Five week Lenten series reflecting on the book Seeking God by Trevor Hudson.
| Video Message | Resources |
| Week 1: Seek and Be Sought | Monday Memo notes Explore More This Week 1. Some scripture reading this week on “seeking God/the Lord,” specifically a set of readings that do justice to the wide range of implications given to that phrase: Deuteronomy 4.29-31 NRSVA 2 Chron 19.1-3 NRSVA 2 Chron 26.1-5 NRSVA Job 5.8-9 NRSVA Ps 14 NRSVA Ps 24.3-6 NRSVA Ps 63.1-4 NRSVA Isaiah 65.1-16 NRSVA Romans 3.9-20 NRSVA Hebrews 11.6 NRSVA 2. A lovely devotional about God always being available when we seek Him: God’s Available – United Church of Christ 3. Here’s the 1st session of the video curriculum that accompanies our Lenten book, “Seeking God” (by Trevor Hudson). it addresses a lot of what you read last week and this week. You can use it on your own, or in your Sunday School class or small group. It’s about 30 minutes: Trevor Hudson Seeking the Life God Gives 4. A 30 min. podcast in which Trevor Hudson talks about writing the book, what he hopes to accomplish in it, and how he was personally impacted by both St. Ignatius of Loyola and Dallas Willard (the two titanic figures you meet in “Seeking God”): Renovaré | Podcast: Trevor Hudson — Seeking God |
| Week 2: The How-To of Repentance | Monday Memo notes – For those not in Sunday School, here’s the video lesson that accompanies chp. 3 in “Seeking God”: Trevor Hudson – Changing Direction – Spend some time this week – in prayer, in your devotional or journaling time, or in conversation with your small group – working on how to use the four “how to” lessons about repentance to make real change in your life: The How-Tos of Repentance: A. Where you feel discomfort may be where you need to repent B. Positive emotions are the best motivation for lasting repentance C. Specificity makes repentance real D. I am more likely to live a life of repentance if I surround myself with those who repent – Want to learn more about how adults change? One of the more accessible books on the subject, which addresses both individual and group change, is “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Dan and Chip Heath. All of these insights make “repentance” concrete and workable. Here’s a written summary of the book, as well as a 7 min. video summary: Book Summary Switch by Chip & Dan Heath | Sam Thomas Davies Video Review for Switch by Chip and Dan Heath – Check out C. S. Lewis’ reflections on repentance, and its depth: The Perfect Penitent – C.S. Lewis | Renovaré |
| Week 3: Disciple and Lesser Words | Monday Memo notes Being a Disciple this Week 1. Memorize a verse, and pray it for yourself every day this week (or, at least, every day you remember to do it): Luke 6.40 – “A disciple is not greater than their teacher, but every trained disciple will be like their teacher.” 2. Read over this lengthy quote from “Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis a few days this week, and turn it into a prayer: “(God says) give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work, I want you…No half-measures are any good…Hand over the whole natural self, all the desire you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself; my own will shall become yours…Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and the death of your whole body in the end; submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” 3. Here are the two video lessons by Trevor Hudson on chapters 4 and 5 that you read last week: Trevor Hudson – Discerning Our Deepest Desires Trevor Hudson – Exploring Life’s Greatest Opportunity 4. Spend some time reflecting on, journaling about, or talking with a friend or your small group about those two key questions that a disciple asks at every juncture of life: What does Jesus want me to learn right now? Or, what I need to be taught right now at this moment in my life? What is Jesus asking me to try right now, even if it’s new to me and I’m not very good at it? 5. Dallas Willard (prominent in the “Seeking God” book) and Richard Foster on the New Testament call to be a disciple: The New Testament Picture of Discipleship – Dallas Willard The Jesus Way of Life – Richard J. Foster 6. A leading English Christian leader, Mike Breen, talking about the nuts and bolts of New Testament discipleship in a 7 minute video: Mike Breen – The Pattern of Discipleship |
| Week 4: Metamorphosis | |
| Week 5: Directed to God’s Love | Monday Memo notes More on God’s Love for the Week 1. Bible reading this week – over half of the two dozen or so New Testament uses of the phrases “God’s love” and “the love of God” are in one small letter: 1st John. It’s only five chapters long, give it a read this week, and pay attention to all that it has to say about God’s love: 1 John 1 NRSVA 2. Turn the verse we savored yesterday into a daily prayer this week: “Lord, direct my heart to Your love, amen.” 3. The word almost exclusively used for God’s “love” in the New Testament is “agape,” which is also the most common word used for how we as Christians are supposed to love. This short video dives into this most important Greek word, “agape”: Agape – Love 4. A great read about God’s love from a prof in the theology dept. at Boston College: How have you experienced God’s love? | America Magazine 5. An uplifting worship song about our God, who is love: Chris Renzema – “God Is Love” (The Smoakstack Sessions) 6. Have you enjoyed Trevor Hudson, author of “Seeking God”? Here are links to archives of his books, articles, and podcasts: Renovaré | Spiritual Formation Books By Trevor Hudson Renovaré | Spiritual Formation Articles By Trevor Hudson Renovaré | Spiritual Formation Conversations With Trevor Hudson |
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