Our second session focused on faith and how we view our personal faith journey. Our group was arranged in small groups of four with one group of five. We stayed in these groups for the evening.
As we discussed our individual faith identities, we place ourselves in three continua with a ranking of 1 - 10 in response to the following questions:
1. What feelings are typical for you as you think about significant changes in matters of faith. ( fearfulness – anxiety- neutral – bring them on!)
2. How much have you changed in matters of faith in your own faith journey ( very little, somewhat, a great deal)
3. How far are you from Borg in his presentation of ideas regarding an emerging Christianity ( far, far away/ some similarities/ quite close)
We discussed the four types of faith: Fidelitas, Visio, Fiducia, and Assensus .
Assensus:
- "head" orientated faith
- belief in statements
Fiducia:
- "heart" orientated
- Radical trust
- Relationship
Fidelitas:
- Faithfulness or allegiance
- Conscious decision to follow Jesus' Way
- Relationship aspect
Visio:
- Vision of the whole of life
- Seeing "what is" as nourishing and lifegiving and good
Credo as Assensus:
Borg suggests that we can also give our heart in Assensus if we use the premodern English form of believe. To "believe" meant to love. To believe in God means to belove God and all that God beloves.
We are challenged to love God and all that God loves (our neighbours, creation, etc.). This is the challenge of the Christian life.
Our small group discussions focused on how we have experienced our faith. Some indicated that there was a joyfulness when they experienced a change in their faith. A crisis of some kind can often accompany a faith experience.
We were invited to use a finger labyrinth to reflect upon how God has been active in our lives over the past year. We journalled these thoughts and shared them with our small groups.
We ended our discussion by praying the paraphrase of Jesus' prayer.
Our "homework" is:
- Read Chapter 3
- Choose a favourite character from the Bible, whom you will name when you introduce yourself to the group
- Choose and bring with you a passage of scripture through which the Spirit has spoken to you in some way at some time in your life.
Thoughts:
I found the finger labyrinth to be very releasing. My mind kind of drifted and felt light while I was doing that. Did anyone else have the same feeling?
I am most humbled by the small group discussion. There is much deep faith, and I felt that I have much to learn and grow in faith.
My faith struggle has been very intellectual. My journey of faith began with doubts when I was a teenager. I doubted the bible, whether Easter resurrection happened, and whether Jesus was a real person. After reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, I seemed to find some comfort. (Although, I find it too simplistic,now.) My faith crisis was resolved by accepting that “something” happened at Easter. The disciples were empowered by something rather than being afraid and silent. I felt joy and relief when that seemed to be resolved. Other instances of faith crisis in my life have also been around belief questions, although I was very emotional during the faith/identity crisis.
I’ve never doubted that God is loving, and that has helped me through sad times.
My question to the group is how does one move from being “belief” centered to being “heart” centered? Or is trusting that God will speak in some form the first way of finding "heart-centered" faith?
Look forward to hearing your faith experiences and your thoughts.
Denise W.
2 comments:
Good work. This will be very helpful if a session is missed. I found the finger labarynth distracting. I keep lossing my place. I think a full size one would work for me.
At first I found the finger labarynth hard to follow but once I let myself relax, I was surprised at the amount of things I could remember.
dj
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