Three ways attending Kerygma at HPUMC transforms my faith

One of Highland Park United Methodist Church’s most unique worship venues is celebrating a major milestone this October. Kerygma, HPUMC’s teaching service led by Rev. Walt Marcum, began ten years ago as a Sunday morning worship service.

This milestone is particularly exciting for me, because my wife, daughter and I were all there on that first Sunday in October of 2006 when Kerygma got started. Over the years, I’ve become more and more aware of how distinctly different it is compared to any other service at HPUMC.

Each week, in an environment reminiscent of a seminary lecture, Rev. Marcum provides a deep exploration of scripture, Christian history, and tradition, putting it in historical and cultural context using the latest scholarship. Because of this, Kerygma offers a unique place for congregants like me to engage with seminary level study and discussion that you can’t get at a conventional church service.

Specifically, there are three ways Kerygma has transformed my faith over the past ten years.

Kerygma challenges how I think about and study the Bible.

I have a read a fair amount of biblical history and commentary, but through Kerygma, Rev. Marcum helped me to see new things in the Bible, filtered through his profound love and respect for the Scriptures.

Several years ago, Walt taught a series on the Book of Acts using the latest scholarship. What he showed was the deeply interesting and complex social layering of the Christian community described in the Book of Acts and in the associated letters of the apostle Paul.

For the first time, I understood why Paul got in such profound trouble in Jerusalem on his final visit. I began to see how the social picture in Acts provides comparisons to our modern church and society, which is also divided socially. Through that lens, I found a message of hope and potential unity in Acts that I’d never seen before.

Kerygma informs how I view Christian history.

Learning about the historical and cultural context surrounding the stories of the Bible is a key part of developing our faith. Rev. Marcum has been a vital part of this process for me. He has helped me reorient my thoughts along some of Christianity’s most complex doctrines. For example, the historical doctrine of the Trinity was always a difficult one for me to grasp and I was on the verge of dismissing it as a Roman Catholic innovation.

But through his series in Kerygma on the creeds of the church, and again in his series on the first 400 years of the history of the church, Walt explained how the Trinitarian concept was already at play in the earliest documents of the church - the letters of Paul, the gospels and others.

While I still struggle with explaining and articulating the doctrine myself, I have come to new understanding and appreciation for what was once a tough concept for me.

Kerygma showed me that it’s okay to have questions about the faith and engage in open discussions about theology.

Through my time in Kerygma, I’ve met several people who confessed that the ability to ask questions, to have doubts, and to discuss those doubts openly was a revelation that saved their faith.

One of my friends, Tom, is a great example of this. He was ready to leave the faith when he happened upon Walt's Faith and Science series online. Walt often deals openly, enthusiastically, and frequently with the teachings of science and other scholarship including social science to illuminate the faith and its application. Tom didn't know you could do Christianity like that.

That’s one of the things I love about Kerygma. As Walt frequently says, you don’t have to check your brain at the door.

The impact this service has had on my life over the past ten years is profound. I’ve never left Kerygma without making some type of connection to how to live faithfully today. My wife, Susan, and I spend a lot of time each week talking about what we learned in Kerygma.

Walt says that in the United Methodist tradition, “the Bible is the primary source of faith and practice, of what we believe, and how we are called to live our lives in the world.”

I challenge anyone who wants to encounter the scriptures in a new way and strengthen their relationship with God, to venture to Room 120 on a Sunday morning and hear the Bible come alive under the teachings of Rev. Marcum.

If you’re like me, it will leave you feeling more reassured of the power and authenticity of Jesus and what he did for all of us.