St. Louis, Missouri | Deborah Bohlmann
Faith as a Way of Life calls for an examination of the unique
spiritual expressions and needs of Christians in a complex
world, and supports pastors in their role as spiritual leaders
within this context. This local group will call upon the creative
and reflective gifts of Christian writers to address these
issues.
The title of the project itself suggests the understanding that any examin-ation of faith includes metaphorical and narrative language — the language at the heart of how we understand ourselves and how we connect with others to build community and relationship. Many theologians will acknowledge that even their best attempts at explaining the premises and purposes of faith fall short, as they struggle with the limitations of expository language. Our local group will reach beyond academic prose to include poetry, fiction, drama, creative nonfiction, personal essay, and devotions in our theological reflections.
Participants in the project will include pastors and lay people, all with the commitment to and expertise in writing that enable them to make connections between faith and daily life. Such written expressions of faith can provide striking and essential insights for pastors seeking to best serve their parishioners and help them grow as Christians in a challenging age.
New Canaan, Connecticut | Skip Masback and Allen Hilton
The Faith as a Way of Life initiative has captured our imagination
at the New Canaan Congregational
Church. In January 2004, Skip
Masback and Allen Hilton began a ten-week sermon series on
Romans under the title “Faith as a Way of Life.” This series
inaugurated a comprehensive church-wide program, beginning
with a three-year adult formation curriculum that Allen Hilton
designed. By the fall of 2004, every program in our church
— children’s and youth education, service and outreach, men’s
and women’s fellowships, and pastoral care — was tied to the
larger initiative to facilitate God’s movement in us to make
faith a way of life.
A working group would facilitate collaborative efforts between the clergy and laity of our church and other churches toward the good ends of shared ideas and a shared sense of mission in the world. We would hope for mutually beneficial relationship that foster ideas and inspiration, through interaction and through the shared experience of the outside resources that funding would allow.
Our hope of receiving useful critiques and comparing notes on curricula will be best served by meeting as a group three times a year. In January, April, and September, as new seasons of our program and many church formation programs begin, we will gather to preview upcoming plans, review the most recent season, hear the project status of one featured church in the group, and hear a speaker who can serve as a resource for the particular theme being developed by the featured church.
Chicago, Illinois | Susan Johnson
We will bring together 15 lay people and clergy from five congregationally-governed
churches in the Chicago area for a creative interrogation of
the great catechisms of the Protestant Reformation, as
well as several more contemporary American catechisms written
in the late twentieth century, in order to understand and articulate
more fully the “disconnect” between faith in contemporary American
religious experience and historical expressions of doctrine
and religious experience.
Emphasis will be placed on the historical impetus for each catechism, the logic or flow of its questions, its use of theological terms and faith vocabulary in questions and answers, and the adequacy of answers for a contemporary audience. Special attention will be given to the relative impact of discoveries in science and medicine, the rise of modern psychology, increased lay leadership in churches, the growing religious pluralism of the U.S., and enhanced personal freedom and choice in American society.
The Prairie Catechism Review will produce a paper describing the reflections and conclusions of the group. Substantial portions of discussions will also be recorded. Although it is possible that interest in a “new” or “revised” catechism might surface, the goal of the project is not to produce a new catechism per se, but perhaps lend thoughts toward one.
