Seeing a Future that Seemed Impossible
As kids, swimming with the tide feels required since doing anything else could result in rejection from the adults in your life. Zechariah’s questioning of the angel about Elizabeth bearing a son was his own form of protection. He couldn’t imagine that kind of swimming against the tide, whether physically (Elizabeth getting on in years) or realistically (they’d never been able to conceive before, why now?) (Luke 1:68-79).
Swimming With the Tide
In Luke’s Step One, we read that he learned to swim with the tide to stay alive within the system as a child. We all live within a specific context and learn through observations as children. Reflect on the worldview and community that raised you.
Paying Attention to Intuition
Luke’s Step One shows us how he worked hard to swim with the tide for all those years, yet it proved more and more difficult as the years passed. On her journey leaving church, Barbara Brown Taylor describes this same gnawing, persistent intuition that kept raising its voice within her, demanding some attention.
Growing Up Men
We read in Luke’s background how the actions and attitudes of the church leaders left him confused and ready to exit the church whenever he could manage to do so. David French explores this irony that there is always a debate within Christianity between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right conduct). Why is there even the notion that they could be distinct? Frank explores the church's future should Christians continue to act in ways that contradict their beliefs.