Christian Formation for Adults

Please join us to learn and build Christian friendships through a combination of study, presentation, discussion, prayer, and Christian spiritual practices. For more information, contact Kirk and Sara Quackenbush.

April—May 2024

The Adult Formation Group will meet on Sunday mornings, 10:45-11:45am, in the Community Rooms, through May 26. We’ll than take a break for the Summer and resume in the Fall.

The main focus for these next few weeks is Prayer - How To Pray
Calvary members, Judy & Rich Griebling will lead us in material drawn from Pete Greig’s book, “How To Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People”.

Here’s a quote from the introduction of Pete’s book: "I’ve been writing this book ever since (making) a couple of important discoveries. The first was that prayer is actually, surprisingly, pretty much the most important thing in life. The second was that my friends and I were horribly bad at it. Since that inauspicious start, we’ve been on an adventure of exploration into this simple, difficult, inevitable thing that beats at the heart of life and faith and culture.Our English word prayer derives from the Latin precarious. We pray because life is precarious. We pray because life is marvelous. We find ourselves at a loss for many things, but not for the simplest words like “please”, “thank you”, “wow”, and “help”. “Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.” Abraham HerschelYou stare up at the stars and feel things bigger than religious language. You say to yourself, If this thing is true, there’s got to be more power, more mystery, more actual personal experience. We’re taking a map with us. The world’s most famous prayer- the Lord’s Prayer- was given to us by Jesus himself for this very purpose: to “teach us to pray”.  My intention is to reassure you that learning to pray is the least weird, most natural, necessary, and wonderful thing you can possibly do.”

On April 28 we’ll take the opportunity to welcome Jon Terry, Executive Director of the Au Sable Institute, to Calvary. Au Sable Institute offers expert-led environmental field instruction rooted in Christian faith and a supportive community, empowering students to be leaders in environmental service and stewardship. Care of God’s Good Creation is part of the Biblical mandate to humanity as made in His image (Genesis 1:27-31). This class will perhaps be of special interest to those who attended the Faith and Science series earlier this year.

April 21 - How to Pray #1
April 28 - Care of Creation
May 5 - How to Pray #2
May 12 - How to Pray #3
May 19 - How to Pray #4
May 26 - Pastors Forum

Engaging with Science as Followers of Jesus - January 2024

In January of 2024, we engaged in this stimulating discussion led by Calvary members and scientists Greg Jackson and Ken Touryan. You can access the slide decks below.