Faith Lutheran Church

Adult Discovery is a topical adult forum that meets each Sunday morning during the school year from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. downstairs in Learning Center 2. It covers topics related to current issues of the church and society, both locally and globally.

The Adult Discovery Planning Team determines the topics to be discussed, procures appropriate speakers, and provides hospitality. The planning team is always open to ideas for discussion topics and new members to help plan and implement. Contact Pastor Diana Sickles at 225-8334 or dianasickles@faithlc.org if you have topics you would like to have discussed or if you would like to be part of the planning team.

The dates and descriptions of Adult Discovery topics for the spring 2007 term are listed below.

Stump the Professors, January 7 through February 4

Adult Discovery kicks off again in January with Stump the Professors led by Dr. Mark Mattes and Dr. Ken Jones, Grand View College Religions and Philosophy professors. Mark and Ken invite you to ask all the questions you've always wanted to ask to see if you can stump them. The first class is Sunday, January 7, and the series runs through February 4. The schedule is as follows:

• January 7 and 21: Dr. Ken Jones
• January 14 and 28: Dr. Mark Mattes
• February 4: Dr. Jones and Dr. Mattes

The Centered Life: Living Out Our Callings in the Congregation, February 18 through March 11

This series of classes, which runs February 18 through March 11, will be led by Pastor Diana Sickles and Sharing the Ministry director, Pam Larson. It is based on Martin Luther's concept of life arenas in which we live out our faith with Christ as the center. The four arenas identified by Luther are work, home and family, neighborhood and community service, and the congregation. We will concentrate on the congregation in this series (past classes have looked at the arenas of work and home and family). Specific members of the congregation will be invited to tell their stories about how their faith and their lives in the congregation connect. Questions that will be addressed include the following:

• How have you experienced your faith in relationship to your service in the congregation?
• How was your faith instrumental in your acceptance of your area of service?
• In what ways have you experienced God in the service you are performing?
• What have been the joys and growth experiences and what has challenged your faith?
• What would you like others to know about the relationship between your faith in theTriune God and your service in the church that might be inspirational or informative to others?

Coffee and Conversation, March 25

Adult Discovery on March 25 will be an informal discussion with Steve Hamilton and Jane Ibsen, who will share what's happening at La Voz de Esperanza, Capitol Lutheran, and St. Paul Lutheran, all Des Moines congregations, as the welcome immigrants and others who come from a diversity of ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Living Out the Gospel, April 15 through 29

Adult Discovery will complete the spring term with a three-session series that will inform us about particular ways we are living out the Gospel by helping the poverty-stricken, helping those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and visiting our companion congregation in Tanzania.

• April 15: Report from Des Moines. Mary Lynch-Dungy, AmeriCorps VISTA worker, who is working with the S.E. Iowa Synod to lift families out of poverty into self-sufficiency through the work of Barnabas Uplift will share the progress made in her report.
  
  
• April 22: Report from New Orleans. Several members of Faith will share their experiences helping to clean up after the devastating hurricanes that created so much damage in the Gulf area. We will also hear from new members who had a home on the Gulf in Mississippi and lost most of their home and possessions.
  
  
• April 29: Report from Tanzania. Brian Turner and Jerry Waage, who left for Tanzania on January 13, to meet Pastor Kissimbo and reconnect with all of our Kifula Lutheran friends, will give us an update on our continuing relationship our companion congregation in Tanzania.