Hey Gang,
Back in our old classroom @ 9:50 AM
We continue in our series called Oneness Embraced
Oneness Embraced Book by Tony Evans
Click Here to Read the Book
Hey everybody, I have purchased the ebook for you to read above, if you’d like to read along with the study - just click on the link above for the book.
Week Three: Oneness Embraced – Discussion Guide
Session 2 (FBS-UC/KLC video online 9/9) - above
Oneness Embraced book, Chapter 3 - above
Outline Session 2: The Kingdom of God Defines Us
FOCUS:
a) To
recognize that Christ and biblical truth always override racial identity and
culture and
b) The importance of overcoming racial division/attitudes to truly see lives transformed.
Tony Evans’ Video highlights:
o
What color is God? (We can’t box God in.)
o
The story of the Samaritan Woman in John 4
- In spite of what the culture said, Jesus
elevated the spiritual above the race/culture.
- When you are willing to deal with a person’s
person you get quicker access to a person’s soul and sins.
- Never let racial identity interfere with
biblical truth.
- Paul’s confrontation with Peter in Galatians 2.
- The preachers must get the truth right for the
followers to get it right.
- The gospel is not only about how you get to heaven. It is about the unity that God gives to His people.
o
Your identity is to be in Christ, not culture.
As long as culture supports Christ, enjoy it.
When culture diverts from Christ, your culture is wrong, not Christ.
For Group Time
Icebreakers:
- Share
last week’s application.
- What
is your earliest memory of racial differences?
Discussion
Questions Session 2
- What are some key points concerning God’s view of race from either the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 or Paul’s confrontation of Peter in Galatians 2?
- What are your thoughts about Dr. Evans’ statement that the gospel is not just about how to get a heaven, but about unity?
- How do
you relate to the idea that culture sometimes determines your actions more than
your faith?
- What
can we learn from Jesus regarding how to approach racial differences? (John
4:3-10)
- What
will you do differently this week because of what you just heard?
Self-Reflection: What message am I sending to others by how I
view racial differences as a leader, a parent, friend, etc.?
” We often miss the person’s person and thus miss the opportunity to get access to a person’s soul and sins…When you are willing to deal with a person’s person, you get quicker access to [the person’s] soul and their sins. A lot of people want to deal with folks’ souls who don’t want to drink from their cup. We want to get them to heaven but not have to cross them on earth, and therefore what you do is block the Gospel and block the Kingdom of God by illegitimate racial division. Jesus didn’t do that…”
– Tony Evans
Challenge:
Think of someone in your life that your culture tells you that you don’t need
to associate with. Try to step over the
barriers and reach out to that person this week.
We look forward in prayer for our continued discussion on this very important topic.
Hope to see everyone this Sunday!!
In His Love,
David & Susan
Teacher Notes:
Discussion
Questions Session 2
1. What
are some key points concerning God’s view of race from either the story of the
Samaritan woman in John 4 or Paul’s confrontation of Peter in Galatians 2?
Barriers
Jesus overcame with the Samaritan Woman (John 4) – From video
1. Cultural
Expectations:
1. The
culture expects us to fail
2. “We
worship differently” - excuses on why we don’t work together
2. Misplace
priorities – Jesus had an imperative…“we must go” (intentionality)
1. It was
a priority for Jesus
2. Racial
reconciliation is not optional for Christians
3. Jesus
valued this woman’s soul - Later Phillip goes to Samaria and many are saved
3. Personal
Discomfort
1. Jesus
was tired
2. We are
a fatigued culture - We are tired of conflict
3. The
hard work of missional obedience requires that we be willing to go to
uncomfortable places at uncomfortable times
4. Prejudice
1. He
didn’t see her as a project – rather as a person
I
believe the important take away from Jesus’ visit to the woman at the well is
His intentionality.
· He had
to go – we have to intentionally cross racial and cultural barriers
· He
cared about her soul – the gospel is for all people
I
think the take away from Galatians 2 is the Consistency
of our witness.
· Peter
wasn’t a racist – he had a moment of inconsistency and Paul called him out on
it.
2. What
are your thoughts about Dr. Evans’ statement that the gospel is not just about
how to get a heaven, but about unity?
