The Fellowship Forum

This week, we are discussing leadership tools to help us develop and refine our leadership skills.  We’ll take a look a several leadership books and take a particular look at one, The Ascent of a Leader.  We’ll look at some conference opportunities, some podcasts that are avialable, and we will share resources with each other.  All this at the Fellowship Forum.  Don’t miss it. Thursday, 1:30 pm, 1530 Marion Street.

Our friend Bryan Craig from Denver Mosaic has just posted a couple of blog entries after reading Scot McKnight’s book The Blue Parakeet (Amazon, B&N, CBD). They are about how we miss-read the Bible. The first post details a few ways that we incorrectly approach the text, and the second post shows a number of methods we can use to study scripture that actual hinders our abilities to understand it.  Read Brian’s posts and report back how you read it.

Other reviews of McKnight’s book include:

• From the Intervasity Emerging Scholar’s Blog
• From the Burnside Writers Collective

It should be noted that a significant portion of Scot’s book discusses passages in scripture relating to women and their role in the church.  Brian’s blog articles don’t mention that much. but the other two reviews discuss that in some detail.

A Denver Post article recently talked about the volume of alcohol consumed in Colorado in relation to other states in the union.   I thought this might interest some of you all. Some interesting details:  6% of the countries population would be considered heavy drinkers and 100,000 people die a year from excessive drinking.

Spiritual Disciplines – Lent

Lent is the season starting with Ash Wednesday that end on Easter Sunday.  These 47 days are marked by observers with commitments of fasting, ascetic piety, or/and increased spiritual activity. Eastern Christians (Othrodox, Pelagian, and others) observe 40 days of Lent prior to their Easter (or Pascha) celebration.  The Western tradition is also 40 days of observance along with 6 Sundays offering small breaks and Easter Sunday proper.  Since the commitments of observance are typically designed to match the sober tone leading up to Easter celebrations, each Sunday are typically days “off” or as celebrations anticipating Easter.  (By the way, the word Lent derives from the Danish lente or German lenz, words meaning Spring.)

For most Christians, the  significance of 40 through out the Bible is sufficient justification for the duration of the Lent season, but of course the historical development took some time.  My personal favorite place to start the story is with Cyril of Jerusalem.  Easter (or Pascha – the Greek transliteration) began to be celebrated by Christians prior to the middle of the second century BCE. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, delivered his Catechetical lectures prior to Easter baptism ceremonies for the new converts.  As the practice of baptizing new converts on Easter developed in the church, so did the practice of asking those seeking baptism to fast for the week during or more that their training classes were being delivered.  These are the foreshadows of Lent from what I understand.

As the tradition progressed, the duration of the fast stretched to 40 days and the church was asked to join the new converts in abstaining from certain foods and beverages as Easter was anticipated. Many different observances during Lent have developed, and many liturgical modifications have been made during by various Christian streams to commemorate Lent.  Today many Christians observe Lent by giving up something in order to identify with Christ in his suffering and to prepare for the celebration of Easter.  Many groups of protestant Christians have little formal observance of Lent, some in the United States see a growing interest among individuals from these Christian backgrounds.

Here are some random Lent Resources online:

Bread for the World’s Lent Guide

A Sermon (text) by a Presbyterian about Lent

Some Christianity Today Articles about Lent: What groups can do, A bunch of articles on Lent and Easter

Also for more detailed musing of amateur historians, pick up the wikipedia articles I linked to in my last post.

I realize several of you were hoping to see our notes about Lent up here already (and probably before Easter at least).  I have started the article and hope to have something up soon.  Until then, I got some of my stuff from wikipedia anyway, so check out the articles there:  Lent and Great Lent.  If anyone knows what Coptics or others do for Lent (or don’t do), be sure and comment.