The "Four Parts" Of LOGOS

     Every person's experience of LOGOS is designed to have FOUR PARTS. These four parts combine to create the structure or arena I which the "theology and practice of Christian relationship" can happen.

• BIBLE STUDY
            LOGOS is biblically derived because the Bible is the story of God's relationship with people, and our relationship with one another and with all other people. Life, death, sin, salvation, resurrection, peace, righteousness- all of these are biblical concepts that define the nature and terms of Christian relationships. Because the Bible is the story of the great relationship (God with us, Emmanuel), the Bible is the LOGOS story, too. "Righteousness" - which is "right relationships" - is the theme of all Scripture. Righteousness, biblically, is a quality of relationship, not an achievement of virtue. Righteousness is the giving and accepting of unconditional acceptance. God in Christ gives us a right relationship with God that is the complete and total unconditional acceptance of being loved by God. God's gift through Christ is of right-relationship, not because, but in spite of, what we are. LOGOS is a design of ministry that nurtures giving and receiving righteousness. That is it's purpose. This ministry devotes blocks of time on how to do the Family Time, Playtime, Bible Study, and Worship Skills elements of LOGOS but all of that will be wasted effort if at any point, any of us forget that LOGOS is for the nurture of right-relationships, righteousness - unearned, undeserved acceptance of one another for Christ's sake. Every part of LOGOS is a means to this end.
• WORSHIP SKILLS
            Worship is the essential element of nurture in relationship and community. LOGOS is committed to the engagement of youth and children in every week's leadership and participation in the worship life of the congregation. Youth and children belong in the service of worship. The time in worship skills does more than just prepare them to "sit in" on worship. They become an integral part of it and worship becomes an integral part of the fabric and language of their souls.
• PLAYTIME
            At least a part of what it means to be created in the image of God is having the capacity to give and receive personal revelation. Self-revelation is crucial, pivotal, and essential to the nature of being. And one of the times in which self-revelation invariable takes place is when people play together. We simply can't play together without revealing ourselves. So we play for theological reasons as well as for fun. This play is "teaching/learning" theology, and is as important as all the other parts of LOGOS. No part of LOGOS can be what it ought to be apart from the other. Each is interrelated to all the others.
• FAMILY TIME
            Christ is uniquely known and experienced in the breaking of bread. Most churches have dinners in order to have a bigger crowd because more people come when there is something to eat. LOGOS has a dinner with the "church family" every week to celebrate person hood and relationships "in Christ." Remember, the Lord's Supper was not a pinch of bread and a taste of wine. It was a long dinner celebration of God's deliverance of the People of God, that culminated in the Lord's Supper. It celebrates the ultimate deliverance. Jesus is known to His disciples in the breaking of bread. We are known to each other in the breaking of bread. There is a sacramentalness about eating together. And so in LOGOS there is a sense in which every dinner hour is communion. There is great capacity for often unrealized depths in the family time dinner hour.

INDIVISIBILITY OF FOUR PARTS
          Bible study is inseparable from worship, from play time, from family time. Each of these is part of the other. To have Bible study without the other parts is to not have all the Bible study that is essential. Each part of LOGOS is an important element of Bible study. For Bible study to result in actual learning, it must be put into practice. Worship is not just a word, unrelated to anything else. Worship is the response to the Story of God's saving love. It is a practice of something learned in biblical study. Play time is not just fun and games. Play time takes on a whole different dimension and style and quality of joy because we play together as children of God. Family Time is not just eating, nourishing our bodies. Family time is nourishing souls in the fellowship of the community.

THE FOUR PARTS PLUS SUNDAY WORSHIP MAKE THE WHOLE.
          In each area of the LOGOS experience, we put into practice that which has been studied and is being professed in the Christian community. When we have learned how to practice what we learn in Bible Study, we have, finally, "learned" the Bible "lesson!"