Theologeeks-patience

I'm excited. After starting the Theologeeks forum last week, I now have 2 new posting members. I know, that sounds a little pathetic in the internet world, but it's good news to me. I also have 2 other members who haven't yet posted.

I teach an adult Sunday school class that averages about 12 people each Sunday. At the UMC church I'm part of, that's a big class. And some days, we have almost 20 people, and then we're the largest. If you figure in the number of children we bring when we're present, we're about 1/3 of the Sunday school attendance.

But this class took a LONG time to form. I've been back at this church for about 10 years. I would say the first three years were formative in terms of the class. I was not teaching right away, merely attending a class that would sometimes consist of me and the teacher. I consented to sharing teaching duties and after time, took over sole responsibility.

I have had Sundays during which I am the only person there. I would prepare a lesson, imagine questions that might arise, and find that I had an extra week to prepare some more.

But people came, people welcomed one another, and people worked together. This is the class that I came to with information about a food program. Not enough information, but enough that they said "Sure, let's try it." Now we serve over 50 people a month.

I don't know what God's time looks like, with the whole "a thousand years are like a day" but I know that we are impatient. I know that if all it takes is 40 days to make a purpose driven life, then that purpose may not be all that great. We are slow forming things, and it takes time and God's patience to shape us.

So I'm encouraged by the Theologeeks forum. It got a mention at the Methoblog which resulted in Theologeeks finally being Googleable. The only previous result was a dead page, but now all other results eventually lead to the forums.

I hope other bloggers and internet readers will come and discuss things, and if they don't come to Theologeeks, I hope they tell me where they are discussing these things. The blog world seems to often be about lots of people talking to one another, with very little potential for dialog. I'd like more opportunities for us to share with each other.