Study Guide for “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing”

The 217th General Assembly (2006) commended for study “The Trinity:  God’s Love Overflowing.”  The Office of Theology and Worship is in the process of producing study materials.  Here you will find a brief, four-part study guide.   You will need to download copies of the document from the Theology and Worship web site. We in the Office of Theology and Worship would love to receive whatever feedback you might have on this important document.

Session I

1. Do you find that the Trinity plays an explicit role in how you understand your spiritual life?
2. Read Lines 149-195. What are the key claims about the Trinity?
3. How is the Trinity “a summary of the Gospel”? 
4. What difference might it make to acknowledge God as Trinity in your church’s life?
5. Close your group time by taking a few minutes to meditate on the following.  Have someone read it through slowly three or four times, pausing between each reading.

“Trinitarian Spirituality is a baptismal spirituality, a whole way of life through which we are conformed to Christ, anointed in the Spirit, and gifted by the Father.”*

Session II

1. Do you ever get confused trying to speak of the Trinity?
2. Read lines 245-277.  Why must we speak of God as Trinity? 
3. What are we saying about God when we say that God is “one in substance, and yet distinct in three persons?” 
4. A central claim of our understanding of the Trinity is that it is “not fueled by speculation but by the outpouring of God’s abundant love for us . . .” Many people in the church might instinctively disagree.  What do you think?
5. Have someone read the last two sentences (beginning at “We trust that  . . .”).  What implications does this claim have for your life as a Christian believer?
6. Close your group time by taking a few minutes to meditate on the following.  Have someone read it through slowly three or four times, pausing between each reading.

“All Christian spirituality is Trinitarian—a way of perceiving and being by which we are conformed to the person of Christ, brought into communion with God, other persons, and every living creature by the creative and bonding presence of the Holy Spirit, Love’s Gifting.”*

Session III

1. Do you ever feel that you have inadequate language to worship God?  Why is that?
2. Read lines 536-549.  How would you express the main points of the paragraph?
3. If our language is inadequate, what’s the point of worship?  Can we say anything of the true God?
4. If our language is inadequate, does it matter what language we use?  What might it mean to worship, as Jesus said we should, in “Spirit and truth?”
5. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is here described as a “root.”  How does it function as a root in the worship life of our congregation? 
6. Close your group time by taking a few minutes to meditate on the following.  Have someone read it through slowly three or four times, pausing between each reading.

“The Divine Presence in the midst of human life, history, and all creation is recognized and celebrated in the sacramental life of the church, especially in the waters of baptism  and at the table of the Eucharist. The Christian spiritual life consists of the movement from the font of baptism to the table of the Eucharist to the cross of our own suffering, diminishment, dying, and death. Our destiny as a Christian people is to live human life in all its dimensions in the presence of the divine.”*

Session IV

1. Every congregation wants to think of itself as a welcoming congregation.  What is this congregations strengths and weaknesses in welcoming?
2. Read lines 1144-1172.  In the church we usually think of the Adam and Eve text in marriage terms or in discussions of creation and evolution.  How does this point us toward genuine welcoming of all? 
3. Immediately in the story and in life, conflicts break out and end up in divisions.  Where have you seen that in the church?
4. Read lines 1174-1187.  How does the work of the triune God bring us to true reconciliation, to true welcoming?
5. Read lines 1189-1198.  How is God’s welcoming of us expressed in your worship?  How well is that connected to your welcoming of others into your lives?
6. Close your group time by taking a few minutes to meditate on the following.  Have someone read it through slowly three or four times, pausing between each reading.

“A Christian Spirituality which is Trinitarian through and through is not concerned with just one dimension of life, such as prayer or the pursuit of holiness. Rather, the Christian spiritual life is the Christian life—living through Christ in the Spirit to the glory of God the Father.”*

Charles Wiley is associate for theology in Theology and Worship. (888) 728-7228, ext. 5734.

* Michael Downey, Altogether Gift:  A Trinitarian Spirituality (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000).

Revised September 2006