Well…not exactly. We started the evening with a yummy meal of lasanga and salad. Then, we chose coffee dates (a Girl’s Group tradition) for everyone to have a chance to get to know another person on a more individual level. Plus, we chose ‘Secret Valentines’ in preparation for our VALENTINE’S DAY PARTY in exactly one week!

Then we packed up the cars and headed to Hyperion, an awesome local coffee shop downtown. We all got drinks and chatted about school, the upcoming CCC Retreat to Washington, D.C., and our classes and projects. It was a really fun and relaxed way to get to know everyone with a hot delicious beverage!

Next week we have a big GG- a Valentine’s Day Party! It’s so official, we had to even get a facebook event for it

Here are also some pictures from the week’s event… enjoy!

Wen started out the dinner right by making steamed cabbage, noodles, and beef! It was really healthy and also really delicious

We made yogurt and oatmeal face masks, and we also brought a lot of nail polish for everyone to paint their nails. We had a lot of fun laughing at Katie and I who actually did the face masks…but hey, they made our faces really soft!!

We also made plans to go to ZUMBA together next Sunday! Most of us haven’t gone before! It’s going to be really fun

Here are some memorable moments from GG this week:

Yeah that’s right, we played twister! Also, Cammie made us homemade taffy, which we got to pull outside in the cold weather! It was a lot of fun and the first time we’ve ever done this! It might just become a CCC tradition

The Twister Tournament was very intense, ending with our championship round of Trevor, Emily, Lauren, and Katie. Trevor won it all! But I think we were all winners due to how much fun we had

CCC Fun-tivities are always a great way to spend a Friday evening with your CCC family!

Here are some pictures from our memorable evening:

After dinner and getting to know each other a little bit, we played Name Bingo! A newcomer, Kimmy, got Bingo first and Wen got all of the spaces covered first. Then, we brainstormed as a group on what we would like to do this semester. Here were some of the great ideas:

• Valentine’s Day Party- decorating cupcakes, and having Secret Valentines!
• Hyperion Trip!
• Picnic down by the Rappahanock!
• Garden Party!
• GG Sleepover!
• Coffee Dates!
• Four Square Tournament!
• Spa Day- face masks and nail painting!
• Mafia Games!
• GG Group to go to ZUMBA together!
• Culture Day- people bring recipes/food from their family’s traditions!
• Music sharing!
• Friendship bracelet making!
• Bob coming to talk to us about relationships!

and many others! It’s going to be a great semester at Girl’s Group..hope to see you there!

-Elizabeth

It was so much fun and there was a great turn-out! Hopefully this is an indicator of an amazing semester ahead!

Here are some pictures from the memorable night:

This question first we may want to ask did the miraculous thing that are said to have happened in the bible actually happen. Did god really flood the entire world? Did Jesus actually turn water into wine? Did Moses really part the red sea? Or are all of these stories new testament and old testament allegorical, metaphorical, symbolic as opposed to historic accounts from the authors of what they believed really happened?

For instance, when Jesus feeds the 5,000 there is the thought that the miracle was that Jesus generated more food from the fish and loaves so there was enough for all. On the other hand, there is the theory that there were others in the crowd with food and through Jesus example of sharing and generosity others did like wise so that everyone could eat.

Just because the food was spontaneously generated does not make this any less a miracle if indeed that is what happened. Regardless, nowadays we have a revival of the idea of God’s divine intervention through the Charismatic Movement. This movement has effected the breadth of Christian denominations and churches. The Charismatic Movement or Charismatic services are marked by their more spirited forms of worship. In some of these services is not uncommon for participants to believe to have received a message from God or the Holy spirit, to speak in tongues or claim to have been healed by the Holy Spirit.

Its not that there is specifically anything wrong with this type of service but it understanable may raise some questions. Do these people have a direct line to God? That is, are the speaking in tongues and prophets seeing futures real genuine events?

Its hard to know what is real and its easy to be cynical of such prophets. There are charismatic leaders and prophets who we see as exploiting faith, think of the man who predicts the end of the world and takes everything people own as donations for why would they need them if the end is at hand? Then what happens….the world continues.

