Adult Formation and Education

The benefits:

  • It’s a way to learn more about our faith.

  • It’s a way to deepen our sense of God working in the world.

  •  It helps us to learn to cope with disappointment and challenges in our lives by giving us tools of our Christian faith.

  • It is a way to meet more people and become connected with our parish community through Christian Fellowship and sharing.

Join this multi -generational group for dynamic, informative and transforming series in the Garden Room each week. This year’s Adult Education Committee has a wealth of topics that should appeal to many folks seeking to grow in faith, community and relationship with God. 

Sessions start at 9:15 every Sunday morning in the Garden Room. Everyone is welcome!

Adult Forum Series

 

Series for 2008

 

Lenten and Spring Adult Forum Series

The Kansas City Star's Bill Tammeus begins the Lenten and Spring Adult Forum series focusing on the role of the church in the community. As people of faith, we commit ourselves to living out the Baptismal Covenant: to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, striving for justice and peace among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being. To this commitment, we whole-heartedly respond, "We will."

 

St. Paul's is in the midst of an ethnically rich and culturally diverse neighborhood. How can we best serve our community as we live out our faith? As we learn about our role as a church in and of the neighborhood, we need to look at how to relate to the diversity of our community. This series hopes to bring vision, insight, and understanding as we learn about homelessness, mental health issues, dependency, housing, and local resources. We will have the opportunity to better understand race relations as we hear speakers such as Alvin Brooks. 

 

Through this series we hope learn how to better live our faith, fulfilling our Baptismal Covenant and our role as a church in a culturally rich community. 

 

Lectionary Bible Study (i.e. the lessons for Sunday worship services), Sundays at 9:30 a.m. in the third floor music room. Bring your Bible and join us. 

  • June 29 - Maril Crabtree, Five Green Things

  • June 22 - Arthur Carter, St. Paul School of Theology, returns with Part II of "Connecting Life Issues of Culture and Gender"

  • June 15 - Schedule change! Dr. Bill McInerny, more on "Isms": Symbol-Ism Part II. If you missed Part I, don't hesitate to join us for Part II. We will begin with a recap to bring everyone on board. How do tangible symbols "participate" in the realities/meanings that they signify? What does it mean to say "the gift giver is in the gift"? What are the relationships between symbols and sacraments? We will be discussing these questions and more. Be sure to join us for this illuminating topic!

  • June 8 - Arthur Carter, St. Paul School of Theology, "Connecting Life Issues of Culture and Gender"

  • June 1 - Rector's Sunday

  • May 25th - No education hour

  • May 18th - Rev. Dr. Susan Smith - the Trinity

  • May 4 & 11 - Rector's series

  • April 13-Bill McInerny on "Isms." Dr. McInerny presents a series on religious words ending in “ism”.  Our theological vocabularies are replete with “isms”.  For example: agnosticism, atheism, apocalypticism, Biblicism, Gnosticism,  Mithraism, pantheism, polytheism, and theism, just for starters.  While exploring the meanings of these “isms” we will have some audio/visual illustrations as well (From “Lord of the Rings”,  “Forest Gump”,   “Signs” and more).  As usual, handouts will be available.  So please come and join in with us.  “Isms” await you.

  • April 20th-Bill McInerny on "Isms"

  • April 27th-Bill McInerny on "Isms"

  • May 4th - Rector's Sunday

  • May 11th - TBA

  • May 18th - TBA

  • May 25th - No education hour

Series for 2007
  • December 23, 30: No Adult Forum
  • December 16: Mary Dian Molton: To Emmaus Via Kusnacht (How does Jungian Psychology relate to one’s faith?)

  • December 9: Mary Dian Molton: Carl Jung's Concept of Transcendence. What is the holy? 

