Bible Study - Church Growth Conference 2013 - Saturday morning

(Tracey Lewis – convenor Mission Committee)

Luke 15 vs. 11-32

When reading the stories that Jesus told - BEWARE of the moment when you think 'I know this one'.

Jesus, the story teller, told stories so as to get under the skin of the people who thought they knew what the world and God and right living were all about.

The Parables are 'subversive speech' - meant to unsettle the normal world. Meant to subvert and transform.

Often we accept the tradition of apportioning 'parts' ... i.e. 'this character is God' etc ... but this ties the story down to the search for its one meaning ... where as it is in the interplay, the dynamic of the moving story that its many lively 'meanings' open up. We find most when we allow the whole story to engage with us and our story.

So, approaching a well known parable of Jesus? - Let the parable do its work on you - let it ask you questions, lead you to wonder, open dilemmas and possibilities.

With this Parable of the Sons and their Father ....we asked three questions ... one at a time ... and allowed time for imaginative interaction between this story and our experience/stories.

We read the story - Luke 15 vs. 11-32

Questions:

1) What happened the day before? The day before the young son asked his question.

What might be the context. Why the desire to leave? Why the shocking breaking of taboo and tradition?

2) What happened while he was away? We know, from the story, what the older son thought was going on 'out there' while the younger son was away. How do we imagine 'out there' ... 'the other people'? What do we find 'out there'? Is there a difference between our perception of life 'in' the faith community ... and 'out there'? how does this shape our approaches to evangelism/church growth?

3) What happened the day after? What would the younger son have brought back with him from his experience? How would these brothers move on and create/become the Father's community of grace?

With reflections on these questions people engaged in animated discussion ... and we left with lots of questions to explore about the communities our churches are, the ways we perceive and learn from experience in the world around us and how we connect the vision of the faith community, with the lived and diverse real experience of people today.