Breaking Ground
When do you feel the tension of Karma thinking—that when you do something that is “Bad” you have to make it up for “Good”? Have you ever thought the inverse? If you don’t, do you know someone who does?
The Dig
This Sunday we started a new series: MY ETERNAL SCORECARD where we are looking at how we culturally are shaped by an economy of salvation.
How have you been taught at what it takes to be saved in terms of a “cost”?
Do you think there is a required number of good acts to be considered “good” in God’s eyes? Relatedly, is there a balance of sin that can cancel out your good acts?
An Economy of Salvation is a Christian doctrine study that asks the question of what and how we are saved. The challenge of this series is that Americans tend to keep a scorecard…and a leaderboard…of who is saved. In the analogy, we tend to think of good acts as birdies…and sin as bogeys. (Birdies lower your score -1 and bogeys add to it +1).
Where does the historic church create labels for actions (ex. Tithing versus divorce) as a “birdie or bogey”?
How does this treating of the economy of salvation in the long term for the church?
Read Matthew 15:1-20. Do you hear Jesus working with the same issues of an economy of salvation with the teachers of the law?
Where can we alleviate the burdens of labels and where do the labels help?
Getting Out of the Hole
Take time each week to reflect upon the Sunday sermon.
- What areas in your life have you labeled as a double bogey that needs no label?
- What areas in your life have you labeled as a birdie that needs no lablel?
- What about people in your life who have this same mentality and stay away from the church?
- Journal about what areas in your life you have lablelled because society told you, and instead offer up to God –asking for God to reveal how you might look at a specific area?
NEXT WEEK:
- More Scorecard! And first steps next week—join us if you’re new to E3! If you’re interested in ownership we have an ownership orientation lunch after church with Pastor Scott. RSVP on the Echo.