· Heaven
on Earth Article – Unity in Diversity – “Your kingdom come, Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven”
· Images
of heaven – Rev. 7:9 describes heaven as having, “a
great multitude that no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and
language, standing before the throne [God] and before the Lamb [Jesus].”
3. How do
you relate to the idea that culture sometimes determines your actions more than
your faith?
· How
Can Christians Help to Heal Racial Divide Article – Zip Codes
· Zip
Codes have cultures – lifestyles – opportunity
· We
have to weave baskets – Moses was set out on the Nile River from a shack to the
palace – new zip code
· The
black community must find a way too by looking to those who have found a way –
Dr. Ben Carson, Hershel Walker
4. What
can we learn from Jesus regarding how to approach racial differences? (John
4:3-10)
· Must
be willing to cross racial and cultural barriers to save a lost soul
· Princess
Diana held the hand of a dying Aids patient
· Must
be willing and intentional about building relationships with another race –
where there is division (Brian’s Song: Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo / Remember
the Titans: Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell
5. What
will you do differently this week because of what you just heard?
Self-Reflection: What message am I sending to others by how I
view racial differences as a leader, a parent, friend, etc.?
” We often miss the person’s person and
thus miss the opportunity to get access to a person’s soul and sins…When you
are willing to deal with a person’s person, you get quicker access to [the
person’s] soul and their sins. A lot of
people want to deal with folks’ souls who don’t want to drink from their cup.
We want to get them to heaven but not have to cross them on earth, and
therefore what you do is block the Gospel and block the Kingdom of God by
illegitimate racial division. Jesus
didn’t do that…” – Tony Evans>
Challenge:
Think of someone in your life that your culture tells you that you don’t need
to associate with. Try to step over the
barriers and reach out to that person this week.
Added Articles:
How
Can Christians Help to Heal the Racial Divide?
Catherine Segars |
Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer | Wednesday, September 9, 2020
HOW CAN CHRISTIANS HELP TO HEAL THE RACIAL DIVIDE?
In the
mid-70s, my parents adopted a child from South Korea—an infant girl left on the
side of the road in a basket. She was strategically placed near a route where
the orphanage workers traveled.
I’ve
often wondered if her mother or an older sibling watched to make sure that she
was safe, just like big sister Miriam watched Moses as he floated downstream in
a handcrafted vessel. In a poor section of town, in a culture that has little
use for women, I like to imagine that someone peered from a safe
distance—hoping that, like Moses, my sister would find a better life.
She
did. But she didn’t float to it. She flew. To America.
That
basket took her to a new world. Seoul’s loss was our gain.
AMERICA
WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE GREAT MELTING POT.
Millions
of people come to the U.S. through adoption and immigration, people of other
races and other lands. It is the great melting pot. Or it was supposed to be.
It was for my family.
It was
a gift to be raised in a home where skin color didn’t matter. It was a blessing
to see, firsthand, how melanin didn’t determine
value. Or potential. Or love. My sister would turn a deep shade of mahogany
after five minutes in the sun. I would turn pink and peel. It didn’t matter.
But
where you live did matter. It still does.
If my
little sister still lived in a shack somewhere in southern Asia, there’s no
question that her life would be very different. Her education. Her
opportunities. Her equality. Her safety. Her faith. Her home. She would have a
very, very different life.
Skin
color didn’t matter in our upbringing, but zip code did.
The
lessons I learned in the 70s and the many decades that have followed, sadly,
don’t apply now. Skin color does matter. It does determine value, potential,
and love. This is what we are told.
I’m
not going to argue that point. I’ve never lived a moment in any other skin than
my own pasty-white shade of flesh. I don’t have any right to go there. I have
experienced discrimination because of my sex, but never because of my skin. The
fact that some people still suffer injustice because of an immutable characteristic
that makes them unique and beautiful, makes my stomach turn.
But I
want to present an important part of the argument, not my own, that resonates
with what I see, with what I’ve experienced—a point of view that isn’t
discussed nearly enough.
WHERE
YOU LIVE MATTERS.
Where
you live is a huge factor in education, safety, income, opportunity, equality,
and ultimate success in life.
