectingreconcilingwholeness

self - family - community - world - environment - God -

six marksof a truereligion

Public worship as group spiritual formation:Liturgy: The Work(out) of the PeopleRitual: Using bodily action to bond to meaningRitualism: Bodily action without correct meaning

Public worship as community formation:Meaning/Message: Clear?Mission: Inspiring? Inviting? Immediate?People: Permeable membrane?

Gathering Questions:How is your life? How is your work? How is your soul?How have you experienced God at work in you or through you this week?What have been some of your joys and sorrows (or high points and low points) over recent days?

Lord’s Prayer

O God, whose love makes us one family.May your unspeakable name be revered.Now, here on earth, may your commonwealth come.On earth as in heaven may your dreams come true.

Give us today our bread for today.Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive.Lead us away from the perilous trial.Liberate us from the evil.

Lord’s Prayer

For the kingdom is yours and yours alone.The power is yours and yours alone.The glory is yours and yours alone.Now and forever, amen.

Now, here on earth, may your commonwealth come.On earth as in heaven may your dreams come true.Alleluia.Alleluia.Amen.

six marks

six stories

1. self

two trees

2. family

Jacob & Esau

3. community

4 womenMary of Bethany ...

adulteress ... Samaritan ...

Canaanite

4. world

Philippi

5. environment

Pyramid economySabbath economy

6. God

Philippian hymn ...

A reading from Philippians 2. Through these words, may we see God more clearly, love God more dearly, and follow God more nearly, day by day.

Amen.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

-Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

-who, [being] in the image of God,

-did not regard equality with God 

-as something to be grasped,

-but emptied himself,-taking the form of a slave, 

-being born in human likeness.

-And being found in human form, -he humbled himself-and became obedient to the point of death—

-even death on a cross. -Therefore God also highly exalted him-and gave him the name-that is above every name, -so that at the name of Jesus-every knee should bend,-in heaven and on earth and under the earth, -and every tongue should confess-that Jesus Christ is Lord,-to the glory of God the Father.

Fr. Vincent Donovan:

Religion is our own creation. Its horizons are necessarily limited to our horizons. Since it is our creation it will serve us. In a time of social, political, and economic upheaval, we look to it as that one, solid, taken-for-granted basis to our lives. It leads us to cling to the forms and structures with which we are familiar and which we have found comforting. At the dying of an age and the birth of a new one, religion will be in the forefront of those institutions clinging desperately to that immovable rock of unanalyzed assumptions.

But revelation shatters that rock, disturbs our horizons, presents a God who is not like us at all, a destabilizing and surprising God who cannot be used to justify all our projects; instead, One who asks us questions we do not want to hear. (The Church in the Midst of Creation, p. 118)

Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions, assumptions about the work, about the people, about the church or Christianity. Never be afraid to ask questions about the work we have inherited or the work we are doing. There is no question that should not be asked or that is outlawed. The day we are completely satisfied with what we have been doing; the day we have found the perfect, unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer, never in need of being corrected again, on that day we will know that we are wrong, that we have made the greatest mistake of all. (Christianity Rediscovered, 146)

we make theroad by

walking