Context: Just Relieved

Well, that was fun.

I spoke last night at P:67, the college/singles ministry at Trinity Baptist in Cayce, SC. This group is going through a time of transition, something I understand pretty well on a personal level, and something I've gone through various times on the church community level as well. I offered to help out, speak a few Tuesday evenings if they'd have me, and they invited me to be there - last night and the next two Tuesdays (or at least I spoke last night, and they haven't called to cancel the next 2 engagements yet).

I thought it went well. I'm not the best judge of my own stuff, but others said that it was good - "Flattery will get you nowhere - but don't stop trying". We talked about CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT, specifically in Luke 15 to see how Jesus interacted with people, how he used questions to pull them into a defining moment like the story of the Prodigal Son. I don't know that we pulled out anything revolutionary about the stories of "lost things" - but I think we started pondering the concept of CONTEXT in relating to each other, to how we listen and learn, to how God relates to us. Next week we'll dig into another passage and look at Truth & the Bible, and end up the third week on Relationships & Conversations. It's all wrapped up together on so many different levels - I just want to bring some of the loose ends, learn together what's meaningful and what's life-changing.

I joked around that I was going to teach heresy, but the fun part would be that no one would get it until they got home. Wonder if anyone picked up on it? I did lay the foundation for something radical and possibly heretical: relativism. If we spend too much time on CONTEXT, don't we stand the risk of applying truth relative to our circumstances and experiences? I also mentioned that I would be bringing up "absolute truth" next week, for folks to bring their friends who argued that there was no such thing: "I'll agree with them next week, and then we'll turn it back around somehow."

Anyway, I thought it was fun, not nearly as bad as it could've been. I was nervous, under-confident and all - but hopefully that opened the door for it to be real.