Month: June 2012

Sunday Lectionary: God’s Green Fingers

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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: June 17th, 2012

After the feasts and solemnities of recent weeks, we finally return to the regular Sundays in Ordinary Time.  For the next few weeks, our New Testament Reading we will come from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians and, for the remainder of this year, we will be working sequentially through the Gospel of Mark.

The Readings this week make heavy use of plant imagery. So, dig out your trowel, dust off your gardening gloves and let’s get stuck in!

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Wise Words on Wednesday: Not this day

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Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! – Aragorn, Return of the King

The Mobile Challenge

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I saw someone post this on Facebook and thought it was simply brilliant:

Everyone puts their phones in the middle of the table. Whoever cracks first by touching their phone, pays for the entire meal.

The purpose of the game was to get everyone off their phones, away from twitter, facebook, texting, etc and to encourage conversations. In other words, help cure the “Anti-Social Social Media Craziness”. Here are the rules:

1. The game starts after everyone sits down.

2. Everybody places their phone in the middle of the table.

3. The first person to touch their phone loses the game.

4. Loser of the game pays the bill for everyone’s meal.

5. If the bill comes before anyone has touched their phone, everybody is declared a winner and pays for their own meal.

Are You Game?

Leading Bible Study: Part 1

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This year in the JP2 Group, more and more people have been stepping up to lead Bible study. This has been wonderful, and has brought with it a number of benefits.

Firstly, the variation in leadership has added some real diversity and insight to our Bible study sessions and helped keep the group fresh.

Secondly, in our community we often have people who attend JP2 for some time and then move on to another city. It is my hope that, by having led at JP2, these people will have the confidence at their new parish to support similar ministries or, if such ministries do not exist, then start them!

Finally, as the number of leaders in a group increases, the group becomes more self-sustaining, reducing the pressure on the group’s original leader, thus freeing him or her up to spend more time crocheting and playing the banjo…

Mistakes, I’ve made a few…

I’ve led Bible studies, in some form or another, since about 2004. In doing so, I’ve made all kinds of mistakes. Seriously, name a mistake, I’ve done it. In fact, not only will I have done it, I’m pretty sure I’d have done it in far more spectacular fashion than you! :-p

Therefore, drawing upon my vast wealth of mistakes, in an effort to help those readers who are also involved in leadership, I’ve compiled a list of Do’s and Don’ts for leading Bible Study.

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Unforgiveness

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“Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Unforgiveness enslaves the human spirit. Unforgiveness is the thief from our past that robs us of our future.”
– The Seven Levels of Intimacy, Matthew Kelly

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