  • November 25: Bill McInerny on the Lord's Prayer. This prayer model is full of surprises. From the eyes of Roman law, this kind of language would be ruled as sedition and punishable by crucifixion. Another surprise is that the English phrase, "forgive us our trespasses" - the actual Koine Greek word is "debt/s" in the financial sense. These and other points of interest will be the focus of this phenomenally important prayer.

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  • November 11: Kevin Chafin from Bridging the Gap speaks to us on recycling efforts. This is hosted by St. Paul's Caring for God's Creation Ministry as we seek to find ways to be God's stewards on earth.

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  • November 4 and 18th: Rev. Susan Smith:  Prayer in the Church.

  • October 28: Father Todd Bruce: Faith Expressed through Art

  • October 21: How to Be Spiritually Connected to Nature without Hugging a Tree. As part of our Theology of Creation Ministry, Dr. Bill McInerny, Professor of Theology at Rockhurst University, is preparing one of his illuminating talks about the role of nature in Christian spirituality.

  • October 14: Christian Faith Through Poetry. Dr. Patricia Miller will help us explore how Christian poets have expressed their faith.

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  • October 7: Rector's Sunday. Join Father Runnels for a likely and timely topic.

  • September 30: Who Knew Household Hazardous Waste Could Be Interesting? As part of our Theology of Creation Ministry, Bill Lewry, who directs the highly regarded Kansas City, Missouri Regional HHW Facility, will discuss the toxicity of everyday household materials and explain the safe and responsible way to dispose of them.

  • September 16 and 23: Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design: Do We Really Want Theology in our Science Courses?" We will explore issues of Darwinism and intelligent design over two class meetings. Dr. Bill McInerny is presenting.

  • September 9: Feast of the Holy Cross. Reverend Dr. Tom Curra, President of Rockhurst University, joins us for the Adult forum.

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  • August 12 & 16: Fundamentalism. Bill McInerny presents a series on fundamentalism. What is it? Minimally, it is a powerful theological movement (with definite political implications). and what else?

  • June & July: Caring for God's Creation

    • June 3: Father Stan Runnels, The Theology of Creation

    • June 10: Elizabeth Fischer, An Inconvenient Truth, part I.

    • June 17: Bill McInerny, An Inconvenient Truth, part II.

    • June 24: Laura Kover, Director of Programs, Bridging the Gap, Sustainability: It's All About Us.

  • July 1: No education hour

  • July 8: Scott Cahail, Raingarden Initiative, Issues related to raingardens

  • July 15: Otavio Silva, Bridging the Gap, and Diana Endicott, Good Nature Family Farms, Buy Fresh, Buy Local, and other food issues

  • July 22: Dennis Murphy, Kansas City Climate Projection Plan, Climate Protection Plan

  • July 29: Bill McInerny, Rockhurst University, Connecting the Dots: How We Are Challenged to Care for God's Creation Now

  • May 6th and 13th-Warren Carter. “Being an Easter People: Discipleship in Matthew.” How does Matthew’s Easter story shape the lives of disciples of Jesus? Join us as we explore this topic with Warren Carter, currently Professor of New Testament at St. Paul School of Theology. This will be our last opportunity to hear Professor Carter speak before he leaves to begin a new teaching postion at Brite Divinity School. He will be teaching in Brite’s New Testament and PhD program.

  • April 29th: The History and Theology of Divorce - Bill McInerny. Divorce. This subject has deep roots in the Anglican tradition (can we all say King Henry VIII?) What does Scripture say about it? What did Jesus teach about it? What implications may the biblical witness have for contemporary understandings of it? We will explore select biblical passages on divorce noting their variety, possible meanings, and differences. If time allows, we will also explore the Roman Catholic doctrine of annulment—a related topic and much different than what is called divorce. As always, please bring your insights and ideas. Hope to see you there. Bill McInerny

  • April 1. Rector’s First Sunday: Stan offers opportunity for all parishioners and those interested in the church to gather together for an informative session of topics around St. Paul’s, the Episcopal Church and traditions, and issues within the Anglican communion. Garden Room.

