Growing up in the 90s, the mall was the place to be. I hung out there a lot. I loved the record store and the book store. I eventually worked there at SEARS. I was there all the time.

A few times as I parked my car, I wondered how I got there. I had no immediate memory of having driven there. Have you ever experienced this feeling? It was like I was on autopilot and my body just took me where I needed to go.

I recently drove around the mall and marveled at how much the town has changed. I had been gone some 18 years. Things were the same, but different. It was like everything had shifted just a little. But this is what it means to be human, right? We take things for granted. We get so used to seeing something day in and day out that we miss the minor changes. It’s why our relatives we haven’t seen since last Christmas remark on how big the kids are getting. It’s why once familiar streets seem strange.

We can do that with the Bible, too. We get so used to what we think the stories are about that we can miss seeing something that could change our whole view, our whole meaning. We can read on autopilot and arrive at our destination without ever thinking how we got there.

To read the Bible again for the first time, we’re introducing basic. We think we know Christianity, but do we? Let’s explore how much we think we know by getting down to the basics of faith. These events are part of my “Three Things” that I have previously posted about.

The climate of the course will be communal, playful, and engaging as to foster thinking and a diversity of views. The mission is to have simple teachings that lead to complex conversations. Our mission is to ultimately engage and grow our faith with others to unify, not divide. The tasks will be six teaching sessions on Thursday nights (excluding council Thursdays). Those dates and topics are as follows:

1. September 14: Assume. We start with examining our images of God. “I am the alpha and omega.” We will examine what images we are carrying around through viewing various depictions of God.
2. September 21: Teach. We follow with a session about humanity’s first teacher; Poetry. We will examine the many layers of Robert Frost’s Home Burial to help us examine how we approach a text.
3. October 5: Bible. We will talk about what we think the bible is and how it has historically been viewed in the Jewish tradition and how our tradition has viewed it.
4. October 12: Jonah. We will use what we have learned to see how the story of Jonah messes with our image of God, the bible, and the life of faith.
5. October 19: Jonah. Part two.
6. November 2: Open. We’ll have an open session to recap any lessons or just have a Q&A to help determine what the next Basic series will be.

Bring a dish to share at 6:30 p.m.. We’ll eat together as one big church family. Childcare will be provided for ages 0-11. Then from 7-8 p.m. we’ll have some fun as we talk and learn together. You can find each of these events on our Facebook page! I am super excited for these evenings and I can’t wait to see what we learn together!