Also what do say to someone who says I know x to be true because God told me? You can’t say anything. They have cited the ultimate authority from a conversation you weren’t privy to. Oh well.

And then finally if God IS talking to these people and effecting them so….why has he stayed relatively silent with me? It would suggest that God is not fair to intervene in some peoples suffering and to talk to others while ignoring the rest. This may be true, but then again it is also unfair perhaps that God allows some of us to be born into first world nations whereas others are born into situations of 3rd world poverty. Their is unfairness already in this world and if God intervene with everyone we would no longer call such instances miracles. They would just be average everyday occurrences.

And this also works against the charismatic movement in that if such miraculous things can happen should the seem to routinely happen at services to a majority of the participants or could the participants be egged on by the psychological atmosphere of such a service as to only believe that something has happened in their mind than rather actually occurring?

So do we believe in the miraculous or do we believe that such things just don’t happen? There is a scientific reason behind it or these people are just a french fry short of a happy meal. I don’t like the pessimism of this view either. There is more mystery in this world and our scientific models of the world are so incomplete and sometimes inaccurate. We desire to explain but we cannot definitively know. Miracles then like most things become a question of belief. Either you see them as possible and plausible or you don’t.

So what is salvation? Sometimes we tend to think of salvation as an afterlife option. Salvation is heaven when thought of in this context. However this becomes problematic when we ask when do we receive or find salvation. If we think of salvation as the heavenly afterlife then we would have to assume that salvation is something earned. This would mean that those who are saved deserve a place in heaven, and those who aren’t deserve a place in hell (or some alternative realm)

Not only is it presumptuous to think salvation works this way, it takes away from the present everyday meaning of salvation in our life. If we think of salvation as the black and white heaven and hell, salvation becomes something for later when we are dead and buried. Salvation becomes earned and then so does God’s love which is impossible because God’s love is unconditional.

So if salvation is something that happens during life, what happens? How does it happen? In some denominations and sects salvation is treated as binary object, you are saved or you aren’t saved. These are the types of churches where some declaration of faith, some commitment to the ideas of Christ, is pronounced (or better preformed) for the entire congregation. Once this is done the person can consider themselves “saved”.

Granted these denominations are entitled to this sort of interpretation of salvation, it poses some problems. The idea of salvation, like in the afterlife option, becomes associated with fitting into a group. The saved are better than the unsaved, they have something right or something better about them that allows them to dictate the criteria of being “saved”. Having salvation as a binary condition eliminates the possibility that salvation is a process instead of being something achieved through action and merit.

Why can’t salvation be achieved? Salvation is an extension of God’s love and God’s love cannot be achieved, it is freely given. So to ask what salvation saves us from maybe better said what does God’s love save us from? Many people would point to Jesus’ crucifixion as a crucial point in our deliverance. The crucifixion is perhaps the most extreme example of God’s love.

SO what does God’s love save us from? God loves us unconditionally so we are saved from our own ideas of what self worth is. In having a relationship with God, regardless of whether we are okay with God or have particular issues with God, we become better in a way that only unconditional love can motivate us to see our worth and potential. We have worth in just being us, because just being us is enough to be loved unconditionally by an all powerful perfect being. We are saved from all the ideas that makes us believe otherwise.

Next, we had pin the face on the jack-o-lantern run by Cammie. Elizabeth ran a doughnut eating contest. She stood on the bench while there were two powdered doughnuts hanging from two strings. Two people competed to eat a doughnut the fastest without their hands! After a few powdered faces and some good laughs, we found Alison McMillan to be the true champion!

Finally, Trevor ran the caramel apple station. From the apples we picked this past weekend, we made delicious caramel apples which we covered with sprinkles or chopped almonds. Unfortunately our last activity, bonfire with s’mores making, was rained out. But the Fall Festival was still a success and will hopefully become a new CCC tradition!

Unfortunately, next week we won’t be having girls’ group due to Fall Break, but make sure to join us on October 25th!