Title: GCF – Suffering
Location: CRC Office – Wycliffe College
Description:
We all know life isn’t always easy. As people who try to follow Christ, we know in our heads that life will involve suffering, hardships, pain–following in the way of the cross.
Surprisingly, we tend to hear very little in our churches or communities about real-life suffering. In my experience, when we talk about our suffering or the pain of others, we quickly follow this with talk of how whatever we are facing will surely end soon, or will have good consequences in the end, or will make us stronger or more faithful.
Do we try to tame the intensity of suffering? Is there always a “bright side” to painful experiences?
This week at GCF, long-time GCF community members and friends Mari and Shannon are teaming up to lead an evening on suffering and the Christian life. Here’s a teaser from them about the evening:
The following is an imaginative retelling of Mark 11:12-25 – I would like to give a disclaimer that this is not the official telling, and that if I were a prof, I would tell you not to write this part down:
Jesus is walking along with his disciples and he sees the fig tree and wants some figs. He gets closer to the tree and realizes that there are no figs on the tree because it isn’t fig season. He then throws a hissy fit. “What is wrong with this planet?” he says. “You can’t just walk up to a fig tree and get, say, figs, you have to wait for fig season, and even then the figs might not grow because, oh that’s right, the ground is cursed and we have to work really hard to make anything grow at all, and even all that hard work is no frickin’ guarantee. I HATE this place! It sucks! Nothing works here! I’m so over this planet! I’m going to change everything!” And then he does. Sort of.
This Thursday evening, explore the terrifying world of meaningless suffering and how being Christians does not in any way protect us from this horrific fact of life. It will be fun. It will be scary. There will be stick figures.
This is certainly an evening NOT to be missed.
And consider bringing a friend who might need a community like GCF.
Looking forward to seeing you then,
Sara Gerritsma DeMoor
Associate chaplain
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-11-19