Adult Education
Adults meet in the fellowship hall during the Sunday school hour (9:15-10:15am). "And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what really matters..." (Phil. 1:9-10a).
We're pretty casual but always respectful of each other. You don't have to be an expert to attend, and certainly don't need to have the answers; sincere questions are always welcome.
What Happens
Each week someone from the congregation or a guest speaker presents on a topic, and there is always time for a good discussion. The topic may come from the presenter's area of expertise or special interest, or it may be a discussion based on a book by a well-known and widely read author. (Reading the book is not required, and the presenter won't assume that you've done so.) Not every topic will come straight from the Bible, but they always come from the intersection of Christian faith and the life we're living.
Schedule
Spring 2026
January 4
Winter Break
NO SUNDAY SCHOOL
January 11
Special Guest: Jeff Chu
Please join us as Jeff Chu leads our adult Sunday school. The title of his session is “Here I Raise My Ebenezer: On Beauty, Recognition, and Piles of Rocks.” In times so marked by ugliness, some say beauty can save the world. An oft-(mis)quoted line from Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" makes that claim, which no small number of armchair philosophers now echo on social media. We'll explore together the risks and possibilities that beauty offers—and we'll wonder about how to cultivate faithful attentiveness to beauty that points us toward God's good news.
January 18
Series on Faith and the Environment
Led by Michael Drummond, we will explore what AI, particularly Large-Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are, and why data centers are suddenly everywhere. In this opening seminar, we’ll explore how these tools work, what they need to run, and the implications for the environment. This will build a foundation for upcoming conversations on the theological and public-policy questions raised by AI's growing role in our lives, which we will cover in the following weeks.
If you want a quick preview, please see this ~8 minute YouTube video.
January 25
Series on Faith and the Environment
We continue our series on Faith and the Environment, with Ryan Juskus leading. The goal of this session is to present a theological framework for deliberating about the sorts of issues discussed by Michael Drummond in the January 18 session — that is AI data centers and the environmental impacts of our everyday lives, like streaming YouTube videos or brushing our teeth. While Christians tend to turn first to Genesis and the concept of stewardship for guidance on environmental topics, we will look instead at the how Christ, salvation, and the cross can open up our thought and practice for a time when environmental concerns are inseparable from social injustices. In particular, we will look at the significance for Christian witness of Hebrews 13's portrayal of Christ's salvific movement "outside the gate," or what we will explore as society's "sacrifice zones." This is the basis of a theology of environmental justice.
February 1
Series on Faith and the Environment
This week is the third and final installment of our 3-week series on Faith and the Environment. Bruce Huber will round out the series with a conversation about how Christians can engage with law and policy on environmental matters.
February 8
Special Guest: Janelle Lopez-Koolhaas
Pastor Janelle will introduce us to the history and polity of our new denomination, the Reformed Church in America (RCA).
February 15
Special Guests: Missionaries to the Middle East
The missionary family of four who has been serving in the Middle East will be with us. Come to hear about their experience, and enjoy a brunch provided by the Hospitality Team during the Sunday school hour.
February 22
Lent: Spiritual Practices for Troubled Times
This week we begin our five-week lent series, entitled “Spiritual Practices for Troubled Times”, with Mike Rea leading. Our first topic is silence and stillness. We will look at this through the lens of Psalm 39 and will consider what it might mean to adopt silence and stillness as spiritual practices, and what difference doing so might make in our own spiritual lives and in the lives of others.
March 1
Lent: Spiritual Practices for Troubled Times
We will continue our five-week series on “spiritual practices for troubled times”, with Cris Mihut leading. This week a surprising spiritual discipline: cursing! We'll take up three imprecatory psalms, a prophet's rage, and wisdom literature's bleakest poem. And finally, the woes of Jesus, where the biblical cursing tradition arguably reaches its most unsettling expression.
March 8
No Sunday School
In consideration of the time change to daylight savings, there will be no Sunday school this week.
