A Class for Folks Trying to Figure Out Their Faith

We have some powerful moments in the Sunday School class I teach on Sunday mornings. The class is formed for beginning Christians. The idea is to give folks who have never had any experience with the Christian faith a place to begin. From the beginning the attitude in the class has been, we’ll start wherever you are. That’s why I begin by showing folks how to look up a particular passage in the Bible; it is why I talk about the difference between the Old and New Testaments; and why every religious term or idea gets broken down so that it can be understood.

Right now the content of the class is around a series of questions from a book by David Heller entitled Talking to Your Child About God. Another pastor gave me these questions and I’ve been asking everyone to think about the question during the week and then share their thinking. Last week the question was: List five of your most deeply felt beliefs about God. Wow did that get us going! Soon we were into all of those feelings we have about God. How God is loving. How God sometimes seems like a spiritual cop, posed to arrest us.

How often do we really take the time to think through our faith and beliefs? How often do we have a bunch of vaguely formed thoughts that we’ve never really gotten clear about? One class member stated that in listing her beliefs she realized they contradicted one another! That’s not too unusual an experience; most of us are probably just like her. I know that I am. I sometimes really disturb folks when they ask me a question and I reply quite honestly. Well I’ve been thinking about that question lately, and here’s where I am about it today. That’s not exactly an answer for all of time, but it’s honest.

Personally I think God likes the honesty of a questioning and open mind. It’s when we think we’ve got God figured out and begin to close our minds that we really get ourselves into trouble and into judging others. And I all honesty I can’t believe that this One who understands the whole of the universe and all creation, can be understood or figured out by mere human thought.