Hey Friends,
I’m in the middle of 4-5 weeks of 6-7-day work weeks, full of out-of-state travel, mostly related to carpentry and fundraising. Gratefully, I’m in good spirits but would appreciate your prayers for strength and steadiness. Although it’s a busy season, God has given me several tangible encouragements lately, and I love the fall.
I’m also really excited about the content of a course called The After Party, that our church plant will be hosting starting tonight. Moreover, I want to invite you to join us by taking the course online. You can learn more here, as well as sign up to take it at no cost. I just finished preparing for tonight’s session and the content is outstanding! Here’s an overview of the six weeks to hopefully pique your interest:
- Session #1- “Invited to the party”: A discussion on the messiness of politics- particularly, group mentality and “us vs. them” politics- and towards the message of unity despite our differences, respecting those differences, and how we are told to approach politics in the Bible.
- Session #2- “The Disciple”: A discussion of the nature of discipleship and the virtues of humility and hope. A disciple must acknowledge complexity, and that we don’t know everything and cannot always be right, and the hope we must have in Jesus as the one who teaches what is good and the one worthy to put our hope in.
- Session #3- “The Combatant”: A discussion of the partisan mindset and how it affects the archetype of Combatants who are in a political and social war. By humbly submitting to Jesus and instead adopting a mindset of peace, one may become a combatant of the true enemy (the devil) instead of each other.
- Session #4- “The Exhausted”: A discussion on those who retreat from social fights and instead place their faith solely in Christ, and how social media fuels hopelessness. The course also offers advice for civic conversation in the face of these issues.
- Session #5- “The Cynic”: Discusses the nature of the Cynic, someone who is prone to both pride and despair. A recovering cynic, Curtis Chang, discusses how pursuing justice and discarding judgment and indifference can help cultivate hope and humility.
- Session #6 – “The true after party”: Discusses how partisan mindsets can corrupt one into combativeness, cynicism, and exhaustion. Taking instead a blend of hope and affection towards politics can shine light instead on the true end goal of our faith: togetherness with and worship toward Jesus.
For more info on each session, see https://redeemingbabel.org/the-after-party/course-overview/
Hope you can join us or at least watch the videos in the first session,
Greg