Week 1 Reflection & Week 2 Beginning

Week 1

Our Monday Classes went well!  We have all day monday classes: 10:30-11:30 (every other week), 12-2:30, 3-5:30, 7-9:40.....so it's a long day. 

For our first class with Dr. Coe, one of the books we are reading this week is Surrender to Love. It talks about how the definition of Love IS God. As His creation, made for experiential love relationship through Jesus, His redemptive presence moves toward us. Though sin and disfunction plague us from pure vision, He desires surrender to His perfect love. It talks about fear and how that affects our ability to be loved. Fear has many faces. God invites surrender and freedom, but we do not believe ourselves to be afraid (which ends up preventing freedom!). When we have experienced love that we've been hurt by (imperfect love) then Love can turn into the object of fear. But Love is the antidote for fear, so it becomes a cycle. He desires reverential intimacy recognizing His holiness (which we've failed to do)- for unconditional love demands surrender. Here are a few quotes from the book:

- "Take a moment and try a simple exercise. The results will tell you a great deal about the nature of your spiritual journey. Imagine God thinking about you. What do you assume God feels when you come to mind? When I ask people to do this, a surprising number of people say that the first thing they assume God feels is disappointment. Others assume that God feels anger. In both cases, these people are convinced that it is their sin that first catches God's attention. I think they are wrong-and I think the consequences of such a view of God are enormous..."(beginning of Ch.1)

Journey with us...

We have just embarked on a 2-3 year journey in our grad program that asks the questions, "How does God grow us?", "What does daily relationship with Jesus look like?", and "How does God heal my pain?" These are questions I know we all have and we are excited to ask these tough questions as we seek to understand who God is and the freedom He offers.

The program was developed with a desire to see people grow in heart. Knowledge of God often stays in our head and leaves us "stuck" without any way to translate it to our daily experience. God has created us to live in union with Him through Jesus and offers complete abundance and satisfaction. However, so many Christians never experience this truth, and therefore believe that all they have is all there is. Through reading assignments, prayer projects, lectures, spiritual direction, therapy, and open dialogue, we invite you to go on this journey with us.

We want your feedback, questions, and would love it if you would read along, participate in prayer projects, assignments, and dialogue with us along the way. We will commit to updating our blog at least once a week, so that you can journey with us and for yourselves, so you can be a participant in our program as well! Except you won't have the pressure of turning in things for grades :) For those of you that would like audio of some of our lectures, please give us feedback (anonymous or not) and we can make that happen.

Click on the Books tab to see which books we are reading this semester. If you are interested in any lectures that we had last semester, please let us know as well.  Our classes were: Spiritual Warfare; Theology of Christ, the Spirit, and Sanctification; and Old Testament Survey

We are excited to see what God has in store for all of us, knowing that God will grow each of us, draw us closer to Himself, and open avenues in our hearts to touch us with His grace and truth.

This is a great preview of John Coe, the founder of the Institute of Spiritual Formation, describing our program in one of the first Lectures we will have this fall in our 501 course.

Keri & Dave

Week 1 Prayer Project

Week 1: Prayer Project #1 - Personal Foundations of Ministry

For this Prayer Project, you will need to read “Biblical Theology of Intentional

Character Development” (the first reading assignment available in the Library e-Reserves). Please plan to make a copy of the article so that you have it available as you do the assignment.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the

fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Ephesians 3:14-21

Our hope and prayer for you as you begin your time at Talbot and begin Personal Foundations of Ministry, echoes Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. To assist you in making yourself available to the work of God in your life we have designed a series of Prayer Projects and Journal assignments for you to complete during this semester. Our hope is that these times of prayer, Scripture meditation, and reflection on your life will assist you in being “rooted and grounded in love” and “strengthened in the

inner man”.

Prayer and Journal

1. Find a quiet, comfortable place where you will not be interrupted. (approx 45 min) Not driving in your car - no phone, TV, music, etc. Complete all of this project in one sitting.