Off Topic: Good and Bad Preaching
Comments
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Just to open a can of worms - what about a degree of interactivity? It's not common nowadays, but there was
often interaction in NT times in talks and if everyone has a bible, are discussions in small groups during the talk a way
to ensure people stay interested/engaged?0 -
The Taize Community, which attracts tens of thousands of people, mostly young, unless they have changed since I was there last, decades ago, don't have a sermon in their liturgy. The work of the sermon is done in small groups that meet daily and interact. Everyone comes together in the church for worship.
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nicky crane said:
The work of the sermon is done in small groups that meet daily and interact. Everyone comes together in the church for worship.
Are each of the small group leaders tested with regard to their qualifications as elders, per the pastoral epistles? And with so many leaders, it must be quite a challenge to follow James' exhortation to not have too many teachers.
When our congregation meets, we consider all elements of the Lord's Day meeting to be "worship": Praising God through music, the offering, the Scripture reading, and most of all, the sermon.
macOS (Logos Pro - Beta) | Android 13 (Logos Stable)
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Robert M. Warren said:
Are each of the small group leaders tested with regard to their qualifications as elders, per the pastoral epistles? And with so many leaders, it must be quite a challenge to follow James' exhortation to not have too many teachers.
When our congregation meets, we consider all elements of the Lord's Day meeting to be "worship": Praising God through music, the offering, the Scripture reading, and most of all, the sermon.
The leaders of the groups I've been in have been either members of the Taize Community, so well tested, or one group was led by a visiting pastor known to and trusted by the community. The idea behind not having a sermon in the main gathering is that no one preacher could address the needs of everyone there. The groups can do that better. The idea behind the groups was to provide a stimulus to help people listen to what God is saying to them personally.
In fact we use the same principle in our groups in the village, that people should go home after the group enriched with something God has said to them personally, on which they can act (that's the idea - it doesn't always happen...). Sometimes God says things to them that I would never have thought of.
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Floyd Johnson said:
The following questions are addressed specifically to the lay members of the forums. This was the specific request made within the group from which it came.
I have just received a dare from a group of pastors to which I belong to ask a couple of simple questions: What is one characteristic of good preaching? And, what is one characteristic of bad preaching?
Just to be honest, I do plan on sharing answers with the group without giving the sources - but it is my hope that answers will help me and othesr to become better preachers.Thanks in advance for any answers.
Floyd,
When you posted this, I imagined you saw it as a great way to tap into the views of a diverse community easily. I have not tracked with the conversation and don't know where it's gone since then, but it appears that it's starting to go wayward to some degree...beyond what you intended, no doubt.
I have a suggestion for you (and any user) who wants to query the views of the community in the future for a research project or anything of that sort in the future: go ahead and start a thread with "Off topic:" in the title, explain what you're doing in the post, and link to a survey that you've created somewhere else (www.surveymonkey.com is free). Then coordinate with me or another Logos forum admin to have the thread immediately locked after posting.
The above idea seems like a good way to allow you to query the community without making it easy for the forums to get too far afield of their intended purpose.
To the community at large: in this particular case, it appears that what was intended as a general question about pre-existing views has turned into more of a discussion and intent to shape other people's views (which is a good thing in general, but outside of the intended purpose for these forums). To that end, it'd be great if we could all just quietly move along from this discussion on every level.
Thanks so much!
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Stephen Smith said:
I have a suggestion for you (and any user) who wants to query the views of the community in the future for a research project or anything of that sort in the future: go ahead and start a thread with "Off topic:" in the title, explain what you're doing in the post, and link to a survey that you've created somewhere else (www.surveymonkey.com is free). Then coordinate with me or another Logos forum admin to have the thread immediately locked after posting.
I love this suggestion!
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Brother Mark said:Bill Coley said:
If a sermon is preached in a congregation, and no one is changed by it, ...
Might be he definitive response for what characterizes a bad sermon
So it's up to the preacher as to whether anyone was changed or not? This is about as works based as it gets... I hope my preacher doesn't stumble over a word or two, 'cause salvations are at stake!
Preachers change no one for the better, it is God who quickens.
"All we can do is harden hearts, it is God who softens." - John Gerstner
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Stephen:
I disagree that the question that I asked should be moved to another forum or platform. The question is not the problem - in fact if I understand the first two pages of responses, a number of forum members appreciated the discussion - I know I did.
Unless you are willing to follow the same policy for all off-topic discussions (i.e. prayer requests, jokes, images, examples, etc.), then your request makes little sense. Rather, let me suggest that you take the initiative, when you see that a topic is going astray, to lock it down.
Many threads go astray - why handle my question any different than any other thread. You represent LOGOS - you can do as you please. Lock down any any and all threads when it seems that they have run their course.
