The Mystical Geek Project Logs

A Cell Group in every Street

The Mystical Geek — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:17:34 +0000

This morning, we reached another milestone of sorts in our parish's BEC Project. For the first time, those who have been actively involved in promoting the growth of basic ecclesial communities in parish talked about the present status of the cell communities they are helping sustain. Our cell groups have come from different directions and are only now coming together under our PREX BEC Project. The goal that we have set before us is "a cell group in every street". It is a goal that translates into practical terms the Church's mission of evangelization: to build up the reign of Christ.

Outlining a Bible Passage IV: Working on Themes

The Mystical Geek — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:14:27 +0000

An outline of a bible passage is a summary for the close reading you make of a passage when you make a sentence flow of it. A well-made outline can serve one a lot of purposes later on, especially when one has to to work on consecutive sections of a book (as the example we have from Colossians) or to work on a theme.

Outlining A Bible Passage III: Colossians

The Mystical Geek — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:34:24 +0000

It is one thing to outline a bible passage from a narrative like the Gospel of Mark. It is another thing to outline a passage from the Pauline letters or any discursive type of biblical literature. The key is to make a good sentence flow of the text and then to see where one idea ends and another one begins. If in narratives, the key for the division of a pericope are most often the changes in characters, places, actions, in a discourse, it is most often the words or the theme that is crucial. Below are two examples from the selections from Colossions for Wednesday and Thursday of the 23^rd week of OT Year B

Outlining A Bible Passage II: Mark 10:17-31

The Mystical Geek — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:58:52 +0000

Mark 10:17-31 is the gospel reading for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B). Below is an outline of the text based on the sentence flow found here.

Outlining A Bible Passage

The Mystical Geek — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:14:06 +0000

Two Saturdays ago, I introduced the activity of outlining a bible passage in our BEC Training Module. We associate outlines for term papers and speeches we are assigned to write. But outlines are also important for understanding an article one is reading or to follow a lecture that is complicated. Outlining can also be important for reading and studying Scriptures especially when one has the responsibility of helping other people to understand the message of Scriptures. From the list of links below, one would observe that outlining is very similar to what I have called "creating Sentence Flows". The only difference is that in outlines, one presents a bible passage as a list of ideas together with their verse references.

Building Communities through the PREX

The Mystical Geek — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:16:18 +0000

Since 2005, I have been harping about the need to provide for a PREX Advanced Module for those who complete the Parish Renewal Experience. This was due to the discovery that not all PREX graduates join parish mandated organizations and not all religious organizations in the parish are responsive to the need of the PREX graduates for on-going formation in the faith. The "PREX 201 Module" I suggested years ago was designed to lead new PREX graduates to join Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) and to exercise a ministry geared towards the building-up of the Church through the BEC.

Lay Augustinian Spirituality

The Mystical Geek — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:40:19 +0000

Geocities is closing down so I have moved some articles housed at the old Agilawan website to AgustinongPinoy. I did not move all the articles though ; I moved only those which I and others still continually go back to.

The articles revolve around the theme of Augustinian education and date back to the years when I was still at the University of San Agustin.

Records of an Ecclesial Experiment

The Mystical Geek — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:19:16 +0000

The BEC Project at the MGCP is progressing. Since the last time I wrote about it (three months ago) we have begun holding training sessions for our BEC leaders regularly. We have more than ten cell leaders under advanced training now coming from four areas of the parish and three more under basic training. The BEC Training modules were developed from the seminars we have been holding since 2005. Below are BEC-related posts in this site; they are also records of what we are doing at the parish. There are others, but the ones below are representative and carry links to the other articles. I am posting this here as a record for those who are interested to find out about this ongoing experiment. Most of the articles are from the year 2008. Links to the articles written before that are in the article entitled “Milestones in a Journey”

Sentence Flows: Making Sense of It

The Mystical Geek — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:27:31 +0000

The most recent addition to AgustinongPinoy is a website that extends Res Biblica. It is called The Bible Workshop. It was created to meet the needs of some of our parishioners who are engaged in the biblical apostolate. It has articles on the Sunday Gospels written in the form of a how-to. The method of study that underlies these "how-tos" is exegetical diagramming called "the Sentence Flow." The Sentence Flow is not original to me. In fact, others have written about it. We have applied the method to the gospels since it is easier to use on narratives. But it can work well with discourses too, like the letters of Paul.

Milestones in a Journey

The Mystical Geek — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:11:12 +0000

I am reviewing my journey taken until this point in relation to the BEC Ministry. An article I posted last year gives an overview of what I've accomplished from 2005 until last year (See My Interest in the BEC). In sum, here are the milestones in that journey