Elemental Faith

We're about to begin a new series on some of the key images in the Bible. We're going to explore Fire, Bread and Water (I think). We've done some preliminary brainstorming on Fire and Bread. Here's what we're thinking:

7/30 Fire: Growing Through Struggle and Pain - looking at the fact that struggles, pain and hardship are a part of life. There not a sign that you're doing something wrong, or you don't have enough faith. And Christianity doesn't answer all our questions and make us comfortable and happy. But our faith does give us a context for living...and we realize that "our light, momentary afflictions are preparing us for an eternal weight of glory." (2 Cor. 4:17)

We're thinking we'll do a creative service on this one - not a gathering with a specific message/teacher.

Creative:
Explaining the God is a potter we are the clay image with Liz unpacking it and maybe even throwing some pottery during the service.
Some sort of testimony or rough stuff happening to someone - maybe Tim?

Music:
A lot of Rich Mullins songs apply: Bound to Come Some Trouble,
Verge of a Miracle, The Agony and the Glory, Damascus Road.
Refiners Fire
Potter's Hands

Movies:
Magnolia
Rocky Balboa trailer
Dumb and Dumber (two people that don't have a whole lot going for them but are still happy)

8/6 Bread: Learning a Raw Reliance on God - talking about the Jews wandering around in the desert and how they learned to depend so desperately on God. How are we like this today? What distracts us from sensing our dependence on God? Why are we so resistant to be vulnerable? How can we live lives of raw reliance on God?

Creative:
Either challenge people to fast beforehand and break the fast on Sunday evening with some bread or challenge them to fast the week after to experience a small part of relying on God.

Music:
If You Want to Go Back to Egypt - Keith Green

Again - we could use a lot of ideas so post away!

The End of Parables

This Sunday we're polishing off our Parables of the Kingdom series. We've explored what Jesus has had to say about his cor emessage: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, repent. This Sunday we're looking at the Parable of the Talents and doing a little recap of where we've been. Brad is going to unpack the parable of the Talents for us and explore being "good and faithful servants" and Ryan will recap what Jesus has said about the Kingdom of Heaven. Here are some of the ideas for Sunday:

General Ideas:
Use the Brick Testament again (lego illustrations of parables and Jesus illustrations)
Do the gathering in sections - with Brad starting off, then maybe some prayer, meditiation and worship and then do the recap followed by discussion?

Movie Clips:
Pay it Forward (Using what you have been given for the greater good)
Hoosiers (doing a lot with a little)
Billy Madison (someone who didn't use his gifts at all and then had to fix it)

Worship Songs:
Something about how God has blessed or given us so much maybe?

Well, that's all the ideas we had at our meeting. Any help on the blog would be much appreciated!

Stolen by Success and Pick-pocketed by the Past

We have to focus in on the next two weeks worship services: the 25th on Success and the 2nd on the Past.

Here are the basic ideas:

Success is focused on how much we allow our career and success financially to drive our identity. Most of the message revolves around workplace and monetary struggles. Here were some of our ideas from the brainstorming session:

Video Clips
Office Space or The Office
Enterprise Rent-a-Car Commercial (with guy renting a nice car to appear successful at his high school reunion)
The Family Man
Fun with Dick and Jane
Greed
Dickie Roberts Former Child Star
American Inventor (people giving up everything to pursue thie invention)
Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (similar idea to Enterprise commercial)

Art
Office items/keepsakes/rewards on tables

Concepts/Illustrations
Pat Tillman quitting the Arizona Cardinals to join the military
Dave Chappelle walking away from a $50 million tv contract to figure out his life
Monopoly
Psych Experiment about following someone successful
Inward vs. Outward success - how do we gauge it?

The Past revolves around how old hurts and guilt can continue to define us today. Here were some of our ideas:

Video Clips
The Lion King (Simba running from his past)
Harry Potter
Good Will Hunting (It's not your fault)
The Shipping News (Kevin Spacey's whole life is shaped by a traumatic experience during his childhood)
The Truman Show
Spiderman (Uncle Ben dies, goes on a killing rampage)
GATTACA (future world where everyone is genetically engineed except for the main character)
Memento (short term memory loss character)
The Woodsman (about the life of a child molester and how his crimes continue to haunt him)
My Name is Earl (The whole show is about trying to right the wrongs in the past)
24 (Jack is always haunted by his past - he can't let go...)
LOST (people not trusting each other)

Music
Eastmountainsouth - Ghost
Evanesence - My Immortal
Mike and the Mechanics - The Living Years
Pearl Jam - Gone

Art
Yearbook photos on the table

Worship Tunes that could work each week:
Casting Crowns “Who am I?” (possible series theme song)
He knows my name
Enough

Worship Songs!

