Sunday Morning Adult Forum
“Embracing God’s Future without Forgetting the Past:A Conversation about Loss, Grief, and Nostalgiain Congregational Life”
Sunday, September 17, 2023 marks the first day of Sunday School
for Zoar’s children AND adults! Classes for all ages will meet at 9:15 am.
Our Adult Forum will be exploring a topic that is quite timely and — in a very real sense — long overdue! Using Scripture and a book by the Reverend Michael K. Girlinghouse, Embracing God’s Future without Forgetting the Past: A Conversation about Loss, Grief, and Nostalgia in Congregational Life, we’ll gather with our siblings in Christ to a good, long look at our congregational losses. The goal is to work through our collective grief without forgetting or devaluing our past. Engaging in intentional conversation, prayer, and Bible study together can help us get “unstuck” and enable us to think more creatively about the future to which God is calling us.
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It’s not necessary for you to read Michael Girlinghouse’s book, but when you arrive for class on Sunday morning, you may want to bring your Bible and be prepared to engage in Bible study around the topic of each chapter. (A summary of each chapter will be used as background for our conversation, and we’ll have Bibles available for you to use.)
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If you’d like to order a copy of Girlinghouse’s book, please let Pastor Michelle know ASAP, so she can order more copies. Alternatively, you can purchase it yourself on Amazon (www.amazon.com) or at Fortress Press (www.fortresspress.com).
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The Sunday morning Adult Forum will meet in the conference room. If there’s interest in having a Zoom link, please let Pastor Michelle know, so that she can arrange for it to be set up ahead of time.