  • March 11, 18 & 25: Eliot Begins His Spiritual Journey, Tom Brous. Tom Brous returns in March to do a series on T.S. Eliot’s poetry: Ash Wednesday and the Ariel Poem-1927-1931: Eliot Begins His Spiritual Journey. In the previous class we examined the finale of Eliot’s poetry (and, most likely, his spiritual journey). Now, we'll examine the beginning of his journey with the poems he wrote immediately after his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927.

  • February: Christian Mysticism.

  • February 25: The Gospel of Judas, Dr. Bill McInerny. After some 1500 to 1600 years, another gospel has been discovered, recovered, and put in print for the first time in the twenty-first century. Here we have a Gnostic gospel which presents Judas as Jesus' most intimate and "informed" disciple - the thirteenth disciple who surpasses all the others. In this gospel, Judas' betrayal is what Jesus wanted and his most faithful disciple complies with what the Master asks of him. You do not need ot have read the book to enjoy our session.

  • February 18: The Cloud of Unknowing and Christian Mystical Practice, Dr. Glenn Young. The Cloud of Unknowing is a fourteenth-century English mystical text which teaches a form of contemplative prayer understood to bring its practitioners to a consciousness of God's presence. In this session, we will read and discuss a number of passages from this medieval text, paying particular attention to the instruction for mystical practice it offers its readers.

  • February 11: Will the Real Jesus Christ Please Stand Up? Dr. Bill McInerny. Imagine centuries of interpretations of Jesus Christ, his identity, understood past and present, and this question being asked now. We will survey a number of different interpretations of who Jesus Christ was understood to be with emphasis on (but not limited to) the first five centuries of the Jesus movement.

  • February 4: Christian Mysticism, Dr. Glenn Young. What is meant by the term "mysticism"? How is mysticism expressed in the Christian tradition? Mysticism refers generally to the process why which one comes to a consciousness of God's presence. In this session, we will introduce the topic of Christian mysticism, survey some of the various forms it has taken, and discuss examples of mysticism found in Christianity.

  • January 21 & 28th: Two Literary Works, God in All Things and Poetry of Ecstasy, Dr. Patricia Cleary-Miller.

Series for 2006

  • September 3-24: Episcopal Issues, Father Stan Runnels and Rosemary Hubble lead this series in exploring and discussing the wide variety of political and religious views and challenges of the Episcopal Church.

  • September 24: Re-imaging Confirmation. Father Stan Runnels and Laura May, Director of Religious Education & Youth, will lead an exploration into confirmation. Those interested in making a mature public affirmation of their faith and commitment to the responsibilities of Baptism are invited to attend at 9:15.

  • October 1st: Day School Sunday. Liz Barnes, Head of St. Paul's Day School and students

  • October 8-29: The Book of Luke. Warren Carter- Professor of New Testament from St. Paul School of Theology. This series will look at the way in which Luke's gospel tells the story of Jesus, focusing on Jesus' teaching and actions that embody the Kingdom or empire of God in the midst of Rome's empire. Be sure to bring your Bible along! Stan Runnels will conclude this series on October 29.

  • November 5: Rector's First Sunday: Exploring a Lived Faith. The first Sunday of each month, Father Runnels will lead a group of visitors and others interested in our faith in a Q&A session. Meet in the Westport Room on the third floor at 9:15.

  • November 5-26: Abrahamic Faiths: Islam, Hebrew and Christian. In November we will come together with local leaders of Islamic and Judaic faiths to explore our Abrahamic roots. We will view portions of two documentaries and study ways in which other communities have come together to tear down the walls of bigotry, fear, and misunderstanding that separate us. Make plans now to join us for this inspiring and enriching series.

  • December 3-17: Defrocking St. Nick: Balancing the Spiritual and Secular Tradition of Advent and Christmas. Bill McInerny and Rosemary Hubble.