journey – Upper Room Media Blogs

Keep Calm and Study Theology

By Dalia Fam

Originally seen at goCoptic blog (March 13, 2020)

While the world is shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, this could be a great opportunity to not panic, stay home, and sign up for an online course in theology!

Recently, I signed up for a course on Missiology from St. Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College in Australia. It was an online course and I am still going through the lectures. In the few lectures that I have heard, I have been challenged to grow so much!

Here I am – a missionary in Zambia for over 13 years – and I begin to think I know everything on mission! What a shock I was in for when I took this course! I still have so much more to know and to learn and to grow.

Being Coptic Orthodox from birth, I also thought I knew everything on our Faith. But what another surprise I was in for when, a few months ago, I signed up to study my Masters of Theology from Agora University. I have learned many more truths about our Faith and have been challenged to continue to grow.

Studying theology is helping me in my Faith journey but also helping me in my mission and service. It feels amazing when I can take the things that I have learned and guide my little ones or my church family. Personally, I am growing leaps and bounds and I am being challenged to a depth I have not had before. Learning theology is about life, meaning, belief and identity at the deepest level.

There are many benefits to studying theology. When a belief, a book, or different practice comes out and people begin to follow it, the person who stands on a strong theological foundation will not be so easily swayed. Even from studying Church History, you can see leadership struggles and challenges in the Church from the beginning. Therefore, when something occurs in your Church in modern-day, you won’t be quick to run away knowing your Church History and standing firm on a Church that remains strong in spite of challenges.

And of course, studying theology should never be head knowledge only but for you to grow from the learning. That it should impact the way we live and deal with others. If you are studying and you have not seen a positive change in your life, then something is not connecting to your heart. I should not become more elitist or superior and I should still learn from the child. I always have to check myself to make sure I am letting what I learn transform me into more of the image of Christ.

St. Evagrius Ponticus, a famous theologian and desert monk in Egypt said this: If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.

Theology will not be learned through studies alone. It will be learned through silence and being in the presence of God. That is exactly how the Early Church Fathers were able to be teachers of theology. They were not trying to be theologians. However, they became theologians because they spoke out of the abundance of their hearts. Their hearts were full with a life of prayer, holiness, and silence. They were in the presence of God and through that, He gave them the theology and depth of knowing Him. Through their relationship with the One who speaks to them, they experienced, tasted, and saw Him.

If you are serious about Mission in our modern day, I challenge you to take any theological and missiological courses that can grow and challenge you. Force you to read more. Force you to think and grow more.

St. Paul, in his words to his disciple St. Timothy, said clearly, “. . . give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. . . Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:16). St. Paul knew the importance of devoting one’s life to reading and meditation.

We give attention to many things. We grow in many things. But the one thing we should give attention to is spiritual learning and growth, just like St. Paul advised St. Timothy.

If there are no courses physically near you, there are many Orthodox churches and seminaries that offer courses online. Find one and sign up today! There is never a good time and it does require time but it is so worth it! For your spiritual life, your family, and those you can impact in the world around you.

My Prayer before beginning this journey about 6 months ago (found in The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware):

0 Saviour, who hast journeyed with Luke and Cleopas to Emmaus, journey with thy servants as they now set out upon their way, and defend them from all evil.

I pray the Lord continues to guide my journey and guides yours as well.

(c) Fr Abraham and Dalia (2020). goCoptic. Keep Calm and Study Theology by Dalia Fam. Original post – https://gocoptic.org/keep-calm-and-study-theology/

Journey of Resilience

Adapted from a sermon by HG Bishop Angaelos

There are many elements of our ‘journey’ during passion week. Most are inspiring and uplifting, for this is a wonderful journey to be with our Lord. It is a time of joy, growth, power and faith. It is a time to witness and a time to serve.

Tonight, we see another element of this journey – a journey of perseverance. A journey of resilience and focus, where we come to understand the direction this journey is heading in…

We see the obstacles that the Lord must face in the space of a few hours. He is betrayed by one of his disciples and abandoned by all his disciples. He was arrested, rejected, captured unjustly, tried, and had false witness borne against him. And of course, he was subject to extreme insult and injury. Yet our Lord, the incarnate word, continued in His mission.

