week of April 6th, 2025

March-May Bonus Readings

Community of Christ will be holding its 2025 World Conference at the end of May and beginning of June. In the weeks leading up to the conference, the resolutions that will be discussed and debated there will be available here on the Someday School website. Taking some time to read over and annotate these resolutions will let you stay aware of what’s being discussed as a whole church—and share your thoughts on what direction the church should go in.

This Week’s Lectionary Scripture

Fifth Sunday in Lent¹

We join other Christians who for many centuries have observed Lent as the forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, not counting Sundays. During Lent, we center our attention on Jesus as we remember his life and ministry. Lent also provides a means to sharpen our focus on our lives in relationship to Jesus. The Lenten season encourages us to turn from whatever distracts or blocks our commitment to discipleship. May the season of Lent help us walk with Jesus, though the path leads to the cross.

Philippians 3:4b–14

Even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

• Which part of the Church’s mission do you feel most called to live?
• We live in a world where laws can help some and harm others. How do we navigate that complexity?
• Being a prophetic people calls us to look toward the future with the world and God in tandem. Where and to what are you being called?

This Week’s Text from Sharing in Community of Christ

We Share Whole-life Stewardship ²

Living Life Generously

All that we are and all that we have are gifts from God.

We seek to share generously what we have received as an act of faith and thanksgiving for all that God has provided. With Jesus Christ as our model, we are called to use all our gifts—time, talent, treasure, and testimony—in service to God and others.

To be generous for the sake of others, we must grow in our capacity to share our gifts from God. As God’s generosity transforms us, we want to use our life to serve others.

We serve through tithing of our time, talent, treasure, and testimony. We describe this as whole-life stewardship. Being good stewards of our lives is our ultimate calling as generous disciples.

From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. —Luke 12:48 NRSV