Scott’s Column: Engaging Your Questions Sep 12, 2023 | News “The need to be digitally coherent, and at the same time acceptable to everyone, is exhausting,” writes Chris Stedman in his engaging book IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World. Some of Stedman’s ideas and questions will be our prompts in the first series of our newly refreshed Wednesday Night Family Night starting September 13. What is your digital self? How does it relate to your non-digital self? How did the pandemic affect all of this? Those are some of the questions we’ll start with as we explore the challenges of being real and authentic these days. This Wednesday night conversation is all part of our on-going effort to stay engaged with relevant, contemporary concerns and to help us all navigate those in healthy, faithful, meaningful ways. Recently we had First Forum presentations on the changing nature of work and another on caring for aging parents. This coming Sunday I’ll be leading a conversation on how to make our financial decisions more rooted in our faith and justice commitments. We need to know our values and learn how to integrate them into our financial practices. For example, how should our commitments to anti-racism, decolonizing, and climate sustainability affect our investments and expenses? What forces have shaped us, for good and for ill? How do our decisions privilege some while negatively impacting others? Are there some overarching principles we might apply? And what small steps might we begin to take towards justice? First Central has long valued the authenticity, insight, and vitality that comes from being inquisitive, exploring every angle, embracing uncertainty, and pursuing wisdom through conversation and lasting connections. I hope you experience this community as a place to engage questions of concern and importance to you. What’s something you’d like us to explore together?