It is a beautiful journey, but it is a journey to an end. It’s end that doesn’t come easily. For our Lord suffered this to give us a completely countercultural message. He went against every norm and He did it with power, strength, grace and love, with a divine perseverance and endurance that inspires us.

On our personal journeys, we may face some or all of these obstacles. For most people, that’s the end of it. We get angry, upset, disappointed or disillusioned. We often forget that there are people who have been offended by these obstructions and have left the church. Maybe it’s because they didn’t have resilience or strength – but what we need to consider is what we are doing about it. How are we, in our journeys, inspiring them to return? How are we trying to fix the betrayal, the denial, the rejection and marginalisation?

I can’t imagine going into a life-threatening situation, where my life depended on your witness, and one of you, after all these years, suddenly says, “I don’t know him”. Not once, not twice, but three times. What effect would that have on me or you?

What effect would it have on me if I thought I was speaking the truth, and quite blatantly saw someone bearing false witness? How would I react or feel?

We put ourselves in the place of our Lord in this situation, maybe we can put ourselves in the place of those who have been mocked, abandoned, marginalised, persecuted and denied. And then we can try to see how we can heal that.

We often focus on the message that we need to be resilient. Which is true. But we also need to care for those who may have been less resilient, whether through intention or negligence, whether through their fault of ours. For the journey of our Lord, in flesh, to the cross and beyond the cross was a journey for us. He walked every mile for us.

If we come out of this week with anything, let it be that we remember to walk in the footsteps of our Lord beyond this week. Now we have a constant reminder, but on Saturday, the black drapes are gone, the hymnology’s changed, the readings are different to suit the new season.

Does that stop us from journeying in his footsteps? Does it stop us from remembering that His journey was for those who were outcast and living in darkness and the shadow of death? He didn’t discriminate based on whether we were intentional or negligent, but he came for all.

It’s easy for us to focus on the cross this week and it’s important, but the cross should be something we carry with us always in our hearts throughout our Christian journey. We carry it, we persevere, but we know that it is the Lord who carries the cross with us, and sometimes for us as well.

It’s easy for us to lose steam and become bored of these same issues. But thankfully, this is not how God looks at us. Every day He deals with the same issues, same insecurities and inadequacies and sinfulness, but he is resilient and persistent. We are able to journey regardless, courageous and confident that we are not alone.

In tonight’s setting, He was completely alone. Being brought before a counsel, He was tried and sentenced with all those He had known, mentored, taught, supported and healed all gone. There was not an adulteress or leper or even disciple in sight. No one.

Yet for us, our situation is never so dire because there is always someone there for us. Even if we don’t feel it or believe it, we are there for one another. The Church is there. The body of Christ is there. Your confession father is there. Your spiritual guide is there. Your companion is there. Your servant is there. This is a journey that we take together, and we are never completely alone.

Satan often tells us that we are completely alone. Yet we are not, and we are confident in that.

So as we journey tonight, and as we continue in the knowledge that beyond the cross there is a resurrection, we are confident that our God is with us. We are confident that we are never alone. The Lord says to us that in our patience, we will possess our souls. He tells us to be brave. Not to worry. He tells us that He will never leave nor abandon us. These aren’t empty words – they are divine promises.

Our God is a God of fulfilled promises.

We persevere because we know what the end is. Beyond this life, there is a life to come, and that is what we are aiming for. But we don’t want to go there alone – we need to remember all those who may be feeling exactly the same as we are. Those who are deceived into feeling that they are alone.

This is where it is important for us to not only see God’s actions in our lives, but how He desires our actions to be in the lives of others. We do not deceive, we do not abandon, we do not betray, we do not bear false witness, we do not perform acts of injustice, because if they hurt the Lord, they will hurt us. If they hurt us, they will surely hurt everyone else.

It is a blessed journey, but one that needs focus, resilience and the confidence that it is a journey alongside our Lord, Who takes us beyond the cross and resurrection into the life that He has promised us.