Or
rather, I should say, where you can afford to live.
WE
MUST TAKE INSTRUCTION FROM THOSE WHO HAVE FOUND THEIR WAY OUT OF POVERTY.
I’ve
been listening to a long list of brilliant black and brown voices talk about
how they clawed their way out of poverty, and how the system is set against
people who live there.
People
like Dr. Carol Swain, a tenured professor from Princeton and Vanderbilt
University, who was a single mom with three children by the age of 20. Divorced
and desperately poor, it wasn’t easy, but she found a "basket." She found a way from that world to
another.
People
like Vince Ellison, one of 8 children born to sharecroppers on a cotton
plantation in West Tennessee, whose father constructed a basket for each of his children through ingenuity and
hard work.
People
like Dr. Ben Carson, a world-renowned neuro-surgeon and the 17th U.S. Secretary
of Housing and Urban Development, whose single mother worked multiple jobs to
fashion baskets for her two young sons.
People
like Bob Woodson, one of the few remaining original civil rights activists, who
left the movement 40 years ago because, after decades of fighting for change,
he was convinced that the people in charge didn’t really want change. They
wanted power. So, he left the party of hope and change to start the Woodson
Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping at-risk youths find a
way out of the projects.
Woodson
wants to weave as many baskets as he can so that
people of color can escape the effects of crime-ridden neighborhoods, failing
educational institutions, crippling poverty, and despair. The world needs more baskets — baskets that can transport people from one
world to another.
OUR
POLITICIANS AREN’T MAKING BASKETS. (Exception: Tim Scott)
And
the world needs more politicians who truly care about changing the
neighborhoods where the impoverished live. An overwhelming majority of
inner-cities are run by a party that claims to care, that claims to have the
answers, that claims to fight injustice, but they never
affect meaningful change. And finally, some of them are admitting it.
In a
recent op-ed from the New York Times, former Minneapolis Mayor, Betsy Hodges,
addressed how liberal policies create police brutality in the inner city:
“White
liberals like me ask the police to do our dirty work—dealing with the racial
and economic inequities our policies create. Normally, we turn a blind eye to
the harsh methods that many of them use to achieve our goal of order, pretend
that it isn’t what we’ve done and then act surprised when their tough-guy
behavior goes viral and gets renewed scrutiny.
Whatever
else you want to say about police officers, they know—whether they articulate
it neatly or not—that we are asking them to step into the breach left by our
bad policies. The creation of more just systems won’t guarantee the prevention
of atrocities. But the status quo in cities, created by white liberals, invites
brutal policing.” (Betsy Hodges, The New York Times, July 9, 2020)
The
progressive status quo “invites brutal policing.” It produces inequality and
injustice. It furthers the racial divide. It keeps minorities trapped in
failing systems. The record is clear as most U.S. inner cities have been run by
one party for decades, and yet the very people who have failed are now gaining
more power.
OUR
LEADERS NEED TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.
For
the past few months, I’ve nearly worn a hole in my skull scratching my head
over how the party responsible for most of our inner cities manages to escape
any responsibility for the inequity, brutality, and injustice their policies
have created.
Where
is the report card? Where is the reckoning?
Kimberly
Klacik, a brave new candidate for congress in the 7th district of Baltimore, is
calling for that reckoning in a viral new ad for her campaign. Her video gives
a very honest but disturbing report card.
And
like me, Bob Woodson is scratching a hole in his head. In a recent interview,
he said:
“So
many of those people taking office use this money to create a class of people
who are running these cities, and now after 50 years of liberal Democrats
running the inner cities, where we have all these inequities that we have, race
is being used as a ruse, as a means of deflecting attention away from critical
questions such as why are poor blacks failing in systems run by their own
people?”
Why
indeed.
WHO IS
ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING THE POOR?
The
party of hope and change isn’t making baskets.
And
the other party hasn’t made an effective case for how they can do better.
Often, they are too afraid to step into the fray for fear of being labeled
something nasty.
Neither party is making baskets. Honestly, I’m not sure that either
party can.
Let me
be clear—our politicians could do a lot better. They must.
