This evening we watched (most) of the film
Pleasantville, and then discussed how it intersected with Christianity.
The first main them we discussed was how it mirrored the fall. The film contained very overt symbolism, including temptation and eating an apple in a garden. But in Pleasantville, the fall makes things better. The TV repairman character, who seemed to represent God, looked happy with how things had developed at the end of the film - it was as if he intended it to be all along. Did God intend the fall to happen?
The other theme was how the spreading of colour could represent the advancing of the kingdom of God. The colour first came to a marginalised group of people, and then spread more widely. The coloured people were segregated and discriminated against, in a similar way to the early followers of Jesus. They formed a new society, with its own rules, and chose which rules of the dominant culture to follow and which to ignore.
We finished with a prayer along these lines:
Lord Jesus, you brought so much colour and life into the world. People couldn't help but leave their grey lives and follow you. May we go now and live our lives in colour, and by your grace help us to spread some colour to the world this week. Amen.
We discussed some ideas of where God is. Is he in a fluffy cloud? Is he somewhere much nearer? We looked at the ideas of Paul Tillich and thought how that impacts on our prayer lives.
On Saturday 17th November, St John's Church is holding its annual Christmas Fair. 
I've led the last few meetings in a row; while I'm happy to keep doing this, we originally thought that it would be good if lots of different people led meetings on topics that interested them. This would give us all a lot more variety and would help us to explore different facets of the faith. We have had a couple of offers, but if anyone else is keen to lead one do please let us know. It could be a discussion (you don't often need to prepare much - conversation flows quite easily!), something artistic, something alt. worshippy, something purely social... 
This evening we watched (most) of the film Pleasantville, and then discussed how it intersected with Christianity. 
We looked at what different Christians believe about the Bible. We started with the Chicago Statement - which sets out a common evangelical standpoint. I did my best to try and point out some inconsistencies and areas where nobody takes the Bible literally anymore with regard to what the Earth is like. 
