Here is a link to a book that I found useful in gaining perspective on how to interpret Revelation. I think its important to read opinions that you may not agree with in order to see the weaknesses in your own point of view, and in order to glean valuable insights that you may be overlooking.

Sorry for the late post. Jim and my recent trip to Atlanta has thrown off the rhythm of my weekly routine. Below is the powerpoint from the class on discipleship. Thank you all for your contributions and feedback in class. Your prayers around the issues we discussed are needed and appreciated.

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.

A couple of thoughts. I had mentioned in the spiritual gifts class (and we’d all had a good laugh over Ben’s question, “What does that say about the Methodist church”) that statistics show the more education one has, the less religious they tend to be. I think its important to balance that out with the other proverbial “edge” of the sword.

I think while its true that our current paradigms of education can be counterproductive in nurturing faith, it’s also true that the most powerful and influential men of God in history have been highly educated. Case in point, Moses and the apostle Paul. The two men who had more to do the the formation of the bible as we know it and the shape of the Jewish and Christian religion were both highly educated. I felt I needed to say that since I draw heavily upon two highly educated men in this lecture, N.T. Wright and C.S. Lewis (do you think using your initials for your name is a sign of intelligence?).

But I would also say that education is not what qualifies us to be used by God or to hold an office in his service. We could use just as many examples of people with little to no education who did profoundly significant and far reaching works for the church and for humanity.

Here is the Article from Asbury Seminary Professor Robert Tuttle that I drew the John Wesley quote from in the PowerPoint // John Wesley and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Also, here is another article you might find interesting stating the United Methodist Churches position on spiritual gifts. And lastly, here is a link to the spiritual gifts inventory on the United Methodist Churches website.

You are an awesome class and I look forward to Wednesdays with you.

I wanted to reinforce some of the connections I felt like I rushed through at the end of the class. Consider this verse:

I Jn 2:27
27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit– just as it has taught you, remain in him.
(NIV)

All of the resources you need for everything are available through the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of you. The only thing you need to do is learn how to develop that relationship. Are you having problems with your kids? The Holy Spirit will reveal to you what is causing the problem, how to reach out to your kids, and how to lead them to a better place if you are willing to listen to and rely on him to work in them rather than on your own powers of persuasion (or manipulation). People all to often give up on God and the resources he provides because we wait until a moment of crisis to lean on him. Thats kind of like deciding you are going to run a marathon and going right out and trying to run 26 miles the next day! You have to put the time in learning how to rely on the Holy Spirit and hear his voice on a day to day basis for the small, mundane, everyday things in preparation for the critical things.

Remember, the extent to which Christ is formed in us (soul/mind) is the measure of power/insight/conviction/etc in which we will walk.

Thanks for the feedback for those of you who have commented. Although you can’t get the entire class experience exclusively online (hopefully in the future we can have available an audio version for each class) I can make available to you some of the resources we are using in the class, and you are more than welcome to participate in any ongoing conversations on this blog.

Here are the resources from the first WOW class. Here is the WOW Powerpoint Presentation (If you don’t have powerpoint, you can download the free powerpoint viewer here). Additionally, below is the “Did You Know?” video we saw in class.

Additionally, I would like you to see the original version of this presentation. It has some additional statistics and info that were cut from the version seen here.

Later today I will post some of the scriptures I would like to use for next weeks class.

Thank you all for your contributions in class. I am so encouraged and excited about the direction I heard all of you pointing towards. I really sense a hunger for more of God and growing in your relationship with him from most of you. I had a few ask how I was going to remember all of the information and ideas I had written down on the dry erase board. Not a problem, just took a picture of it with my camera phone and I have all the information without a lot of extra work. As a matter of fact, I have posted it right here for any of you who may want to refer to the information (and didn’t take very good notes!).

Tomorrow I plan on posting some scripture passages I want to zero in on for next week. Hopefully you can read those and spend a few days meditating on them, so check back tomorrow as well.

Welcome to the WOW online classroom. Here we will continue our conversation from class, post resources, ask questions, and whatever else. Feel free to post ideas about class topics as well