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TeacherAide Common Unity SESSION 16 ILLUSTRATING THE POINT Sam Rayburn Defined Community Years ago, when speaker of the house Sam Rayburn heard he had terminal cancer, he shocked everyone when he announced he was going back to his small town in Bonham, Texas. People said to him: "They have got the finest facilities in Washington, D. C. Why go back to that little town?" Rayburn's response speaks to the priceless importance of community. He said, "Because in Bonham, Texas, they know if you're sick, and they care when you die." "Ice Age": Sacrificial Community In the animated movie Ice Age, when saber-tooth tigers attack a tribe of nomads, a mother and her baby attempt to outrun the man-eating beasts but are cornered at a raging waterfall. With no other option available, the mother jumps, securely cradling her baby. She is mortally injured in the fall but survives long enough to deposit her newborn on the riverbank. The little boy is discovered by a wooly mammoth named Manfred, a sloth name Sid, and a saber-tooth tiger named Diego. These three unlikely companions unite on a common mission to return the baby to his father. As the trio treks through a mountainous terrain of ice and snow carrying the baby, at one point the mammoth, sloth, and tiger realize they're on an erupting volcano. The heat of the lava melts the glacier bridges atop the ice fields, separating Diego from the others. Isolated on a quickly melting island of ice, Diego jumps to reach the others, but falls short. Dangling from the edge of the ice field, his grip falters, and he falls. Manfred, unwilling to let Diego perish, leaps into a chasm after him and tosses the tiger upwards to safety. Diego, realizing the danger involved in the rescue, is moved by Manfred's compassion, courage, and sacrifice. "Why did you do that?" he asks. "You could have died trying to save me." Humbly, the mammoth responds, "That's what you do when you're part of a herd. You look after each other." Amazed at the convergence of circumstances that has brought these three together, Sid muses aloud. "I don't know about you guys, but we are one strange herd." Content: Rated PG Elapsed time: Measured from the beginning of the opening credit, this scene begins at 53:29 and lasts about 2 minutes. Ice Age (Twentieth-Century Fox, 2002), rated PG, written by Peter Ackerman, directed by Chris Wedge
THE MORE YOU KNOW 2005 poll, conducted by Newsweek and Beliefnet, asked, "Why do you practice religion?" To forge a
personal relationship with God—39 percent Jerry Adler, "Special Report: Spirituality," Newsweek (9-5-05), p. 48
I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY "One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do no constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always." A.W. Tozer "The bible knows nothing of solitary religion." John Wesley "Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life." A.W. Tozer |