Tuesday, January 18, 2011

in search of the perfect metaphor...

....for our Lenten journey.

This year in worship we are on a journey, exploring the points along the way when we have to make a choice to move forward or go back. We're contemplating the choice between moving into God's future or looking back at the way things used to be "back in the day." The question is whether we're ready to take a leap of faith and see where God is leading, or if we'd prefer to go back to the way things have always been.

The initial metaphor was something like turning points, decision points, crossroads, etc. But none of those is quite right, for various reasons.

The scriptures we are using are:
*Adam and Eve choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge;
*Abram and Sarai leaving everything and everyone to go to a land God will show them;
*The Israelites "going back" by making a golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai;
*Peter declaring Jesus the Messiah, then backpedaling when he finds out what that really means;
*Jesus meeting a woman who changes his understanding of his mission (the Syrophoenician woman).

So I'm in search of a metaphor...a catchy phrase, an image, something we can work with in advertising and in the worship space, etc. I know it has to be there somewhere, but I can't seem to get all the pieces of the phrase or metaphor to fall into a coherent space.

Thoughts?

3 comments:

  1. We're doing a Lenten series whose name isn't finalized yet, but it will be something around the idea that we should use the "giving up" process of Lent to prepare ourselves to take up something new for that season and even the rest of the year… The full idea (and especially title) isn't formed yet, but perhaps this will give you some ideas…

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