Week One

Written and Read

SEEDS TO SOW: HOW DOES CREATION SING? *

Introduction: One of the most obvious ways we communicate with God and with one another is through reading and writing. We read ancient texts and write songs and prayers and sermons in response. We read poetry, we journal, we look up commentaries, we write letters, send messages. The written word is an uncanny thing. It’s a way of outsourcing memory, ideas and emotion, holding on to truths and preserving a legacy. It is a workshop for language where we can craft new ideas and express complex concepts. It’s also a way of remembering to get milk. And to tell someone you love them. Our lives are full of writing, and as we read and write we do so alongside the one who read to the stars and wrote the fabric of reality into being.

Read Psalm 119: 10-11,105-106

The poem The Gate Of the Year (link to wikipedia entry here) reflects a great deal of the verses we have been reading in the psalm above. Do you think the poet is encouraging us to trust God even when we can’t see the way ahead? How can you find the hand of God? The poem implies it with such ease. How does God communicate to say ‘Here is my hand’?

Talking about trusting God, how do we communicate trust among ourselves? How important are our written words?

Read Ephesians 3: 1-12

Discussing the idea of mystery and grace.

What is the difference between understanding gained by a revelation, as to understanding gained by reason? Is faith gained by reason or revelation? How do we receive revelation anyway?

Can we read people like books? God seems to want to ‘show off’ the church as a community of his grace — but to whom is he showing the church? Is this another mystery? Who is reading the church?

Read Daniel 5

A fascinating mystery story. From this story comes the phrase “the writing’s on the wall”. What lesson about communication have you learned from this story?

* SEEDS TO SOW: These are open-ended and optional prompts and are designed for people wanting to develop their own resources in response to the themes. Perhaps if you are using this material as a group you could use these prompts to inspire a time of prayer, or drawing, or creative writing? They are a short and sweet, simply a starting off place for you and your imagination. Tailor and develop as suits your group.