Commit? is a twelve-week opportunity for you to participate in a warm, supportive community exploring the big questions about who God is and what it might mean for you personally to live more deeply into who you are in Christ. Our journey together will be structured around the Baptismal Covenant (Book of Common Prayer, p. 304)
What does it mean to be Christian? What does God promise? What do I promise? What can I hope for from this course? How will we learn together?
Where do I find the Apostles teaching in the Bible? What is the Bible, and how did it come to us? How can I engage this ancient collection of books to deepen my trust in God and the way I practice my faith? What in this promise comes easily to me and in what ways does it make me aware of my need for God’s help?
How does the Book of Common Prayer provide for the breaking of bread and the prayers? What regular routine of public worship and private prayer makes sense for me? What in this promise comes easily to me and in what ways does it make me aware of my need for God’s help?
What is sin? In what ways is it personal, and in what ways is it bigger than personal? How does God respond to sin through Christ? How can I experience the healing and reconciliation God wants for me in the midst of all that’s gone wrong? How, as someone who struggles with sin, do I want to respond to God? What in this promise comes easily to me and in what ways does it make me aware of my need for God’s help?
What does it mean to serve Christ in another person? How have I done this? How does my parish do this? What does the Episcopal Church do? What is difficult for me about this? What in this promise comes easily to me and in what ways does it make me aware of my need for God’s help?
What is the Christian mandate to strive for justice and peace? How have others done this in the past? What does the Episcopal Church say about justice at home and abroad? What in this promise comes easily to me and in what ways does it make me aware of my need for God’s help?
As I look at the Baptismal promises again, to which am I drawn at this time in my life? Are there commitments I have made in the last six sessions or ones I desire to make? What need have I identified for God’s help? How has God helped others in the past? What resources are available to me as I seek to draw on God? What questions do I have about God and about how to deepen my trust in God?
To trust God as Creator of all, what illusions do I need to surrender about the world in which I live and my ability to control that world? What does it mean to be created in the image of God? What is my relationship with the created order – owner or tenant?
To claim my baptismal identity in Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, what paths are closed to me? What falsehoods and pretenses are exposed? And as I commit to follow Christ, what new paths are open for me? What opportunities do I find to be my real self? What areas of authentic living emerge?
What draws me to trust the Holy Spirit working in me? What in me resists? How far am I willing to be drawn in to the communion with God and neighbor?
What’s distinctive about the Episcopal Church? How do we do things, and why do we do them that way? How am I a member of the “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church” as an Episcopal Christian?
How is my baptismal ministry and identity Good News for the world? How do I want to respond to the needs that I see?
As in Connect?, each evening of Commit? starts with a brief prayer, after which everyone gathers with their table group (the same group each week) for a meal, informal conversation, and sharing around one or two questions raising themes for the evening and designed to encourage telling stories from your own life. Over dessert, a presenter delivers a very brief talk inviting connection between what we confess and commit to in the Baptismal Covenant and our own lives as 21st-century seekers. This is followed by more and deeper conversation at tables, returning to the evening’s theme, discussing brief readings for the week that are excerpts from Scripture, pre-20th-century tradition, and contemporary Christian writers, and exploring how it relates to our own experiences. Each evening closes with another brief prayer and a dismissal.
