Hi all. Join us weather permitting this Sunday May 23 at 10 am at the hilltop overlooking downtown Tulsa at 60th and N. Johnstown as we hold worship on the abandoned rundown property site we are seeking to buy to put in The Welcome Table Kitchen Garden Park project, right across from where we have some demonstration community gardening started and where we will work on the beds as part of our church time after communion and before our common meal.If weather doesn't permit we will celebrate at A Third Place Center, and plan future Sundays as we take our spirit on the road to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and to places right around us.
It is Pentecost Sunday this Sunday, and no better or apt time for our worship at the site as we celebrate the ongoing "re-birth" of the church universal and missional. Come find out what missional communities of faith are all about. As church becomes more like the worst aspects of dominant Entertainment/Marketplace culture, it is more important than ever to be midwives for small groups with large visions working to subvert the divisive fearful scarcity-driven characteristics of that culture.
Go here http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-vision-miracle-among-ruins.html and click on our newly released video of the plans for the garden and read all about it. We would be glad to schedule special tour times and visits to help us with our fundraising in order to make it happen. We still need some 90 people to give an average of $100 by July 2 our closing date. More or less both are appreciated. You can donate easily and securely online at the link above. We hope the release of the video produced by the OU Graduate Design Studio will help move us toward our goal. Please share this link with a recommendation to others and other groups and anyone in the media you might know.
We think it is a newsworthy and novel and inspiring story of what a few people here and around the world wherever you are can do especially in a time like now and at a place such as ours where so little new and inspiring has happened in such a visible way in a long time. Help us show our neighbors here that there is more to life and abundance in our area besides a shooting every day, as a recent presentation by the local 100 Black Men group pointed out; even though there is not a murder or injury that makes news, there is a shooting in our area everyday. Bonnie and I can attest to that from what we hear nearly every night just in or near our neighborhood.
For a video shot last summer by OU graduate social work students as we had just begun to dream of the vision, and showing some of the area but not nearly all of the abandoned run down homes nearby to this site, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w.
And to put the work in perspective that we are engaged in here with our neighbors, to get the bigger picture of community renewal, to see some of the small acts of justice done with great love here, the seeds literally we are planting, and the programs and initiatives and how they tie together, go read about our Four Directions Initiative, a TNT (TulsaNorthTurley) dream of a 20-20 vision to complete by the year 2020. And even it will be added on to as more voices and hands are included.
http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-directions-initiative-tnt-vision.html
We will kick it off as part of our Annual Turley and Area Free Festival as part of Juneteenth, Friday June 18 and Saturday June 19 at A Third Place Community Center, 6514 N. Peoria. Plan to come and have fun and support the Center and our vision. We are looking for bands and musicians to book. We will have a community health project going on with OU Graduate Social Work students. Tye Dye art projects and games for all. Community info and exhibits. Add your group to the event. And free meals. O'Brien Park nearby will be offering free swimming for any who bring food donations to our Food Pantry.
For more on the specific schedule go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/fourth-annual-turley-area-festival-at.html
We will have a planning meeting at noon on Wednesday May 26 at the Center so come find a way to lend a hand. Also come hear more on this and other community projects at the Turley Community Association meeting at O'Brien Park near 61st and N. Lewis on Tuesday May 25 at 7 pm.
You can donate to help the Festival at the site above as well.
This Sunday at 3 pm plan also to attend and support the Interfaith Diversity Worship Service at Diversity Christian Fellowship 637 S. 131st E. Ave. sponsored by Oklahomans for Equality as part of Tulsa Pride activities. For more go to www.okeq.org. I will be giving the benediction at the worship service also aptly held on Pentecost Sunday.
Thanks for being a part of all we do here no matter where you live and what your own religious beliefs and communities might be. We don't call it The Welcome Table for nothing. All are welcome here, and no fancy style here, as the hymn says, halleluia, one of these days. Thanks for sharing with others as we have been inspired by so much hope and stories of transformation by you all and others.
Wherever you are this Sunday when the church celebrates Pentecost, or Whitsunday in the story from the second chapter of Acts (www.textweek.com) , may you feel the sudden winds of change and renewal and community blowing in your lives and families and your own communities. May you experience the power of understanding of others and being understood by others. May tongues of fire and passion and dreams of a new community come hover over you whether you are old or young male or female or known by others in whatever way so that your visions may find a home.
And remember there is more to the second chapter of Acts as well, for the times after the time of sudden vision and hope renewed. For how the new church is to actually be a church. Where in that chapter it also states:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people."
Nuff said...
Thanks and blessings and more soon,
Ron
No comments:
Post a Comment