Join Us For Starting Point at Cedar Springs-FALL 2015

Join us for Starting Point this Fall! It's a safe place for you to explore faith and experience a community of honest, open people...Who probably have lots of the same questions, doubts, or wonderings that you do! We would love to have you join us. Next gathering begins September 20, 2015. Email startingpoint@cspc.net for more information and/or to register.

Who am I? What is my true identity and why is it so hard to figure that out?

"Your true identity is as a child of God. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world.

"You need spiritual guidance; you need people who can keep you anchored in your true identity. The temptation to disconnect from that deep place in you where God dwells and to let yourself be drowned in the praise or the blame of the world always remains.

"Since that deep place in you where your identity as a child of God is rooted has been unknown to you for a long time, those who were able to touch you there had a sudden and often overwhelming power over you. They became part of your identity. You could no longer live without them. But they could not fulfill that divine role, so they left you, and you felt abandoned. But it is precisely that experience of abandonment that called you back to your true identity as a child of God. Only God can fully dwell in that deepest place in you and give you a sense of safety. But the danger remains that you will let other people run away with your sacred center, thus throwing you into anguish.

"It might take a great deal of time and discipline to reconnect your deep, hidden self and your public self, which is known, loved and accepted but also criticized by the world. Gradually, though, you will begin feeling more connected and become more fully who you truly are – a child of God. There lies your real freedom."

-From Henri Nouwen, in his book, The Inner Voice of Love

--

What do you think about this? Do you feel like there a multiple things, people, or issues that are vying for you to make them your identity...Your hope...Your security? Do you find that they serve that purpose well, or do you feel like they leave you frustrated or confused? We wrestle with questions like this at Starting Point, and we ask what does Jesus have to do with any of it? What does one's past and family dynamics have to do with it? And is there actually a safe place to discuss any of this? We believe there is, and invite you to join us.

Starting Point at Cedar Springs...Winter, 2014

Join us for Starting Point this Winter! It's safe place for you to explore faith and experience a community of honest, open people...Who probably have lots of the same questions, doubts, or wonderings that you do! We would love to have you join us. Next gathering begins January 19th, 2014.

Starting Point from CedarSpringsPresbyterianChurch on Vimeo.

Brene Brown on the Messiness and Beauty of the Gospel, Christ, Forgiveness

Christians are Sinners...Along with everyone else; and that's great news!

“Christians are sinners. That’s who Christ died to save. That’s what the Holy Spirit convicts us about. We’re sinners throughout life, and because the Spirit is in us, we are unhappy about our sin. Instead of doubting our salvation, which is what the Devil wants us to do, we need to continue to believe the promise of God that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness for Jesus sake. We trust Christ for forgiveness of what we do wrong, but also for the gift of His righteousness so we know we are accepted by God for Christ’s sake, and not because we lived up to our intentions or promises to Him. Remember that only Christians struggle with the issue of assurance, and that is because the Holy Spirit in us constantly brings us into to the light of the Father’s love and the grace of Jesus Christ. Accept what Christ has done for you and apart from you. Meditate on the promises in the Gospel: they are yours and are always all true for you. Read about Jesus’ tender love for sinful people. Rest in the finished work and gracious righteousness of Christ. If you go through a time of being unsure, expect your assurance to return as you focus on Christ, and not on yourself.”

-Michael Spencer, from “Faith’s Crumbling"

Join us this coming Fall, 2013 and be part of our next Starting Point Groups! We would love for you to be part of something, we expect, will be different from anything you've experienced before...We look forward to the privilege of getting to know you.

On human worth in relationships: Does anyone, including God, delight in us?

“Why do we so infrequently delight in one another? It’s people who don’t know us well that often find the most to appreciate in us. And that leaves us worried that to know us is to not delight in us. Because we long to be delighted in, we keep friends at a distance from which they won’t see the bad.

“The problem, I think, is that we don’t really believe there is something terrific in us that would arouse delight. Or, if there is, we believe that the deeper things, which are more true about us, are bad. Goodness lies on the surface. Badness runs deep. We’re having a hard time believing the centerpiece of the New covenant [the good news of Jesus], that forgiven people have caught a glimpse of Christ and that the Spirit has used that glimpse to create goodness within us, a goodness that is more defining of who we are than our badness.”

-Larry Crabb, Connecting, p. 13

Professor and author Brene' Brown made a simple but profound statement when she said, "We are wired for struggle and worthy of love." Unfortunately, most of society, the world, and a great deal of religious dogmatism seems to disagree. As a result, we are left with the thoughts, emotions, hurts and frustrations that Larry Crabb has expressed above. At Starting Point we explore the tensions of these dynamics, and wonder together about how the Gospel of Jesus cuts against the grain of standard religious and worldwide tendencies to evaluate worth based on a "what have you done for me lately" paradigm. Come join us to see if there is even hope of another paradigm...

Christianity...Just for the sake of "harnessing the young and giving comfort to the old?"

"Young people are told from birth to be good and do good. They live with rules, grades and expectations. Those who are successful in keeping those rules and meeting those expectations often find grace to be difficult to accept. To them, grace can seem like a covering for evil. They usually think that when the grace talk is over, the behavior is going to be bad, and Christian young people are usually most careful in the area of distinctive and different behavior.

"Christian young people who have made different moral choices than the majority may truly not see the wonder of grace. They haven't sinned enough. Or to be more exact, they don't see the outrage of their own sins clearly. The foundation of morality their parents and teachers built in their lives may make it difficult to see their own sinfulness honestly. The culture war focus that rages around Christian young people puts unusual emphasis on making choices and "being righteous." It's not at the exclusion of the Gospel, but it's often at the expense of the Gospel." -Michael Spencer

What do you think? Do you think the concept of God's reckless grace just allows for bad behavior? Is religion just something that, as one band feared might be something simply to "Harness the young and give some comfort to the old?"* Have you been "ruled out" by churches/religions in the past? Is faith in Jesus that...or is it something completely different? These are the types of things we grapple with at Starting Point...We invite you to join us!

*From the band Caedman's Call; song-"Prove Me Wrong"