Discussing The Shack
Since we put on our website that we are discussing The Shack on Sunday mornings I have had a number of requests to share what we are doing. I will be glad to do that. Since the book comes with no study guide or suggested way of discussing it in a group, I was left to my own devices to figure a way to do it. I must say that what we have been offering has been well accepted. We meet on Sunday mornings from 9:30-10:15 and have had about 70 or so people attend each session. For a town the size of Hot Springs that is a good crowd.
Here is how I am doing it: First, since I needed the course to cover six weeks so that it would fit into our Epiphany calendar, I decided to have six subjects to cover. The six topics are, and this is the order in which I have offered them; The Nature of God, Relationship with God and others, Why do bad things happen, Judging God & Forgiveness, The Trinity & Freewill, & finally The church/religion verses a relationship with God. I need to say that in sessions 4 & 5 there were two totally separate topics covered in each session. Thus, for example, The Trinity & Freewill are two different, unconnected subject matters.
As an example of what each session looks like I will take the first, The Nature of God, and try to explain how I did it. First, in my research of the book I thought that the topic, The Nature of God was addressed throughout the book (as is the case for the other topics as well). So I went through the book and noted the page numbers where the topic is spoken of. I began session 1 by inviting everyone to turn to page 82 and I read about Papa being a woman. This lead to much discussion by the participants. Next I directed them to page 95 and read about God taking on the pain of the world. To me, these are part of the nature of God as William Yound describes it. I had 16 total page citings for session 1, and more or less the same for the other 5 topics, all, of course, in my view describing how Young presents the subject matter being discussed. And by the way, I emphasized that I was not necessarily suporting or defending Young, only leading a discussion of what he had to say.
I tried to keep the conversation on subject, which is always a task, and found that I had a hard time getting through all of my notations in any one session. The discussions have proven to be lively, well attended, and greatly enjoyed by all who have attended.
I would suggest that if you want a real flavor of what we are doing that you buy a CD of the first session. We have recorded all sessions and are selling them to non-parishioners for $10 each. I have done 5 sessions so far and will finish the series on Sunday February 22. If you wish to buy all 6 session we will sell the set for $50. The prices include shipping. If you are interested in a CD please email me and we will get it processed within just a couple of days.
I hope this is helpful.
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