You are invited to lock down this thread - if you think it is best. On the other hand, it seems that one or two members are taking the discussion astray - not only this discussion, but several. Might it be more appropriate to address the ones who are moving away from the original topic, rather than the topic itself, which had some good discussion?
Yours because His,
Floyd
Stephen Smith said:Floyd Johnson said:The following questions are addressed specifically to the lay members of the forums. This was the specific request made within the group from which it came.
I have just received a dare from a group of pastors to which I belong to ask a couple of simple questions: What is one characteristic of good preaching? And, what is one characteristic of bad preaching?
Just to be honest, I do plan on sharing answers with the group without giving the sources - but it is my hope that answers will help me and othesr to become better preachers.Thanks in advance for any answers.
Floyd,
When you posted this, I imagined you saw it as a great way to tap into the views of a diverse community easily. I have not tracked with the conversation and don't know where it's gone since then, but it appears that it's starting to go wayward to some degree...beyond what you intended, no doubt.
I have a suggestion for you (and any user) who wants to query the views of the community in the future for a research project or anything of that sort in the future: go ahead and start a thread with "Off topic:" in the title, explain what you're doing in the post, and link to a survey that you've created somewhere else (www.surveymonkey.com is free). Then coordinate with me or another Logos forum admin to have the thread immediately locked after posting.
The above idea seems like a good way to allow you to query the community without making it easy for the forums to get too far afield of their intended purpose.
To the community at large: in this particular case, it appears that what was intended as a general question about pre-existing views has turned into more of a discussion and intent to shape other people's views (which is a good thing in general, but outside of the intended purpose for these forums). To that end, it'd be great if we could all just quietly move along from this discussion on every level.
Thanks so much!
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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Floyd: I disagree that question that I asked should be moved to another forum or platform. The question is not the problem - in fact if I understand the first two pages of responses, a number of forum members appreciated the discussion - I know I did.
I appreciated the exchange of views, till it got hi-jacked. We often get one or 2 people who get a bit dogmatic in such discussions, but they normally accept and respond to a gentle reminder of the forum guidelines. But JoReba not only ignored gentle reminders in this thread, but also opened other threads and wrote in an offensive manner, insulting Logos and anyone who disagreed with his/her comments. I found this upsetting and offensive. Other people who write dogmatically are seldom offensive with it. I don't think it was Floyd's fault that the thread got hijacked. Someone challenged one of my comments in a way I found dogmatic, but not offensive. Fair enough! He did it by questioning, not by hurling insults.
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Floyd Johnson said:
Unless you are willing to follow the same policy for all off-topic discussions (i.e. prayer requests, jokes, images, examples, etc.), then your request makes little sense. Rather, let me suggest that you take the initiative, when you see that a topic is going astray, to lock it down.
I agree completely [Y] The offender has a different name, but the language, writing style, attitude, and vocabulary are all too familiar. Don't punish the entire community for the misdeeds of one.
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Sorry for bumping an older thread but I thought that some might find the most recent podcast from the White Horse Inn to be of interest with respect to the original topic.
The precis is as follows:
"In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul warned his readers about various slick preachers that he referred to as the “super-apostles.” Though their style was smooth and rhetorically attractive, the substance of the gospel was either being ignored, or distorted. So Paul admonishes the Corinthians church saying, “if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus…you put up with it readily enough!” On this edition of the White Horse Inn the hosts discuss Paul’s concerns about style over substance, especially as it relates to trends in the contemporary church."
Instead of Artificial Intelligence, I prefer to continue to rely on Divine Intelligence instructing my Natural Dullness (Ps 32:8, John 16:13a)
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Are any of the participants in this thread interested in a discussion group going through the history of preaching using Logos resources?
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ -
I might be interested. What do you have in mind?
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I'm not Michael and won't name names (It seems the last time the forums buzzed negatively about a preacher by name, it went south.) but I think any preacher who views the pulpit as his own, or another man's, is a "bad" preacher.MJD said:Michael, You gave us some great examples of "good preaching" but you stopped short of "bad preaching"... Who are some examples you could give us for bad preaching?
I once heard a visiting preacher use a vulgarity in his sermon. When hr observed the shocked looks on the faces in the congregation, he turned to the pastor sitting on the podium behind the pulpit and asked, "Am I allowed to say that?" The pastor answered, "You just did."
A calling, a degree, an ordination, a license, a collar a title; nothing gives us the right to misrepresent God or his message. I knew a very eloquent preacher who's preparation and delivery of sermons was amazing. But when confronted by his board with his illicit affairs, his pride and popularity allowed him to fire the whole board and continue filling "his" pulpit. Charles Spurgeon was a most eloquent communicator whose personal life was an even stronger sermon out of the pulpit. That makes a good preacher.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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MJ. Smith said:
Are any of the participants in this thread interested in a discussion group going through the history of preaching using Logos resources?
