First Lecture October 12th

Hope you can join us for our first lecture on Friday, October 12, 2007.

Greg Ganssle from the Rivendell Institute and Yale University Philosophy department will give a lecture entitled, "Life, Death, Freedom: Jesus Questions Nietzche." For more information about our speaker, visit www.yale.edu/philos/people/ganssle_greg.html

The Center is off to a fantastic start. We have support from 12 area churches for outreach and input about future lectures, movies, and topics. We have also been greatly encouraged by the award of a generous grant from the Day Foundation. This has been a real boost for which we are very grateful! Also, we are thankful to First Baptist Church of Amherst for acting as our sponsoring organization, and to the South Church of Amherst and Grace Episcopal Church for the support and encouragement we're receiving from your leaders and parishoners. The College Church, the Newman Center at U-Mass, and Mapleridge Church have also provided encouragement and assistance with outreach--thank you!

We have a beautiful new brochure which will be distributed to churches throughout the Amherst-Northampton area. Many thanks to Melinda Williams for her creative design and skillful development of this publication. If you'd like us to get some brochures to you, please call or email us.

In closing this post, I want to say that the Amherst Center for Christian Studies is truly an ecumenical community of believers, and a wonderful expression of the kingdom of God. We have read Socrates together, laughed at Rupert Grint (who played the teenage boy in our September movie), prayed and taken the eucharist together on Saturday nights, and slurped some great soups together. We are the fellowship of the beloved. It 's been a sweet time getting to know the people who've come or called in the past few months (we even had a call from South Africa a few weeks ago about one of the movies we're hoping to show!). I'm reminded as we come together each week how wide and high and deep God's love is, and how rich and varied life in the church can be.

Blessings!
Laurel