ADULT
Formation
Growing in faith is a life-long journey and we offer many opportunities for adults to explore the Christian faith and discover how to live out their faith in the world. At Good Samaritan, we value questions, wrestle with doubts, and don’t settle for easy answers. Learning together in community helps us understand more about God, the world, and ourselves. Our formation opportunities for adults are safe places to wrestle with real life and discover how God is present through every stage, experience, or challenge.
Adult formation is offered in a variety of ways, including Sunday morning formation during the academic year, small groups, retreats, and weekly Bible studies.
- Sunday morning formation takes place at 9:00 a.m. except during the Summer. Contact Fr. Chris for more information.
- Women’s Group meets each week on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 p.m. Contact Cathy Strohl for more information.
Current Adult Formation Series:
On Ash Wednesday, we hear an invitation from the Church to observe a holy Lent: by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. Of these practices, fasting and self-denial are by far the most foreign to our modern mindset, which loves comfort. For many of us, the practice of denying ourselves something sounds downright terrible. At the same time, however, others on social media tout fasting as a new diet trend. What both of these perspectives miss is that fasting—limiting ourselves in some way—is present in every major world religion. Bahá’ís, Buddhists, Confucianists, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, and Taoists are all called, in one way or another, to fast as part of their faith. However, depending on the tradition, the why, how, and what is gained can vary widely. This Lent, we will explore this often misunderstood practice by looking at it through the lens of several different traditions and asking ourselves an important question: If something is so universally practiced, it must have something going for it, right?
February 22: Fasting in Buddhism
March 1: Fasting in Hinduism
March 8: Fasting in Judaism
March 15: Fasting in Islam
March 22: Fasting in Christianity, part 1
March 29: Fasting in Christianity, part 2
Past Sessions:
Previously we covered a broad range of topics. Here is a sampling of the sessions we had:
- Supper is Served: The Evolution of Worship
- Mother of God: Meeting Mary Again
- Hygge and Holiness
- Discernment of Spirits
- Faith and Fear: Macabre Moments in Church History
- All Things Made New: Teilhard de Chardin, Creation, and Hope for Our World
- The Holy Spirit, The Trinity, and Us
- Creeds
- Jesus, How Do I Pray?
- The Transfiguration Icon
- Why we do what we do when we do it and other peculiarities of church
- The Power of Gratitude
- Monsters in the Bible
- The Story of the New Testament: Books and Readers in the Early Church
- Clobbering the Clobber Passages
- Miracles of Jesus
- Finding God Through Our Senses
- The Wild and Surprising World of Angels
- Light of the World: Looking at Advent with New Eyes
- Surprising Saints
- Habits and Spiritual Practices that Support Resilience
- Church History: A six week study of questions and issues with which the early Church had to grapple and how that influenced what we practice today
- Advent Series: The Proto-Evangelium and Its Influence on Tradition; The Voice of Isaiah; John the Baptist; and Poetry of the Incarnation
- What is a Priest?
- What is Happening at a Eucharist?
- Lenten Series on Prayer: Praying the Psalms; Praying the Old Testament Canticles; Different Methods of Contemplative Prayer; Poetic Language for God
- Church History: How the Romans viewed the Early Christians; How Christianity went from a Sect to a Major Religion
- Grappling with Racism within the Episcopal Church
- The Difference Course – a five week study exploring how to follow the example of Jesus within a deeply divided world
- How we Engage in Theological Reflection
