Theology for Everyday Life

June 25, 2015 Roland Kuhl 0 Comments

Theology is “God-talk.”

But it is not just talk about God, it is also talking with God; its about inviting us into a conversation with God – and in so doing enables us to engage one another in a different kind of conversation.  In such a different kind of conversation, we develop an awareness not only of God, but also of one another – we observe one another as we try to find the words to talk with God and to talk with God among one another.  In becoming aware of God, we also become aware of one another – and not only is our dialogue changed, so too our relationship with one another changes – hopefully for the better.

My tagline for this blog is: “Theology for Everyday Life.”  What I intend by this is that our conversing with God, about God, with one another – is to shape the conversations we have in everyday life.  Such theological conversation is about everyday life, about everyday things, because our relating to God is not meant to be limited to Sunday or when we try to be holy or religious, but rather, engaging God is to embrace the everydayness, the everyday stuff of our lives.  God is for the living we do Monday to Friday or Saturday, and not only for the rituals of Sunday.

We can engage in “God-talk” or theological conversations because God encounters us in the midst of our daily living when we do ordinary and extraordinary things, when we excel and when we mess up, when we do things we want everyone to notice and when we do not want to be found out.  God encounters us, not as one who stands over us, but as one who comes alongside of us – to walk with us in the midst of all that is going on in our lives.

God comes to us in the ordinary moments of our lives, in the messiness of our lives – and God offers to us a word to help us be human, to be humane, to relate to others, to relate to ourselves, to relate to all that we relate to in ways that seeks to bring wholeness, purpose, significance in all that we are and do.

The more we learn to engage God who encounters us – we will find ourselves engaging in talking with God – and we will come to understand not only God more fully, but ourselves and others more fully as well.  We will become aware of what is going on all around us in the world and become less self-absorbed – we will become human in more complete ways.

So, yes, theology seems like a religious word, but it is really meant to be a common word, a word we can speak in any context, because God is meant to be seen and expressed in every context we are in.  So indeed, theology is for everyday life – and that is what I want to write about, converse with you about – so that together we might encounter one another, encounter God, and encounter life in ways we have never before.

So, I invite you to engage in God-talk with me.

Shalom.