Westminster Presbyterian Church

Connecting On Wednesdays is an inter-generational small group ministry which runs for a 3-month period in the Spring and the Fall, meeting every other Wednesday evening for dinner and small group study. This gathering continues to be a vibrant source for nurturing our spirit within Westminster. Come experience fellowship in a new way!

Each week starts with fellowship around the dinner table at 5:45pm in the Fellowship Hall, followed by your choice of small group studies from 6:30 to 7:30pm in the various classrooms. Dinner fee of $30.00 covers 6 meals payable at the time of registration. Also, child-care can be made available and must be requested at time of registration. Some partial scholarships can be made available; see Rev. Oxtoby or Wilma White.

Join us! Don't miss out on a time for fellowship, lively discussions, building friendships, examining ways we live out our faith, and best of all having fun doing it!

Wilma White, Co-coordinator. Please contact the church office to register: (916) 442-8939

Fall, 2010 Schedule:

September 8 and 22

October 6 and 20

November 3 and 17

This fall's class offerings:    

"Making Ethical Decisions" - Class facilitator: Rev. Tom Oxtoby and a guest speaker Rev. Toby Nelson Chaplain

"The Theology We Sing: The Hymnal As a Resource For Our Faith" - Class facilitators: Rev. John Stevens and Gail La Fortune at the piano

"Living The Questions: A Class for Seekers of the Right Questions" - Class facilitators Bill Haldeman, Mark Swanson, Jim Dempsey, & guests TBA

2010 Class Detail

 

Making Ethical Decisions

You want to do the right thing, but how do you decide what that is? Either consciously or unconsciously you probably determine what is right based on some ethical system. We will explore at least five different approaches to ethics (maybe you can come up with a sixth!), discussing the strengths and limitations of each. You can then choose whether to incorporate one or more of these approaches into your ethical framework. We will consider how ethics can be applied to personal choices, church issues, and social concerns. We will also reflect on what Pastor Toby Nelson calls "Midnight Ethics": the decisions people must make in crisis situations where every possible course of action is profoundly wrong.

1. Role model (e.g. What would Jesus do?"
2. Legal (e.g. Ten Commandments)
3. Communitarian (e.g. Amish)
4. Situational (e.g. What is the most loving thing to do in this situation?)
5. Heavenly (e.g. What will it be like in the Kingdom of God?)
6. Are there other ethical options?

 

The Theology We Sing: The Hymnal As a Resource For Our Faith

Rev. John Stevens and Elder Gail LaFortune have designed a six-week study to look at the different category of hymns, say something about the poetry of those hymns and the poet who wrote them, think about how the words and music contribute to the theology we share a s a community of faith, and join in the singing of those hymns together. Some possible categories we will consider week by week are:

1. Baptism and Communion and other acts of worship
2. Salvation, social justice, and civic Responsibility
3. Life together in the Christian Community (the meaning of church)
4. Contemporary hymns and hymn writers
5. Coming special days and Seasons (Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany)
6. Hymns about prayer and spirituality

 

Living the Questions: A Class for Seekers of Right Questions

This class will follow a curriculum developed by the Center for Progressive Christianity. With the objective of growing both intellectually and spiritually, the class will explore questions of theology and spiritual insight that “many have longed to discuss but have been afraid for fear of being thought a heretic.”

Class sessions will be devoted to listening to brief televised presentations (approximately 30”) followed by group discussion (about 45”) At each class session the presentations (often casual conversations) will be by several different speakers selected from a panel of well-known scholars such as Marcus Borg (Professor of Religion and /Culture, author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time), Matthew Fox (former Dominican priest and author of Creation Spirituality and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ), John Cobb (Founding Co-Director of the Center for Process Theology and author of Christ in a Pluralistic Age), Minerva Carcaño (first Hispanic woman to be elected to the United Methodist Episcopacy) and John Dominic Crossan (generally acknowledged to be the premier historical Jesus scholar in the world). Each class session will provide opportunity for class members to discuss freely with each other their responses to the speakers.

About Connecting on Wednesdays

Connecting on Wednesdays an innovative program based on Healthy Church Growth, specifically designed around the basic idea of small groups. We gather informally for dinner in the Social Hall beginning with a prayer, sharing a common meal, and lively conversation. Classes begin after dinner and since the inception of this program, members and friends have enjoyed a variety of class offerings, having fun getting to know each other, and growing in our common faith through study and group interaction.