It would be interesting. I have not yet purchased A History of Preaching (2 vols.) yet. I was always wondering how the "other" churches worship. I bought several Robert Webber books in hardback before getting them in Logos. It is an eye-opener.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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MJ. Smith said:
Are any of the participants in this thread interested in a discussion group going through the history of preaching using Logos resources?
Yes, I think I'd like to. In what form would we do that?
JesusChrist.ru - Russian Christian Portal, with free Bible software; Timh.ru - blog
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Timothy Ha said:
Yes, I think I'd like to. In what form would we do that?
It would be a discussion within Moodle - a educational software well-suited to discussions. There would be an example sermon or two to discuss and a list of background resources. People could read as much or as little of background material as interested them/they have time for. There would be a few questions to get a discussion going but everyone would be welcome to substitute other questions based on their own interests. I think I have enough interest to set it up - give me about two weeks and I'll have a web address for people to register.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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That's nice.
I was afraid of having to go online (face-to-face in real time), since we have different time zones.
JesusChrist.ru - Russian Christian Portal, with free Bible software; Timh.ru - blog
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Martha,
I answered your other thread(I think I was the only one) but yes, I would be interested.0 -
Super Tramp said:MJ. Smith said:
Are any of the participants in this thread interested in a discussion group going through the history of preaching using Logos resources?
It would be interesting. I have not yet purchased A History of Preaching (2 vols.) yet. I was always wondering how the "other" churches worship. I bought several Robert Webber books in hardback before getting them in Logos. It is an eye-opener.
I'd be interested too. I recently picked up A History of Preaching, and also Hughes Oliphant Old's The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (7 vols.), which has one volume for each major historical period.
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MJ. Smith said:
Are any of the participants in this thread interested in a discussion group going through the history of preaching using Logos resources?
Yes, I would be interested in that.
"In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church," John Wesley0 -
I think I have the discussion forum on the history of preaching and biblical interpretation set up for people to register and start the discussion. If there are problems please let me.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
I think I have the discussion forum on the history of preaching and biblical interpretation set up for people to register and start the discussion. If there are problems please let me.
How do you register for a username to log in? I tried the "forgotten password" method and gave my email address, but it didn't send me anything because I'm not a registered user yet. There doesn't seem to be a Register button anywhere.
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Thanks for trying it. I needed to read chapter 13 in addition to chapter 4 in Moodle for Dummies. It seems that I'd left the maximum number who could enroll at zero. [:)] I hope I've got everything right now.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I am a registered user and it is not allowing me to login. I get "invalid login, please try again" every time I try. i even created a new account and still get the same error message.
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MJ. Smith said:
Thanks for trying it. I needed to read chapter 13 in addition to chapter 4 in Moodle for Dummies. It seems that I'd left the maximum number who could enroll at zero.
I hope I've got everything right now.Nope, that still didn't work. There are icons on the front page for "Guest access" and "Self enrolment" but neither one of them is a clickable button. And still, the Login screen gives me no way to register. Trying to log in as a Guest fails, too, because you apparently need a password for that and I don't know the password (username "guest" gets filled in automatically, though).
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MJ - I will need to forgo participation. I do not have either of the resources you mentioned and having traveled for 3 weeks (via Amtrak) this summer, our budget is currently shot. Can I hang on and read the comments - without being an active participant? Or does this seem unfair to others?
Floyd
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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Floyd Johnson said:
I have just received a dare from a group of pastors to which I belong to ask a couple of simple questions: What is one characteristic of good preaching? And, what is one characteristic of bad preaching?
I was tempted to say that good preaching is less than 10 minutes while bad preaching is over 10 minutes, but that is just a joke.
I don't need someone to simply repeat the text to me in slightly altered terms. The situations in the text was "then" and this is "now" so what is needed is to connect the two and show how it applies in one's daily life. If I want a commentary on the text I'll either read one or write it myself.
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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Floyd Johnson said:
I will need to forgo participation. I do not have either of the resources
You may be a "lurker" ... but note that the sermons themselves will be available on the web if at all possible, specifically for those who don't have the Logos resources. Now if I can just get the default setting for registration to work ... it is becoming a humorous muddle of catch22's to find the problem.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
it is becoming a humorous muddle
This near-pun has been noted and forwarded to the Pun Police for investigation.
"I read dead people..."
