This past Friday

Well...we started our book study through Searching For God Knows What. We will be reading through the first 3 chapters this week and then discussing various topics from the study guide this coming Friday.

If you would like to join this study we would love to have you. We are doing "Bring your own fast-food dinner" every Friday while we have our discussion.

Click here for a map link.

NEW BOOK STUDY --starting Sept. 18th

We will begin a read/study through the book "Searching for God knows what". We are looking forward to reading this book together with you. We will also provide a study guide to accompany you as you read.

If you want to be part of this study but did not buy a book through us, purchase a book and join us Friday Sept. 18th 6:30PM for the first session of this study.

For more info: thestuartinitiative@gmail.

"Searching for God knows what" - Starting September 18th

We will begin our new study on a book called "Searching for God knows what". This will be a 6 week study in which we will read through sections of the book through the week and fill in answers in a study guide. Each meeting night of the week we will discuss as a group the concepts presented and questions we have about the material.

Books are $10.

Please signup for this class no later than August 30th.

If you would like to be part of this group, please contact us and we can fill you in more on the details.

thestuartinitiative@gmail.com

TSI latest...

We haven't posted for a while but we wanted to give an update on what the future plans are. We are going to be taking a break from the group for a few weeks till the end of Summer. In mid-September we are going to be starting a 4-6 week book study. Our book is "Searching for God knows what", by Donald Miller. We are going to read through this book pretty quickly together and will have discussion questions each week at the meeting. We will develop the questions from the accompanying study guide which we fill out through the week.

If you interested in joining this book study, please sign-up at the GPS table outside The Quest gathering on Sunday mornings. The deadline for book payment is Sunday, August 30th. We would love to have a lot people involved in this study because we believe that numerous perspectives on this book will be valuable to understanding it.

If you have any questions about this study, please email us thestuartinitiative@gmail.com.

Game night...

So last night we had a game night at The Stuart Initiative. It was a great time. We had cupcakes and brownies...lemonade and coffee. We think these nights are a good break from study time because it gives us an opportunity to connect as friends and not just as Bible study friends. At the same time we really value the discussions we have and the growth that we have a result of discovering more of who God is through reading the Bible.

In the coming weeks we will continue looking through the parables. We hope that will want to be a part of this study with us.

Matthew 13:1-9 ...in Greek.

Tonight we talked about Matthew Ch 13:1-9. We have been going through the 8 parables that are told by Jesus in Ch 13. This evening we took the literal Greek words from the original writing and got the English definitions from them and looked at what was really said in this passage. It is interesting to see what these Greek words really conotate. Many times the English words don't do the authors thought justice because the Greek word totally encapsulates the idea or concept the author is communicating.

For instance, Jesus talks about the farmer scattering seed that happened to fall on the road. It says that the birds ate it up. The original words used in the Greek seem to imply a violent devouring; a consuming like a dragon... a consuming that is forcible inflicted. We always think of a pretty little bird just pecking away as they do in a bird feeder. The Greek words paint a much different picture.

Current Studies...

Currently, we are going through various parables of Jesus. 

Example of our forum for these studies.

Tonight, we will launch our discussion through Matthew 13 which features about 8 parables. We will read through a commentary, in addition to the complete chapter, and in the following weeks we will discuss certain parables in the chapter, separately. 

We decided to go through these parables because we believe that stories have a lot of power to influence our perspectives and thought processes. Jesus used stories in almost every setting he was in. Stories have great potential in communication because they easily identifiable across different groups of people. Their greatest potential however, happens when the story exclusively fits a certain target group... that is was Jesus did very well. He shared principles through stories that he knew people could identify with on very personal levels.