Forum Overview
Discover the difference between unity in Christ and mere uniformity of thought.
“All things hold together in Christ.” All reality is ultimately united in Jesus.
We base our learning sessions, called Forums, on this liberating truth—we are already united, already joined in the same Body. That’s why, to bring reconciliation to believers divided by difficult questions of faith, science and culture, every session starts, returns to and concludes with common worship of our one Lord.
In worship, participants find their common life in Christ—and begin to see each other differently. Our shared trust in Christ calms our fears and opens the way for us to trust each other and to begin speaking (and hearing) the truth in love. From this rediscovered relationship, participants are invited to identify the conflicts between faith, science and culture—the issues, the risks, the fears. In group study, discussion and worship, a Forum provides the context for believers to work out their concerns. Throughout each Forum, we also pray the Psalms with Christ. In all their rich expression, the Psalms broadly capture our laments and our praise—two dimensions that are intimately related. Even our most desperate supplications arise from the conviction that God hears, cares and answers. Just as Christ prayed from Psalm 22 on the cross, so we pray the Psalms with Christ when we cannot see the way ahead, trusting the goodness of the Father, whose love is stronger than death. And that same conviction brings forth our gratitude and praise, particularly when we remember and proclaim the history of his saving actions. Praying the Psalms with Christ, then, completely shifts how we understand the world. We learn to see the world as Jesus sees it. Our hearts and thoughts turn away from ourselves and our fears—because we see and celebrate the eternal grace of the Lord as He bows down to our frailty, our mortality, and overcomes it by leading us through it to new life in him.
Grounded in our unity in Christ, we find a new freedom to study together, discuss together, agree and even disagree together. In Christ, we can try out the honesty and open-heartedness that dispel animosity and fear. And we go home with a new understanding of what it means to be united in Jesus.
In particular, we study the work of Christians who’ve been through it already. The Church’s history is filled with those who faced even greater cultural conflicts by constantly remembering this: God isn’t a philosophy, an argument or a “position,” but our living Redeemer. God redeems his people from slavery in Egypt. In Christ, God redeems his entire creation from slavery to sin and death. For the early Church, God gave deliverance from the dominant Greek cosmology of the day, a worldview that despised the physical creation and labored to escape it and its sufferings. In plain contrast, the early Christians literally staked their lives on a Redeemer who came in the flesh—the flesh so universally rejected—to redeem the entire creation. Through Christ, believers lived free to participate in creation as the exact place of God’s creative and redemptive action.
In short, a Forum shows us that things hold together in Christ—including us. And we become the evidence, to the world and ourselves, that all things really are reconciled in Christ.
Our Forum Development Strategy
Since our founding in 2011, we’ve presented forums to Christian high schools, colleges, universities and congregations and to their staff, faculty and leadership teams.
In 2012, we’ll lay a stronger foundation for better and broader work by focusing on two crucial areas.
First, because kids are our first concern, we’ll emphasize our High School Faculty forums, equipping teachers to help their students understand Christ’s reconciling lordship and, as a result, confidently engage today’s great issues of science, faith and culture.
Second, to expand our capacity to offer forums to many more groups, we’ve already launched our new Moderator Development program. By finding and developing extraordinary people to lead our forums, we can offer more sessions to more groups in more places.
By 2014, we expect our foundation-building to fully equip The Colossian Forum for greater outreach to all the groups we serve. Look for more forums offered in many more locations, as well as a growing wealth of study and curriculum resources, all developed in partnership with you.
