We encourage you to attend Sunday School as well as Meeting for Worship. Sunday School is an excellent forum to get to know us personally and find out more about the Society of Friends.
Adult Class Topics
March 7 we will continue our reading of J. Brent Bill's The Sacred Compass, The Way of Spiritual Discernment. This reading will continue the first Sunday of each month until June of 2010. This week's reading is Chapter Six West of Eden, What if the way takes you to unexpected places? Have you ever been led to places or situations which you did not expect? Have you ever been led away from places or situations which you did expect? Were these times of spiritual growth?
March 14 Because many of our class will be at Quarterly Meeting in Woodstown, we will not continue our Isaiah discussionb until March 21.
March 21 We continue our reading of Isaiah, this week concentrating on Chapters 13 to 23. What parts of these chapters are familiar? How does understanding the context affect our understanding of familiar passages?
Past Topics
February 21 We began our study of the book of
Isaiah, which we intend should continue over a period of many weeks.
We have read about the historical background of the book and have been looking
at familiar passages and considering them in the context in which they appear.
January 10 Chapter 4 of Sacred Compass, The Way of Spiritual Discernment, "Testing Our Leadings"
January 3 Discussion of the second chapter "Lives that Speak" in our book Sacred Compass, The Way of Spiritual Discernment. Chapter three is "Paying Attention: Seeing the Signs along the Way." We tend not to see what we are not looking for.
December 27 The tradition of Friends is to live the story. The Christmas story is not just history, but a way of understanding the motions of God in our lives. This week we looked at some writings of early Friends for their use of the manger image in understanding our response to God.
December 6 and 13 We discussed the meaning of Advent on the traditional church calendar and its meaning for Friends.
November 22 A Blessing Potluck And we know that for those who love God
all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his
purpose. Romans 8:28
The text above has been called the Christian's rose-colored glasses. It is an
expression of the old Hebrew idea of shalom or sufficiency and well-being. This
Sunday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we thought it might be good for us not
just to count blessings, but to look back at times in our lives where things
happened to us that we considered "bad" at the time, but from which we
were later able to see that blessings had indeed come
November 8 and 15 Listen to and respond to a presentation by Trish Magyari entitled "Knock and it Shall be Opened." Trish Magyari studied Eastern and Western forms of contemplative practice for over 30 years. In 1994 she unexpectedly encountered Christ during a Buddhist meditation workshop, and shortly afterwards became a convinced Friend.
November 1 Discussion of the second chapter "Lives that Speak" in our book Sacred Compass, The Way of Spiritual Discernment.
October 25 Reading and appreciating Psalm 37
October 18 An appreciation of Psalm 91
October 11 Looking further into the Gospel of Thomas. Members will choose sayings that them from the gospel and come prepared to discuss them with the class.
October 4 Discussion based on our reading of the first chapter, As Way Opens, of Sacred Compass, The Way of Spiritual Discernment. What does it mean to be a spiritual pilgrim? How does a spiritual pilgrim find the way ahead and learn to trust God? Who are a spiritual pilgrim's travelling companions?
September 27 We began a consideration of the Gospel of Thomas. We had a introductory bit about Gnosticism and the condition of manuscripts. How is this gospel very different from the others, especially the synoptics? Are there parts that ring true to us? What, if anything, here is valuable to us? If we were making up the canon, would we include this book.
September 20 we began our reading of J. Brent Bill's The Sacred Compass, The Way of Spiritual Discernment. This reading will continue the first Sunday of each month until June of 2010. The nature of this book is such that it will be profitable to consider a chapter at a time and discuss how we have used the material in our own lives.
September 13 We read an article about natural and metaphysical aspects of light.
May 3 to 24 we considered Thomas Kelly's Pendle Hill pamphlet The Reality of the Spiritual World. When we finish with that we will continue with the Pendle Hill pamphlet by Richard Macy Kelly, Thomas Kelly's son, entitled Three Ravens and Two Witches. The Reality of the Spiritual World is available for free by following the link above. Three Ravens and Two Witches is available for purchase by following the link or at one of our class sessions.
The Reality of the Spiritual World is a foundational pamphlet in the modern history of Quakerism. Not mincing words, Thomas Kelly begins with the query: "How can we be sure that God is real, and not just a creation of our wishes?" After giving us his thorough analysis of the popular rational arguments of his, and our, day, Kelly offers us his sincere convincement: "But there is a wholly different way of being sure that God is real. It is not an intellectual proof, a reasoned sequence of thoughts. It is the fact that men experience the presence of God. Into our lives come times when, all unexpectedly, He shadows over us, steals into the inner recesses of our souls, and lifts us up in a wonderful joy and peace. The curtains of heaven are raised and we find ourselves in heavenly peace in Christ Jesus."
In Three Ravens and Two Witches, using the metaphor of the ancient ballad, The Three Ravens, Richard Kelly invites us to explore how history and family traditions may limit our understanding of Truth or give us the strength and vision to see new possibilities in times when disagreements—including the contemporary controversy between Friends of liberal and evangelical traditions over different understandings of marriage and sexuality—trouble our communities.
On April 26 we compared the conversion experience of John Woolman and John Wesley. The turning points in their lives occurred about the same time on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. You can download of material by John Woolman. Previous material by John Wesley for comparison is still available.
On April 5 we considered the crucifixion stories, compare them to the sacrifice of Isaac and talked of the personal meaning of these stories for us and William Penn. Bible selections for the day are Genesis 22:1-19, Matthew 27:32-66, Mark 15:21-40, Luke 23:25-56, and John 19:16-42. You can download these selection from the NASB here or you can just read your own Bible. We will talk about William Penn's No Cross, No Crown, especially chapters 3 & 4, which can be be downloaded here.
We have recently considered the "conversion experiences" of some famous people. We have compared from their own writings what famous people have said about the spiritual turning points in their lives. We have read of the experiences of Sojourner Truth, George Fox, John Wesley, Albert Schweitzer, Constantine, and Leo Tolstoy.
