Walking in the Resurrection

Week 1: Thomas and Our Doubts
This week, Rebecca Moss explored how our doubts can be an invitation to an authentic, resilient faith in Jesus. We looked at the story of Thomas, in the Gospel of John, and how Thomas’s doubts and later profession of faith help us understand our own doubts and uncertainties as we live in the tension of the “already, but not yet” reality of God’s kingdom. The life of faith is an invitational one, able to hold a space for our believing and our questioning and doubts. 

Kingdom Practices 
Guided by the practice of Questioning Prayer, we invite you this week to set aside time to have a conversation with God about your doubts, questions, and uncertainties. 

• Do you express your doubts to God? 
• If not, why? Is it because you think doubt is wrong or do you fear your faith would begin to unravel? 
• What role has doubts and questions played in your faith? 
• What doubts or questions do you have today? 
• Do you feel that sometimes your doubts or questions hinder you from seeing Jesus’s presence in your life?

We encourage you to take heart. Doubting or asking questions is a part of the life of faith and a way of making sense of living in the “already, but not yet” tension. Bringing our doubts and questions to God keeps us connected to him and encourages us to be on the lookout for Jesus’s presence in our lives. 

Week 2: Recognizing Jesus on the Emmaus Road
This week, Joan Kelley led us on a walk down the Emmaus Road with Jesus. Guided by snapshots along the way Joan explained how the Emmaus story in Luke 24 shows us how to live and walk the resurrection day by day. The Emmaus story is filled with snapshots of how Jesus is present with his followers teaching us to live in the tension of the “now and not yet.” The experience with Jesus on the Emmaus Road teaches us how to hold our present reality within God’s bigger story. It reminds us that as we look for Jesus’s presence in our lives we get a “little bit closer to Jesus”. 

Kingdom Practices
For our time of practice, Joan invited us to enter the story on the Emmaus road. It is an invitation to walk this story with Jesus. Using Imaginative Prayer as a guide consider the following:

• Imagine yourself on a road, path, or trail. Using your senses, notice what you see, feel, or smell.
• Imagine you are carrying something. Something that is weighing on you- an unfilled hope, concern, disappointment, or question. 
• Now imagine that Jesus begins to walk alongside you. His presence brings peace and calmness. He asks you what you are carrying.
• Imagine you now come to a place with a table that is set for a meal. You and Jesus sit together and he breaks the bread and gives you some.
• Is there a word, phrase, image, or feeling that comes to mind that you will take with you from this experience of walking with Jesus?

Week 3: Peter and Our Failures
This week, Nicole Howe invited us to read the story of Jesus reinstating Peter in John 21:15-19, as a “re-storying”. Peter went from boldly claiming he would never abandon Jesus, to denying him three times after Jesus was arrested. That could have been the end of the story for Peter. Following his resurrection Jesus had an encounter with Peter that forever changed the direction of Peter’s life. Nicole reminded us that though Peter failed, Jesus did not leave him in that broken place. The same is true for us. Living in the “already, but not yet” tension means we live in a space between who we were and are and who we will become. This “in-between” place is messy, hard, full of wounds, failures, shame, regret. But Jesus is present with us in that place. Just as he guided Peter to a different ending for his story by asking him three times if he loved him, Jesus is present with us to break painful cycles, bring healing, and rewrite our stories.

Kingdom Practices
For our time of practice, we invite you to read the passage, John 21:15-19. Then, have a conversation with Jesus about where you are in your own place of failure or wounding, your own “in-between” space. As you reflect, what parts of your story need to be rewritten, healed? We invite you to pay attention if Jesus is asking a question of you, even if that question is, “Do you love me?”.

Week 4: The End of Matthew’s Gospel and Becoming Learners of Jesus
This week, guest speaker Dr. Tim Gombis, challenged us to reconfigure how we understand Jesus’s final command to his disciples at the end of Matthew’s gospel. What if Jesus’s command, “go make disciples”, is an opportunity for each of us to grow as learners of Jesus. A disciple is a student who is formed and reformed by practices. Practices that Jesus repeatedly taught throughout his ministry, like hungering and thirsting for justice, welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry. Jesus’s call to the church to “make disciples”, is a call to be learning communities where we practice the way of Jesus, united together.

Kingdom Practices
Pondering what Jesus calls us to as learners, Dr. Gombis guided us through a meditation, highlighting three areas where we may struggle to live the way of Jesus. We invite you to consider these areas. Pay attention to where you feel resistance. Then have a conversation with God about the struggle or resistance.

1. Forgiving others as we have been forgiven
2. Welcoming strangers, people who you may think of as “other”
3. Caring for the poor, the hungry, those in need

Week 5: The Ascension of Jesus
Continuing in our series, Walking in the Resurrection, Bill Donahue guided us through Jesus’s ascension found in Luke 24:50-53. Though short, Bill showed us how much is packed in these verses. The ascension of Jesus is not an ending. It signifies the beginning of his reign over the world through the Holy Spirit. The Ascension does not equal Jesus’s absence, but rather his presence with us through the Spirit. As followers of Jesus, we are responsible to continue Jesus’s work, empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Kingdom Practices
For the practice, Bill invited us to reflect on what the Ascension means in our relationship with the Trinity, in our church communities, and in our own walks with Jesus. Consider what God may be drawing your attention to within these three areas. 

• Thinking about your relationship with the Trinity: how does it feel to have Jesus leave, returning to his rightful place to the Father? Does Jesus interceding on your behalf enhance or deepen your sense of his presence?
• For the church community: what does the ascension mean for our connection as a church, the body of Christ? What impact does Jesus’s intercession have for us as a church?
• For your own walk with Jesus: what does the ascension mean in your own relationship with Jesus? Do you seek his intercession?

Week 6: Pentecost
This week, Jason Hitchcock wrapped up our series, Walking in the Resurrection. Engaging with the story of Pentecost found in Acts 2, Jason invited us to consider what it looks like to communicate the message, story, and way of Jesus. The first disciples, filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, spoke to that first audience in Jerusalem of the life and message of Jesus. Pentecost heralded the beginning of the ministry of the Spirit and of the church. Through their words and actions, the first disciples went on to embody the story of Jesus. The same is true for us today. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we too can embody the message, story, and way of Jesus thereby communicating to those around us the good news.

Kingdom Practices
We invite you to explore what it means or looks like to communicate the message, story, and way of Jesus to those in your life? Can you identify an “audience” (people or group of people) whom God has prepared to hear about Jesus? What methods of communicating may help you talk about Jesus? For example, storytelling, asking questions, or expressing curiosity for what someone else thinks.