March 15
Lent: Spiritual Practices for Troubled Times
This week is the third installment in our “spiritual practices for troubled times” series. We will be discussing the question, "Should we be friends with bad people?", and Marilie Coetsee will be leading. People on both sides of the political aisle perceive out-partisans (that is, people who aren’t in their own political party) to be bad people. At least some of them, some of the time, are right. We often feel sullied by association with bad people, even if we don’t participate in their actions or agree with their beliefs. It feels wrong to be friends with Jeffrey Epstein. But Jesus was a friend of sinners, and friendship with bad people may be important parts of their paths to change. This session will consider whether there’s something wrong with such friendships, and consider the implications for bridging cross-partisan divides
March 22
Lent: Spiritual Practices for Troubled Times
This week we continue our series on “spiritual practices for troubled times,” with Mike Rea leading on the topic of solitude. What does it mean to adopt solitude as a spiritual practice? After all, not just any form of “aloneness” counts as solitude, and you can go away with a group and practice solitude in community. And what spiritual benefits can we get out of solitude—especially during “troubled times”? These and other questions will be the focus of our discussion.
March 29
Lent: Spiritual Practices for Troubled Times
This week we continue our series on “spiritual practices for troubled times,” with Mahala Rethlake* leading a discussion on the practice of community, understood in terms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of “the beloved community.” In Dr. King’s work, the beloved community is how we best address social conflict and ills and is the natural effect of practicing nonviolence. We will begin by getting a clear sense of his notion of nonviolence, then what kind of community this produces, and finally, how we can translate these ideas into the terms of spiritual practice.
*Mahala is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where her area of focus is philosophy of religions. She specializes in Christian theology, philosophy, and feminist thought. Her dissertation is on divine love.
April 5
Easter Break
NO SUNDAY SCHOOL
April 12
Spring Break
NO SUNDAY SCHOOL
April 19
Special Guest: Isabel Cortens
Please join us as our guest speaker, Isabel Cortens, a PhD student in philosophy at St. Louis University, speaks to us on the topic of “Envy and its Remedy, through the eyes of Dante and Aquinas”. In this session we will examine the vice of envy as conceived by two great thinkers, Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri. To better understand envy and its destructive effects, we will look at excerpts from Dante’s allegorical poems, Inferno and Purgatorio, alongside passages from Aquinas’s works. We will also discuss what Dante identifies as the remedy for envy: the theological virtue of charity.
April 26
Series on the Lord's Supper
This week is the first of two sessions on the Lord's Supper. In this session, Michael Drummond will talk to us about the chemistry of bread and wine, and then Mike Rea will lead us in conversation about different ways Christians have thought about the presence of Christ in the elements of the Lord's Supper.
May 3
Series on the Lord's Supper
We will continue our 2-part series on communion, with Dave Lincicum and Chris Rea leading. Dave will look at some of the tricky questions about judgment and the Lord's supper in 1 Corinthians 11, and Chris will talk about children and communion - theology, history, and current practices.
May 10
Series on Faith-Based Organizing
This week we begin a two-week series on “Faith-Based Organizing: The Power of God and Our Ability to Act for the Common Good in Michiana.” This first session, led by Ryan Juskus, will focus on Ryan’s story of coming into organizing, along with biblical reflection on power. Should Christians reject power and embrace powerlessness? Was Lord Acton right when he uttered his famous phrase, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Ryan will share about his journey toward a constructive understanding of power both in theology and in the practice of organizing. Participants will explore how faith-based organizing differentiates between "power over" and "power with" in order to build our capacity to bear witness to God's work in the world and act together for the common good here and now.
May 17
Series on Faith-Based Organizing with Special Guest, Andre Stoner
This week we conclude our two-week series on Faith Based Organizing, with guest speaker Andre Stoner leading. This session will focus on the work of We Make Indiana, a vehicle for people of faith to work together for justice and a thriving community. Andre Stoner was pastor of outreach for seventeen years at Kern Road Mennonite Church in South Bend, and now serves as lead organizer with We Make Indiana. He will share stories and learnings from his experience and the work of We Make Indiana about how people of faith can be effective agents for change as we "seek the welfare of the city."