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Good: the pastor either has chosen a topic, or area of the word, studied it in the original languages, worked out the translation into the language being taught, then interpreted it with a logical, hermeneutical process, so as to ensure that what he says to the congregation is what the Bible says, then provides application. Unless your translation is accurate, your interpretation will be off (usually) resulting in your application being wrong.
Bad: not doing the above; pastors doing it in any other way are hit or miss and are likely to fall for false doctrines because they have not sought the training to learn how to teach God's Word properly
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Finally, I really do have it so you can register for a discussion group at http://biblefortherestofus.logos4catholics.org/ thanks to some long distance consulting. Thanks for your patience.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ, I registered, but Moodle failed to send me the email, so I cannot confirm my account (timothyha).
Could you please confirm it.
It seems you didn't configure your SMTP mail server to send emails from Moodle.
JesusChrist.ru - Russian Christian Portal, with free Bible software; Timh.ru - blog
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I am having similar problems - registration went through, but e-mail confirmation failed.
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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I just manually confirmed your registrations. You are correct that my mail server is not correctly configured. Let me tell you the saga - and be prepared to laugh:
1. Moodle would not allow registration despite the fact everything looked like it did in the documentation.
2. I try to join the Moodle forum but my email address is rejected (aol)
3. I try to set up an email account on the hosting site that will forward to me.
4. I try again to join the Moodle forum - only to have the confirmation email bounce back
5. At this point, the Moodle forum won't allow me to set up an account because I already have an (unconfirmed) account.
6. Whereupon, I set to work on configuring the mail server ... when what I really wanted to be doing was getting MySQL Workbench access working.
Bet you can tell that networking and security were always a phone call away. Our team rarely dealt with it.
So I'll manually confirm accounts as I continue to work through this all. I've only run XHTML/XML sites before and was overly optimistic regarding my ability to reason out security & permissions.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Yay, it finally worked. I'm registered and can access the Moodle forums.
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MJ. Smith said:
So I'll manually confirm accounts as I continue to work through this all. I've only run XHTML/XML sites before and was overly optimistic regarding my ability to reason out security & permissions.
I run a number of PHP/MySQL websites, so I can help you in this.
JesusChrist.ru - Russian Christian Portal, with free Bible software; Timh.ru - blog
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I have not received the email confirmation yet. I thought I did something wrong so I registered twice, you can ignore one of the bookmeister's but I would prefer to use the hotmail one if possible.
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I've got a class to teach - but I'll take Timothy up on his offer to get the email straigtened out.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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You should have access even though I've not gotten the email working yet.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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One more thing: it seems to time me out after a relatively short period (a day at most). Any chance there's a setting you can change so we don't have to keep relogging in again when we visit the site?
EDIT: Also, now that you've got it up and running, perhaps it's time to announce it more widely on the forum with a more relevant subject line. This thread started with another discussion and some folks will have tuned it out long before the topic of your course came up. [If you've already done this and I've merely missed it, ignore the suggestion.]
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Rosie Perera said:
One more thing: it seems to time me out after a relatively short period (a day at most). Any chance there's a setting you can change so we don't have to keep relogging in again when we visit the site?
I'll see what the longest period permitted is and set it to that.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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A good sermon includes the Golden Thread, which I see as Jesus Christ, the God-man wooven here and there throughout the sermon.
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How come I'm the only one listed as a participant in the class so far? Has nobody else successfully logged on?
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Rosie Perera said:
How come I'm the only one listed as a participant in the class so far? Has nobody else successfully logged on?
Well, I say what I have to say, and then I quit. Besides, I can be critical enough of some sermons without studying how to do it.
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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I tried to create an account, when that did not work, I asked MJ to add me manually. She did so, but I still cannot log in to account.
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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I have 8 people showing as enrolled in the group - can you give me a screen print of where you are rejected so I can track it down? From last access date I can see that all but 2 people have gotten through (Floyd and Ryan). Two people actually had the enrollment process go through correctly so I'm comfortable that the first problem was solved. I may temporarily remove the need to log in - which is primarily to avoid spam and harassment.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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George Somsel said:
Besides, I can be critical enough of some sermons without studying how to do it.
This isn't how to do it - it's how they did it. Some good, some bad, some somewhere in between. My personal interest is in how it fit into worship and how it interpreted Scripture.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Martha, I am impressed with the amount of work you have put into this course, the reading list, the introductory materials, setting up the Moodle site. I am trying to do a bit of the reading so I can participate at some level, but I'm afraid I'm not able to give it the time it deserves after all you've put into it. Disappointed that so far there are no others participating on the forum. Anyone? Anyone? Again, I suggest maybe starting a new thread to invite people to it, since the invitation was buried so far down in this other thread that began to get a bit contentious and many folks might have tuned it out.
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