But
ultimately, the best baskets don’t stop at transporting a person’s body. They
transport a person’s soul. The best baskets don’t just give us a new physical
address. They give us a new spiritual one.
Our
government could do a lot better, but it can’t do that. It can’t instill
purpose. It can’t provide lasting hope. It can’t heal a person’s wounds. It
can’t change a person’s destiny. It can’t transport a person’s soul.
ONLY
GOD CAN DO THAT.
WE
MUST FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF OTHERS WHO ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE.
I
happen to know some amazing, God-inspired basket-weavers—Keith and Cissy Crowe,
a couple of ordinary Christians with an extraordinary call. At a time when most
people are downsizing to gated retirement communities, Keith and Cissy sold
their safe home in the burbs to move into one of Birmingham’s toughest
neighborhoods. There, they spend day after dangerous day cooking meals, housing
the homeless, creating jobs, providing opportunities, inspiring kids, speaking
Truth, instilling purpose, giving hope, loving their neighbors.
Keith
and Cissy founded Hope Street Christian Ministries, a mission that fashions
vessels to transport people from one world to another. They spend their lives
making baskets.
What
segregates us in modern America are zip codes — zip codes that are run by
politicians who don’t really want or know how to help people stuck in those zip
codes. Zip codes housing precious people created in God’s image, people that
many of us avoid, ignore, judge, or don’t make the effort to understand.
Our
politicians can’t fix the problem. They can’t bridge that divide. And neither
can we.
Only
one Person can.
WE
MUST FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST.
That
Person traded a heavenly zip code for an earthly one.
That
Person arrived in a manger but was foreshadowed by a boy in a basket. A boy who floated from a shack to a palace. A boy who
saved his people from slavery. A boy who said “let my people go” to the
mighty leader of the land. A boy who marched his people to a new zip code,
spiritually and physically.
So did
the Messiah in a manger. Only He liberated us from a different kind of slavery,
a slavery to sin. He gave us a new zip code with a heavenly address. He told us
that we would always be foreigners in this land, but we should lay down our
lives to help people find a zip code in heaven. He spent his life weaving
baskets that will transport you, me, and whosoever will from this life to the
next.
Let’s
weave some baskets with Him.
Let’s
help people find a way out of this life’s poverty in the hopes that, one day,
they will find a better life in this world.
And
one glad morning, they will find paradise in the next.
The
views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of
Christian Headlines.
Catherine
Segars is an award-winning actress and playwright
Another Article:
Heaven
on earth
Envisioning and pursuing unity in diversity
I am blessed to serve as a pastor with Butler Avenue MB
Church—Butler for short. Butler is an incredibly
diverse church on the southeast side of Fresno,
Calif. That diversity is found in so many ways: ethnically, economically,
generationally and culturally. Each Sunday we worship in four different
services and three different languages (English, Lao and Spanish). You will
find families worshiping with us from such places as Congo, Mexico, Laos,
Thailand, Cambodia, Honduras, Argentina, Ethiopia and more. Yes, our potlucks
are amazing.
Butler is a very special and unique church. We often joke with
each other that our humble fellowship is a preview of heaven, and there might
be more than a little truth to that.
A vision for unity in diversity
Many of us have memorized and often recited what we call the
Lord’s Prayer. As part of that prayer in
Matthew 6:10, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” But what do we know of heaven? If Jesus’ disciples are to
invite heaven on earth, what are we asking for?
There are many images and ideas regarding
heaven to explore, but I draw our attention to one specific image
offered in the book of Revelation. Revelation 7:9 describes heaven as having, “a great multitude that no one can
count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the
throne [God] and before the Lamb [Jesus].”
Scripture points to a heaven where nations, tribes, peoples and
languages of this earth are still intact. Together, an incredibly diverse
assembly, standing united before our Lord and Savior. If that is heaven, what
then might we the church expect and embrace on earth? If we pray with
earnestness that God’s kingdom would come on earth as in heaven, might we
expect to see his church assemble together in diversity and unity?
A plan for unity in diversity
In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul refers to the
“mystery of the gospel.” What is the mystery? Here is how Paul explains
it: “And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News
share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the
same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to
Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6, NLT).
