 |
 |
|
| HFPC's Christian Education: | Click on your area of interest for more information. |
Adult Education Lessons for February 3rd – April 13th
10:30-11:30 AM each Sunday following 9:00 AM Worship Serviceprior to 11:30 AM DsTny Service
What’s So Amazing About Grace?
A Ten-Session Investigation of Grace
Adult Education Topic
Experience the Impact of Grace.
“It’s one thing to talk about grace; it’s another to taste its power. The series What’s So Amazing About Grace? takes people through gut-level
encounters with radical, life-changing grace. Through candid video interviews, Philip Yancey integrates true-life faces and experiences with ten powerful sessions that will rock your preconceptions, get you thinking and talking, and help you discover together why grace is more amazing than you’ve ever dreamed.
“The Participant’s Guide will help you not only gain a better understanding of what grace is and why it is so precious, but also integrate it into your life. Engaging questions, provocative Bible studies, and lively discussions are just part of the package. You’ll also be challenged to look for grace where it counts most: in your character and personal life. “If you’re ready to discover grace as more than just a fluffy concept, buckle your seat belt. You’re about to take a journey to the heart and soul of Christianity. The next life grace changes could be yours.”
The above is copied from the back book jacket for the series What’s So Amazing About Grace? Each Sunday we will be studying grace:
| February 3 | The Missing Ingredient: A Beautiful Word, a Powerful Concept |
| February 10 | Letting Grace Soak In: God’s Love for the Undeserving |
| February 17 | An Unnatural Act: Extending Grace When You’ve Been Wronged |
| February 24 | The Art of Forgiving: Responding with Grace When It Seems Impossible |
| March 2 | Skin-Deep: The Power of Grace to Penetrate Racism |
| March 9 | Grace Put to the Test: Grace in the Face of Disagreement |
| March 16 | Grace Abuse: Cheapening Grace and Robbing Its Power |
| March 23 | Easter Sunday. No Adult Education Class |
| March 30 | The Church Backslides: How Legalism Corrupts Grace |
| April 6 | Dispensing Grace: How Can We Do It? |
| April 13 | Counterforce: Grace Set Loose in the World |
Children and Historic First Presbyterian Church:
At Historic First Presbyterian Church, we affirm that God lovingly created all children, and faithfully abides in them. We want our church to be a place where children experience in special ways the God who is with them every day, in every place. We also want Historic First Presbyterian Church to be a place where children discover what it means for them, as children, to live in God’s way of compassion and justice as Jesus did.
Worshiping Together:
All ages worship together at HFPC. At our 9:15 a.m. worship service, we invite children to worship God, just as we invite youth and adults to worship God. And we believe that children worship God as children, not as “little adults!” Whether they are coloring a piece of paper, leafing through a songbook, counting the number of flowers in the sanctuary, or standing in the aisle to get a better view of the bread being broken, children are indeed taking it all in, and they have profound gifts to share with the adults in the congregation. May we continue to grow into a worshiping body that receives and honors the gifts of all children, no matter how messy or unpredictable or unruly those gifts may be!
Growing in Faith:
On Sunday mornings, from 10:30-11:15 A.M., children ages 3 years through 4th grade are invited to grow in their Christian faith through our children’s educational program.
Encountering the Resurrected One: I wonder where a child might see herself in the story of Mary Magdalene weeping at the tomb? I wonder where a child might see himself along the road to Emmaus?
The Good Shepherd: The Good Shepherd leads us, and invites us to feast at the table of life. Surely Jesus experienced God as a good shepherd, and invites us into the same relationship with God.
The Ascension: I wonder why the early followers of Jesus told a story about Jesus ascending into the clouds? I wonder what the story means for us today? I wonder what the story means for the children in our midst?
Pentecost: Pentecost is about power! The symbols of Pentecost are wind and fire. As adults, we tend to want to “tame” the Holy. May the children remind us that God is a Pentecost God, a God who empowers and who turns things upside down.
Baptism: We belong to God, the God whose loving power we describe as “resurrection.” Through baptism, we are reminded that we belong to God. Through baptism, we say NO to everything that gets in the way of our life with God. Through baptism, we say YES to God’s ways of compassion and justice.
A Prayer for Children by Ina Hughes
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blankets to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowances before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for children who want to be carried
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don't get a second chance,
for those we smother and for those
who will grab the hand of anybody kid enough to offer it.
[The prayer was written following the Oklahoma City bombing by Ina Hughes, columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel.]