We want to figure out what worship songs you guys like and know. Here's my contribution to get us started. Are there some of these you hate? Some you love? What else do you hate or love?

1. All Bow Down
2. Be Glorified
3. Blessed Be Your Name
4. Draw Me Close
5. Enough
6. Forever
7. God of Wonders
8. Grace Flows Down
9. Hallelujah (Your Love is Amazing)
10. Holy is the Lord
11. How Great is Our God
12. In Christ Alone
13. Isaiah 43
14. Indescribable
15. Lord Over All
16. Make a Joyful Noise
17. My Glorious
18. Not To Us
19. Open the Eyes of my Heart
20. Our Love is Loud
21. Rain Down
22. Speak to Me
23. Surrender
24. We Fall Down
25. When I Think About the Lord
26. Those Who Trust
27. Your Love is Extravagant
28. Sit Awhile

And Ryan's favorites (that are unique from my list):

1. Give us clean hands
2. Come home running
3. The wondrous cross
4. What a wonderful maker
5. He knows my name
6. I need you (Jars of Clay)
7. Everything (Lifehouse)
8. All Because of You (U2)
9. Before there was time
10. Facedown
11. Who am I?
12. I can only imagine

Post your opinion!

Parable of Workers in Vineyard (6/4)

This week Ryan will be talking about the "Parable of the workers in the vineyard." He is already using a video clip from Les Mis, and a video based on "What's so Amazing about Grace-visual companion". Plus we're going to use some images from that same book to put on the tables. And it's communion Sunday, so we will end with that.

Generally, we want the evening to set up the idea of fairness...how we want things/expect things to be fair. Here are some more ideas:

Opener:
Show some of Bess' pictures from Africa, read part of the email and pray for her

Setup:
Recap idea of kingdom of heaven
Announcements
Some kind of responsive reading or liturgical prayer

Movies:

Video clips about fairness - maybe especially between siblings, since that is where the message is going to start:

Cheaper by the Dozen
*The Brady Bunch* -"Marsha, Marsha, Marsha..."
The Grinch

Maybe a Christmas scene with kids


Worship Music: - move energetic to more contemplative

*Your Love is Amazing
*Grace Like Rain
*Come Home Running

Not To Us?
Grace Flows Down?
You Are So Good To Me
I Will Not Forget You
Enough

He Knows My Name
Our Love Is Loud
Make A Joyful Noise/I Will Not be Silent

Those Who Trust
The Wondrous Cross

Songs about life being fair or unfair?

Put in your two cents! Post a comment!

Parables Brainstorm

We're trying to come up with ideas for the next two Sunday nights on parables...Post comments with any additional ideas!


Mustard Seed and Yeast (5/21)

• show difference between leavened and unleavened bread
• show pics of mustard plant or get mustard seeds
• Illustrate with examples of grassroots movements
• something about one person making a difference....or starting with one person and spreading to many (Pay It Forward, Forest Gump running, Teach for America)
• A Virus (takes over cells) Matrix clip about humanity being a virus

Pearl of Great Price and Hidden Treasure (5/28)

• Illustrations of things of incredible value
• Movies that show someone training for a goal, sacrificing for a goal
• Something with a hidden treasure (pirates?), buried treasure, or elaborate plans to steal something
• Mission Impossible, Oceans 11/12
• Music: "everything" Lifehouse, "I Surrender", "You are beautiful my sweet sweet song"

April 30th Worship (example)

We showed "Exorcism of Emily Rose" last Friday and want to continue that theme by talking about the spiritual world. Brad is going to talk about how we interact (or don't) with the spiritual world in our culture. Some ideas:

• Show clip from "Exorcism of Emily Rose" talking about how her possession will help others see the reality of the spiritual realm
• Stories of Jesus casting out demons in New Testament (which ones?)
• Excerpts from Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Song ideas? (We had none...)
• We could put quotes about the spiritual world on the tables

How we can use this blog

Damascus Road is about journeying together to figure out what it means to follow Jesus in today's world. Our main worship gathering on Sunday nights shouldn't be limited to a few people sharing through teaching or music, while the majority sit motionless and passively take it all in.

Instead, worship should be about everyone bringing what they have to worship God. For some reason, we tend to emphasize teaching and music as more "useful" gifts to share, but to focus on these is to exclude other gifts and viewpoints.

We don't want to reduce our worship gathering to a sterile event planned by an elite group. We hope it can be a fluid interaction between unique people of God.

So, we can use this space to brainstorm upcoming gatherings, discuss what we need to address as a community, critique past events and express creative ideas regarding worship.