Quaker Question Meme
Every now and then someone comes up with one of those "10 question" type things that everyone answers over at their websites. I am going to try to get one going here.
My community group went through the "Four Fammous Quaker Questions". The few Quakers I have talked to never heard of them; and most of the links online were Baptist - but still I will list and answer these questions.
They are meant as a good set of icebreakers for a small Christian Bible study, etc.
- Where were you living around age 5-12?
Joplin, Missouri, but at 5 I might have been in Oklahoma City
- How many were living in your household?
Mom, Dad, with one older and 1 younger sister. The 3rd sister arrived right at the end of that period
- Where were you living around age 5-12?
- What were the winters like?
Southwest Missouri got some snow as I remember - but it didnt seem to be all the time. I do not remember below zero tempertures much; but we could get snowfalls in feet.
One winter near that time we had three individual 1 foot snowfalls that keep us out of school most of March.
- How was your home heated then?
The house wasnt heated with wood - so I am guessing the furnance was gas or oil. It wasn't electric
- What were the winters like?
- What was the center of warmth in your life as a child? (this can be a person, a place in the house, a time of year, etc.)
My answer in my group last Thursday was my family - or my home and family. However, while I had a good family, and there are warm memories, it was "running with my friends" that really were the warm spot in my left.
North Joplin was on the edge of some woods, and we had free rein to some degree, so 7 was about the age when we started to go into the woods after school and play army, build forts, and just generally have fun playing together.
Later, when I branched into being brainy rather than athletic - and I lacked sex appeal to date - I become isolated as a Jr. Higher and High Schooler. These years however were the great years of playing with my friends.
- When did God become a "warm" person, or more than just a name for you? How did it happen?
was raised in a Christian church that had no real theology. I will not say its lack of doctrine kept it from being warm; but I just remember more of a focus on human endeavor than the nature of God - but that might have been me.
Whatever the case, God was not a person of warmth to me. Of course, as I became a commie hippie freak God just became a non-entity to me.
Then I met my current wife and "came (back?) to Christ" - and suddenly I understood how God viewed me; and what the sacrifice of His Son meant. God became very warm and real very quickly.
I agree with Jeff Bell whose realization of the warmth of God came just 7 years ago with the birth of his daughter. There is something about being a father that makes me understand the Father much more deeply.
Please put a comment below if you answer them in your place; or if you welcome to answer them below.
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I learned the 4 questions when I was working with the pastor's wife with a college youth group.
ReplyDeleteAs explained to me, the questions helped to quickly identify some areas about a person; for example, "how was your home heated" told quickly something about a person's economic family status, wood heat being generally poorer than someone with a more expensive or complicated form of heat.
We modified them a bit; the first question included where in the line of children the person answering was (which could tell something about personalities); rather than ask about the heating, we asked them to describge either the first house they remember, or if they preferred, the one that was their favorite.
3) was "who did you turn to for comfort?". I like yours better.
4) was "when did you first know that God loves you". Some interesting answers came out of that!