The good news is that Jesus lives, dies and rises again so that
we might receive new life by faith. The “mystery,” what God’s people have not
understood previously, is that in Jesus the good news is for everyone, and everyone belongs
equally to one body.
In Christ, all are
loved, all are
joined together, all share
in his blessings. This becomes difficult when all really does mean all. Paul
himself is threatened, beaten and imprisoned because he dares to bring Gentiles
into the church.
This “mystery” is one which we must continue to unravel and
highlight today. As our world is increasingly divided and hostilities escalate
along racial, economic, political and other lines, the church which embraces
the mystery of the gospel can speak truth and bring healing, with a humble
authority that cannot be ignored. Unity in diversity then is not just a good
idea or only for a crazy few, it is central to the gospel.
Unity not uniformity
Paul says in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ, “There is no longer Jew
or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ
Jesus.”
“There is no longer….” What does this mean? Does this mean that
we are to drop all labels? No. This is a statement about value and worth, not
uniformity and sameness. In each pairing found in this verse (Jew/Gentile,
slave/free, male/female), there is a clear disparity in value and worth in
their society. There are those that have power and influence, and those who are
given little to none.
Jesus makes clear that in him, all have been given new life and
divine status as sons and daughters of God. There is no one superior to the
other. The poor man is just as valued, gifted and important as the rich. The
woman is just as powerful, called and authorized as the man. No ethnicity,
culture or people is any more God’s people than the other.
Unity in diversity does not mean that we must be colorblind or
that we cannot celebrate what makes us wonderfully unique. That would be
uniformity not unity. Unity in diversity means embracing our shared worth,
value and power in Christ, while also recognizing how uniquely and wonderfully
made we all are.
Unity in diversity as witness
In John 17:22–23 Jesus is praying. He is praying for his
disciples then and now. In these verses we find that Jesus prays specifically
for a type of unity which cannot be ignored: “I have given them the glory you
gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May
they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me
and that you love them as much as you love me.”
The kind of unity Jesus prays for among his followers will turn
heads. It is the kind of unity which can only be explained as an act of God. A
boundary-breaking kind of unity. Jesus has a vision for a diverse church; a
people who the world says will not, should not, cannot come together but by the
grace of God call one another beloved.
Mark DeYmaz, in his book Ethnic
Blends: Mixing Diversity into Your Local Church, makes a strong case
for the church to take seriously this task of finding unity in diversity. He
observes that, “in an increasingly diverse and cynical society, people will no
longer find credible the message of God’s love for all people when it’s
proclaimed from segregated churches. In these changing times, those without
Christ will respond not to platitudes but rather to practice, not to words but
only to an authentic witness of God’s love for all people that is daily
displayed in life and action.” There is indeed great opportunity for the church
to demonstrate love and unity in an increasingly angry and divided world.
Unity in diversity requires intentionality
True unity in diversity does not come easily or without sacrifice. It does not come quickly or cleanly. Butler Church has been
working intentionally toward this kind of unity for over 25 years, and we still
have much work to do.
In his book The
Skin You Live In, David Ireland says—regarding building unity
across ethnic and cultural divides—that, “It’s not enough to simply have good
thoughts about people or even to merely show them respect. You have to venture
into their social world as if Jesus’ command to ‘love your neighbor as
yourself’ (Luke 10:27) really matters to you.”
Unity in diversity can’t just be a slogan or an ideal. It
requires intentional effort toward building deepening relationships. This
involves surrendering our own preferences, stepping out of our comfort zones
and entering into the life and experience of others not like ourselves. We must
come humbly and with a commitment to listen, to learn and to serve.
I have been so incredibly blessed to be part of a church that
saw fit to pursue unity in diversity long before I arrived. I have learned the
immense value of knowing and being known by others very different than myself.
I have witnessed firsthand the wonder and joy experienced by those who for the
first time encounter a church where the color of skin or one’s station in life
does not disqualify them from the love and warm acceptance of the church.
It is not always easy, and it certainly requires much more work, but it is
completely and totally worth it to experience just a little more heaven on
earth.
Scott Holman is the lead pastor at Butler Church in Fresno,
Calif., where he has served for the last 12 years.
