Men’s Summit Video Presentations
Bishop Mark Lawrence: “You matter: Your mind, body and heart”
Fall/Winter 2016-2017 . View photos from the event.
Video introduction:
The 2016 Men’s Summit was called by Bishop Lawrence in order for him to have the opportunity to speak into the lives of all of his men in the Diocese of South Carolina. He focused his Summit talks on three specific areas for men: your mind matters, your body matters and your heart matters. Your diocesan Men’s Ministry is pleased to provide these three talks via video for your personal and church group use. Group questions are provided below each video for use at the end of each of the three talks. For questions or more information contact: Jay Crouse, Coordinator for Men’s Ministry, Diocese of South Carolina.
Your Mind Matters: Men's Summit 2016 - Part I of III from Diocese of South Carolina on Vimeo.
Talk #1: Your mind matters
1. “The journey from the head to the heart is the longest and most difficult we know.” Discuss this journey in your own life.
2. “What the heart desires, the will chooses and the mind justifies.” How do you gain control of your mind when your heart desires things of the flesh? Do you have a group of Christian men you can lean on and with who would be willing to ask to hold you accountable?
3. “God renews our minds as we allow His Word and His Spirit to form and shape our thoughts and imagination and thereby gain a Spirit-formed mind.” How do you renew your mind? Daily. What are your take-aways from this talk?
Your Body Matters: Men's Summit 2016 - Part II of III from Diocese of South Carolina on Vimeo.
Talk #2: Your body matters.
1. “The body’s desires and appetites can lead us astray just as much as the desires of the heart or the wrong thinking of the mind.” How does this happen in your life? Any specific examples?
2. “The bodily passions war against us and so leads us into sin but the body guarded by a renewed mind can be used for great good.” Ah, back to the mind. How does your control of your mind direct the feet of your body?
3. “We are expected to glorify God in our bodies.” By our own physical appearance? How does your body glorify God? In your actions? Discuss. What are your take-aways from this talk?
Your Heart Matters: Men's Summit 2016 - Part III of III from Diocese of South Carolina on Vimeo.
Talk #3: Your heart matters.
1. “Biblically speaking the heart is our inner center- the inner person where our emotions and will reside.” What is your heart condition today? Where would you like it to be?
2. “All too often, it is in the heart that resentment and bitterness take root.” If your heart is filled with resentment and bitterness, how will this affect your mind and body? How do you release yourself from resentment and bitterness?
3. “To watch over or keep the heart is to protect our hearts by God’s grace and Spirit from the influences that might jeopardize our integrity.” Do you see the connection between your heart and your integrity? Explain.
4. “Again, one of the greatest of all journeys is the journey with God from the head to the heart, it courses through the mind, body and emotions.” From these three talks, is that journey from the head to the heart more open to you? Is this a one-time journey or ongoing journey? What are your take-aways from these Men’s Summit talks?
In the talk Bishop Lawrence quoted Bishop FitzSimons Allison.
“Several men have asked for a copy of the quotation I referenced at this past Saturday’s Men’s Summit,” said Lawrence, after the event. “The quote was from a recent address of Bishop Fitzsimmons Allison (the XII Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina) in which he was noting that ‘God needs to do nothing but withdraw his Holy Spirit from us’ in order for us to experience not only his wrath but to succumb to a darkened mind—as noted in the first chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.”
It is as if God is saying, “You want universities without me? Help yourself.” The universities, birthed from the womb of the church, are now fast replacing truth with power, as well described by George Marsden, Alasdair MacIntyre, Hunter Baker, John Summerville. The depressing disclosure of moral and academic bankruptcy is clearly shown in the novel, I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. The latter is recommended for its diagnosis by Mary Ann Glendon, that rare phenomenon, a Christian scholar at Harvard, the Vatican of secularism. Students are turning campuses into concerns for diversity whose specious unity is asserted by freedom denying politically correct hysteria.
God is saying, “You want democracy without me? Help yourself!” We have helped ourselves by being given a choice for President of the United States of America between two of the most distrusted candidates in the history of our country.
God is saying, “You want sex without my guidance? Help yourself!” We are helping ourselves with soul destroying pornography, a lonely and confusing hook-up culture, a growing culture of abuse, rape, pederasty, and in the words of William Butler Yeats, “everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”
God is saying, “You want gender identification without me? Help yourself!” We are helping ourselves with drugs and surgical mutilation rather than therapy for gender confusion and are in frantic controversies over bathroom insanities.
God is saying, “You want politics without me? Help yourself!” We are helping ourselves by electing representatives whom we do not trust and who express themselves in legislative stagnation.
You want an economy without me? Help yourself!” We are helping ourselves with a 19 trillion dollar debt and no prospect of paying it off, a policy that discourages savings as well as producing looming bankruptcies for municipalities, territories and cities.
You want marriage and families without me? Help yourself!” We are helping ourselves with no fault divorce, serial polygamy, single parent families, government programs that disadvantages marriage and defines marriage in ways that suit us. And what suits us is the decline of marriage itself. All this in spite of the widely acknowledged fact that civilization itself depends on the institution of marriage and family. Montesquieu long ago warned us: “More states have perished by violation of moral customs than by violation of their laws.”
You want science without me? Help yourself. We are now in a condition that was described by the non-Christian scientist Bertrand Russell: “As soon as the failure of science considered as metaphysics is realized the power conferred by science as technique is only obtainable by something analogous to the worship of Satan, that is to say by the renunciation of love.” (Russell, The Scientific Outlook. New York W.W. Norton, 1931, pp. 262-3)
Is God not saying “You want life not on my terms but on your own terms? Help yourself!” Our sad terms are diapers to diapers, dust to dust ashes to ashes.
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