Sunday Talks

Peter Fitch continues his recent focus on ideas related to spiritual formation by looking at the 8 steps in 2 Peter 1:2-8. He focused today on the marriage of faith and diligence. Making this time a little extra special was the fact that kids were invited to sit-in. They were given a list of words that Peter often uses and had an assignment to see how many of these words they could find in his talk. The last few minutes of this session became quite funny as they tried to get him to say all the words that were left on the sheet.

Link to video clip and link to song.

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David Moore examines the sources of conflict. He sees some problems as arising from pride, but others from people who legitimately follow their conscience. Looking at some of Jesus’ words, he encourages us to be people who “show up for justice” and who live in accordance with an inner sense of what is right. The talk is followed by many questions and insights from listeners regarding how to do this without violence in a polarized world. All in all, it seemed like a very deep and authentic time of soul-searching and growth.

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Peter Fitch speaks about the various quests and journeys that we undergo in life, and the great importance of spiritual formation. From desert saints to modern mystics, he looks for images of what this might look like. Then he works on clues that might help us become the best part of ourselves.
As a treat, here is a

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Walter Thiessen continues with his explorations on “Welcome and Liberation” by emphasizing that freedom begins when we move from fear to trust by knowing God’s welcome. Lots of ideas from those gathered on how we can make real decisions on how we act based on this foundation.

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Peter Fitch talks about Psalm 46 and its reference to the “river whose streams make glad the city of God.” Realizing that there weren’t any rivers that flowed through Jerusalem, Peter treats the idea as a metaphor for God’s creative and living Presence. He shows the consistency of this theme throughout the Bible and then wonders about the role that Jesus plays in making this water available. He also works on the idea that all of life, and everyone everywhere, can find deeper and deeper levels of this Presence.

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In this talk, Peter Fitch begins by discussing Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and goats. The passage says that when we do something for “the least” we have done it to Jesus. Peter likes the way that The Message presents this idea: “the overlooked and ignored.” What he doesn’t like is the way the passage assigns the goats to hell-fire and eternal punishment. So he examines the wording in Greek and realizes that an excellent case could have been put forward for restorative rather than punitive justice. He thinks humans who translated the Scriptures couldn’t get their head around a God of Love so they presented Him as being in line with their human desire for vengeance. After this, Peter interviews Connie Mcdougall about her recent trip to Ottawa to receive an official apology from the Prime Minister for abusive treatment of LGBTQ2 people who worked in government services. Everything is brought to a close by playing a U2 song called “Love is Bigger than Anything in Its Way.”

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Peter Fitch blends a talk that he gave last week at Raleigh Vineyard in North Carolina with some new thoughts. He speaks about his belief that the human default is to create religions that exclude people, while God’s solution is to have a party and to include people that often feel left out. Quite a bit of this story has to do with the strange coincidences happening to Peter and some friends through Nehemiah, chapter 8.

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Walter Thiessen introduces a new theme that he wants to follow in his talks this year: getting at the heart of what Jesus wanted for us by experiencing the “soft bosom” of welcome and the “firm backbone” of liberation.

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Peter Fitch speaks about the last Beatitude, the blessing of being the kind of person who does right even when there’s a cost. He focuses on a scene from The Cotton Patch Gospel (link here), two poems by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the Johnny Cash song (sung by Dave Warne and Zoe Fitch) that’s called “Walk the Line.” He sees a need to leave our small circles of belonging and follow a straight path toward justice for all.

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On this, the last Sunday of 2017, Peter Fitch sums up some of the main ideas of the past year by reading from an unfinished book he started some time ago. He also shares some of SCV’s current guiding ideas. Finally, he leads in a brief Lectio Divina exercise from Luke 7.

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