scf @ osu

Yet another quarter is upon us, and SCF is already off to a strong start with a COSI trip and more to come this week.

Like last quarter’s meetings, this week and other weeks we will meet on Tuesday night at 6;30 pm for a meal and then 7:30 for worship and teaching.

On Friday (January 13), we’ll be having our Winter Quarter Kick-Off Party! Meet up at 8 pm at the Flat. We will be having a jazz trio play for us as we hang out together and catch up. Feel free to invite friends along. If anyone is able to help with clean-up, contact Danielle or Seth.

This week in our SCF meeting we regrettably did not have Seth with us, as he is recovering from a neck ailment. Keep him in your prayers. Jill reminded of the importance of community, and we were warned about a few of the lies the world tells us about community. One of these lies is that we have to be as popular as possible by being superficially friends with everyone around us. It is good to be on good terms with everyone, but a morbid desire to be “friends” with everyone all the time can keep important deeper friendships from developing. Another lie about community is that community is something that happens spontaneously without any personal effort. A third lie is that commitment is something to be avoided — a lie which can keep people from the deep involvement in community that is a part of what it is to be human.

And, as is the ancient practice of the church from its founding, we also read some Psalms. Below, for your enjoyment, are the 24th, 25th, and 148th Psalms. (They’re in the KJV here, because of its lack of copyright restrictions and its unsurpassed ear for poetry.)

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This Tuesday we stepped back from our usual SCF meeting format and spent some time in prayer. We prayed about eight things, and while we are glad that we all got to spend that time talking them out with God, we’re certainly not finished praying about them just because our official meeting for that is over. As a reminder for times to come, here’s eight areas we prayed over. Each of these is almost a whole universe in itself, and each of these overlaps with some of the others. Think of them not as a final or definitive list, but as something to get you started: Continue reading →

This Tuesday we had a worship night, we explored the way that God works through time, instead of simply doing everything at once. Genesis 1 begins this way, with a God who could have done his work instantaneously instead building a world sequentially, step by step. Similarly, God works with us through time, helping us to grow in him day by day. And, as had been a tradition in Christianity since its founding, we explored our relationship with God through songs and Psalms: Continue reading →

This last week has been a whirlwind of activity here at SCF.  On Sunday, we met up on the Flat for “Veteran’s Day” — that is, a day for those who have been members last year to get together and talk about the coming year.

On Monday, we participated in the OSU involvement fair, which due to rain was held indoors in the spacious but still incredibly crowded Student Union. At our Welcome Party, on Tuesday, we got to meet and spend time with some freshman and other students as well who are getting to know SCF for the first time. The Welcome Party this year was unique in the very large number of international students with whom we had the pleasure of getting acquainted. On Wednesday night we took a crowd of both experienced and very inexperienced ice skaters to our hockey rink to slide around in circles with a large crowd of people trying not to fall. After taking Thursday off, we met up again Friday for a cook-out followed by a game of Eric Peter’s signature event: glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee, which occurred on wet grass, with predictable and often hilarious results. Saturday, in yet another excuse for enjoying community, we gathered together perhaps four football fans and ten people who couldn’t care less about the sport to watch the game against Colorado. OSU won, and with a thrilling set of passes by our new starting freshman quarterback. In what was arguably an even more thrilling development, SCF held Sundaes on Saturday, treating visitors to an assortment of ice creams and toppings.

Thus concluded a very eventful opening week. As we settle into the rhythm of the calendar year, we will be having our regular meeting, which we call Feast, on Tuesday, and small groups, which we call hubs, will be meeting on the other day of the week. (If you’re an SCFer interested in one of the hubs, let us know and we’ll help you find one that works for you.)

We’ve enjoyed seeing some new faces and some more familiar ones, and are looking forward to the last three quarters of study and fellowship to be offered here at OSU! (Before the semester switch, that is.)

You may notice, over to the right, that the calendar for this year is more or less empty of events. Fear not: we will continue to be doing things this year. We’re working through all the complexities of scheduling around an academic year at a university of busy students, and we’ll have more information for you by the time classes start.

We look forward to the coming year, in which we’ll be trying out something new with relatively smallish groups of about seven students a piece meeting weekly in addition to the regular meetings.

With the delightful end-of-year barbecue, SCF @ OSU has finished its regular year activities. Next Friday (the 10th), there will be a meeting among the remnant of us who stay here over the summer to talk about what we’ll be doing during the summer. If you’re interested, see Seth about that. For the rest of you, thanks for a wonderful year, and we look forward to meeting you all again next fall. Congratulation to our graduates. May your life be filled with purpose and joy.

This Tuesday we had a worship night. We thought about what God is doing in the world, using as our basis three texts. First, Ezekiel 36:24-27 (NET English Translation): Continue reading →

That’s the odd title of the class we had yesterday, in which we learned about the reconciliation of Peter to Jesus as recorded in John 21:1-23 (NET Bible): Continue reading →