Posts tagged 2013

Advent Adult Group: Week 1’s strands.

Monday 2 December 2013

Often, when preparing Advent and Lent groups, I have found that what you think will come out of a session is usually not what results on the night itself. Usually any pre-conceived ideas pale into insignificance compared with what God does with a session. This is undoubtedly what happened last Thursday! So much ground was […]

Adult Advent Group: Week 1 Materials

Saturday 30 November 2013

Thursday saw the start of our Adult Advent group. A good number gathered to begin thinking about the Kingdom of God. A summary of some of the discussion will follow but here are the materials we used.We began in two groups to consider what we knew and had been taught about the Kingdom of God. […]

Two Pietas

Friday 29 March 2013

I was very cold by the time our walking tour group arrived at the Neue Wache. It has had various purposes but now houses  a sculpture by artist Kathe Kollwitz called “Mother with her dead son.” A woman, wearing simple clothes cradles her son’s lifeless body. Her face is partly hidden, his obscured by her […]

Being faced with great evil.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Just down from the Brandenburg Gate is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. During one morning of my recent stay in Berlin, I visited the information centre, underneath the memorial. The first room gives an overview of the Nazi policy to exterminate Europe’s Jews. The accounts are chilling not just because they contain […]

The Father: Adult Lent group 4

Thursday 21 March 2013

Our fourth adult Lent group focused on the figure of the Father in the Prodigal Son. We began by looking carefully at Rembrandt’s painting, the focus for Henri Nouwen’s book. We noticed the difference in the two hands, showing the maternal and paternal nature of God’s love. There is a great love in the embrace […]

The Elder Son: Family Lent Group 3.

Friday 15 March 2013

We began our third family session by talking about a scene from “The Lion King” when Mufasa confronts Scar. Scar is resentful because he has lost his place a heir to the throne with the birth of Simba. He will never be king now. Scar was like the elder son in the parable of the […]