Off for a Much-Needed Break

This weekend my wife and I and some of our friends are taking a break from our normal lives to go on a spiritual retreat together. Well, at least some of it will be spiritual. Other parts will be playing games, swimming, getting sunburned, and eating. Anyway, I will be teaching three times during the weekend. I had originally planned on working through one of the Minor Prophets, but I feared that I might get too bogged down in history and whatnot for the sessions to be that interesting for others.

So instead I have decided to teach a series that I am tentatively calling "Our Identity in Christ." Original, I know. The first session, "What's the Problem?," will be about how we as Christians so often find our identity (and therefore our purpose, worth, value, etc) in the wrong things. The second sessions, "Here's the Solution!," will cover how being "in Christ" changes not only what we do, but who we are (I think I'll focus on 2 Cor 5.17, Gal 2.20, and Rom 6.3-12 here, as well as a few other passages; also, methinks that Morna Hooker's notion of "interchange in Christ" will be most helpful). The last session, "Now What?," will briefly examine the implications of being in Christ, so I hope to focus on personal things (Phil 3.10-11) as well as communal things (2 Cor 5. 18, 20; 1 Cor 12.12ff.).

Wow, I didn't realize until I typed the previous paragraph that these teaching sessions would be so Pauline. Oh well, what else would would you expect from me?