Upload
duc
View
106
Download
2
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
The Walk to Emmaus is a spiritual renewal program intended to strengthen the local church through the development of Christian disciples and leaders. Are you currently serving in a leadership role or a support position in your home church?. The Walk to Emmaus experience begins with a - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Citation preview
The Walk to Emmaus is a spiritual renewal program
intended to strengthen the local church through the development of
Christian disciples and leaders.
Are you currently serving in a leadership role or a support
position in your home church?
The Walk to Emmaus experience begins with a
72-hour short course in Christianity, comprised of fifteen talks by lay and clergy on the themes of God's grace, disciplines of Christian discipleship, and what it means to be the church.
Do you sense the Holy Spirit nudging you to a new level of
participation in your home church?
The course is wrapped in prayer and meditation, special times of worship and daily celebration of
Holy Communion.
The "Emmaus community," made up of those who have attended an
Emmaus weekend, support the 72-hour experience with a
prayer vigil.
During and after the three days, Emmaus leaders encourage pilgrims
to meet regularly in reunion groups.
The members of the reunion groups challenge and support one another
in faithful living.
Are you currently meeting with a reunion group?
If not, have you considered joining one or even starting a new one?
You can start with as few as two or three.
Pilgrims seek to Christianize their environments of family, job, and community through the ministry
of their congregations.
Although connected through The Upper Room to
The United Methodist Church, The Walk to Emmaus is ecumenical.
(representing the whole of a body of churches )
The program invites and involves the participation of Christians of many
denominations.
The Walk to Emmaus is designed to communicate with confidence and depth the essentials of the
Christian life, while accentuating those features that Christians have traditionally
held in common.
The Walk to Emmaus is a tightly designed event
that is conducted with discipline according to a manual that is
universally standard.
Each community is administered locally through its local
Board of Directors. The program is administered
globally through the International Emmaus office in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
Emmaus of Southeast Michigan
Find your Board of Directors as well as much more information
about your community atemsem.org
The Walk to Emmaus® gets its name from the story in
Luke 24:13-35, which provides the central image
for the three-day experience and follow-up.
Luke tells the story of that first Easter afternoon when the risen Christ
appeared to the two disciples who were walking together
along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
Like Christians and churches who are blinded by preoccupation
with their own immediate difficulties, these two disciples'
sadness and hopelessness seemed to prevent them from
seeing God's redemptive purpose in things that had happened.
And yet, the risen Christ “came near and went with them,"
opening the disciples' eyes to his presence
and lighting the fire of God's love in their hearts.
The Walk to Emmaus offers today's disciples a parallel opportunity to rediscover Christ's presence
in their lives, to gain fresh understanding of
God's transforming grace, and to form friendships
that foster faith and support spiritual maturity.
A sponsor is a person who has been through an Emmaus experience and
is willing to share that experience with another new Emmaus pilgrim.
Find Sponsor applications at
emsem.org
The sponsor frees the pilgrim participant from any personal
responsibilities that might distract him or her while on the
experience.
Sponsorship also undergirds each pilgrims 72-hour experience
with prayer and other expressions of God's love.
Sign up for the 72 hour prayer vigil at
emsem.org
According to the dictionary, a sponsor is one who takes
responsibility for another. The suffix "-ship" refers to the skill
involved in the activity.
So sponsorship is the skill of taking responsibility for another.
The aim of a sponsor should not be "to get all my friends to go,"
to “fill up the weekend”,
to “fix people's problems”, or
to “reproduce one's own religious experience” in others.
The aim of sponsorship is to build up the body of Christ.
Pray for the pilgrims openness to God's call to discipleship.
Make an appointment with the pilgrim(or pilgrim couple)
to discuss his or her participation in Emmaus.
Pilgrim applications are available at
emsem.org
Invite the pilgrim to take part in Emmaus for the sake of a more vital
relationship with Jesus Christ.
The sponsor shares his or her faith, explains the basic purpose,
elements, and follow-up dimensions of the Walk.
Ask the pilgrim to make a commitment
by filling out a registration form.
If the participant is married, the sponsor will speak with
both partners and encourage an equal commitment by
both spouses.
The sponsor will also support the pilgrims family
by house-sitting, baby-sitting, watering plants, picking up mail,
feeding pets, or just checking in with a spouse to see if any help or
support is needed.
Encourage the pilgrim in his/her continued journey and take the pilgrim to Emmaus "gatherings" after the Walk weekend is over.
Help the pilgrim re-enter his or her church and consider ways to act
out new commitment and enthusiasm.
Help the pilgrimsponsor others.
As pilgrims conclude their Walk to Emmaus weekends,
they are introduced to the concept of the Fourth Day -- a symbol of the
days of Christian pilgrimage that follow the three-day
Emmaus experience.
"the whole reason for The Walk to Emmaus is to make you a more
faithful disciple and active member in your church."
An important and necessary foundation for faithful Christian living is a vital connection to the Christian community for support,
guidance, and challenge.
The Emmaus group reunion is a small accountability group of two to six persons who have usually (not always) participated in the three-day Walk to Emmaus and
who want to continue their pursuit of a life lived wholly in the
grace of God.
With the regular support of a few faithful friends, the gift of God's love in Jesus Christ becomes a
lifestyle of Christian discipleship through the threefold discipline of
piety, study, and action.
The Fourth Day meeting (Reunion Group)
consists of persons' sharing the stories of their walk with Christ
during the past week.
Reunion group members listen to one another, celebrate the grace of God in each person's life, and
reinforce each one's core commitment to living in union with Christ in all facets of daily
life.
Reunion group members express that reinforcement
through gentle accountability, encouragement, and support of one's stated discipline and plans.
A mature Christian is an informed Christian -- informed about the
mind and heart of God by knowing scripture.
Study, like piety, can be approached in an
intentional, systematic way, resulting in a deepening of your
relationship with God and an empowering of your
Christian discipleship.
Reunion groups provide a natural launching pad for
mission in the community.
Shared engagement in service to others
deepens friendships and opens up avenues for
Christian action.
Some local Emmaus communities take on ministries in their
communities as an act of agape.
Do you remember how much your Walk to Emmaus meant to you?
It would not have been possible without the prayer and sacrifice
of your sponsor.
You can share God's love with someone you know by
sponsoring him or her during an Emmaus weekend.
The sole purpose of the Emmaus Movement is to strengthen disciples
within the ministry of individual congregations.
Emmaus is in partnership with the local church to inspire its leaders
to become more effective and intentional
in their ministry. . .
The Emmaus movement does not exist primarily for the weekend Walks.
Emmaus gives pilgrims the skills needed for leadership and invites them to make the
commitment needed to build up the church for the sake of Jesus
Christ.
"What has the EMMAUS weekend meant to you?" and "What are you
going to do with it?"
Help pilgrims begin to comprehend the kind of servant leadership that
God may require of them in the future.
Decolores