Hi all. Back from Europe, and from a ministerial retreat near warm sunny Houston, and now writing from the midst of the snow and ice storm here in Turley and the northernedge of Tulsa. Hope the power holds to finish this as we have had some flickers; actually not anymore though than normal in this older area of weak infrastructure. See below for event updates especially in relation to weather and events or call or text me at 691-3223 or 430-1150. I am waiting to hear if worship is on for Sunday morning, Jan. 31, as planned for Hope Church at 11 am at 8432 S. Sheridan Road when I am scheduled to preach on "The Three Rs of The Spiritual Life" being relocation, redistribution, and reconciliation gleaned from the life of John Perkins, civil rights and community development and new monastic movement guru still going strong at 80. If that worship is cancelled we will meet as usual and as we can at the community center Sunday at 10 am at 6514 N. Peoria for our worship or to go worship with another group. As always please pass this on to others who might find it interesting or helpful; thanks for all your support, prayerful and financial, and keep it coming.
This Epiphany season, this January, marks seven years from the first ever gathering of folks that met in our living room when we lived in a new subdivision in the fast growing suburban city of Owasso outside of Tulsa. That group, none of whom outside of Bonnie and I are still with us in our group now, began all that we have become and will become. Such is the way of transformations and legacies. Here are a few landmarks from these past seven years; for those of you who have signed on to our email epistles over the years I hope it provides some background and perspective as we look toward 2020:
Sunday, Jan. 6, 2003, Owasso in Tulsa County, on Epiphany Day, the first meeting to see who was interested in Epiphany Church. I was working then as a hospice chaplain, having been ordained the previous August by Tulsa All Souls and then in October having been commissioned as evangelist by laying on of hands at the annual convocation of the Council of Christian Churches within the UUA meeting at First Church in Salem, MA. That Sunday we had nine gather and we began talking about a new free Christian church to be formed in Owasso; we met in homes on Sundays for conversation and planning and prayer.
Palm Sunday and Easter, 2003, Owasso; we began the launch of our public worship in rented hotel meeting space, and continued worshipping there that way, and once up in Claremore as an outreach, until the fall when we rented our own space in a small shopping area near what is called German Corner in the Owasso and Collinsville area; we continued to meet there primarily for worship on Sundays. In June, 2003 I moved from being hospice chaplain to being, thanks to internet, part time Executive Director of the UU Christian Fellowship whose offices were at that time still located in Massachusetts.
2004 changes: The rent and cost on the use of ongoing space of our own couldn't be sustained so we ended our time at German Corner and after meeting in our home again and in hotel space occasionally, we realized that we hadn't been able to grow from scratch in what is called a parachute drop church plant, and our small group of most regular attenders were coming from other parts of the Tulsa area as well so we turned our attention to where Bonnie and I were planning to move back to, relocating to, this small urban, rural, small town community of Turley in north Tulsa on North Peoria where we had lived as children, where rent was much less expensive and resources could go further. (You can go to my church planting blog at www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com and read all about the learnings and growth curves in posts there about the why of things in my post called Church Plant Killers too). In September of 2004 we moved the church gatherings into rented space in Turley where we had also moved the UUCF offices from Mass. and we put up our signs for Epiphany Church here, a free Universalist church in the spirit of Jesus, expressing God's love for all, for all time.
Changing from Epiphany to The Living Room. In 2005 and 2006, we moved worship from Sunday mornings to Sunday evenings, and we changed to presenting ourselves as The Living Room in order to express a more informal spiritual gathering, a kind of public house church; we were still doing things in and with the community but it was still a sense of a separate us doing things "out there" for and with others, and for our concerts and programs, etc. people still had to venture forth into what was clearly a "church space" regardless of how welcoming the message and spirt of the place, and we knew many reacted against that, especially multi-ethnically. In our conversations we identified various community needs and realized though we might be doing more already than other churches that met in our neighborhood area (I will have to post on my blog soon about the dynamics of church life in our area and how it reflects and aids the fragmentation of the community life as people who live here who go to church often go to churches outside the area, and churches who are based here often do so for cheap rent and people come in from outside the area and they then leave again, and the older established churches have not kept up with the changes and have dwindled in influence and numbers) we still weren't having the effect we wanted to as agents of change. We were still clearly what is called an "attractional" church instead of an "incarnational" or "missional" church.
2007-2009: church at and as A Third Place Community Center:. So in January 2007 we signed a lease to move into a much bigger space near us also on North Peoria. But we did so this time not as "a church" doing things for our community, but as a community center with, gradually, a library and computer center and clothing room and gathering space, and then a health clinic, food pantry, gardening center, class space, social work resource center, etc. we have now. We still are known some and present ourselves some as The Living Room Church but we have downplayed that and are more moving toward being not "a" church with organization, to becoming an organic missional part of "the" church at A Third Place, gathering for worship in the space for others we have created, aided by others who are not part of our worship gatherings at least on a regular basis. We worshipped some on Thursday nights, some on Wednesday nights for a while, and then back to Sunday mornings, also worshipping with other churches in our area. Who knows what we might call ourselves in the future...
During this time, we developed our clearer sense that our mission was to make the justice and freedom loving Jesus visible in the world here in our two mile radius, and hope the spirit from this would spread out to others. Where at first in 2003 the vision was to plant different small groups in different areas that would come together monthly for one worship service, now the vision is to simply be as missional as we can in our local region, and look for ways to continue decentralizing and getting outside of ourselves even within our two mile place such as through worshipping in and creating outside third place centers. The more local we go we find ourselves having more of an impact beyond ourselves. Now we hope that we inspire others to come and experience, come and see, what is going on, and to be inspired to do something similar wherever they are and to connect with us mutually in this way, regardless of their religious denomination. We created this past year the non-profit A Third Place Community Foundation which will help us grow and be focused on many of our projects and relationship building, and conversely let "the church" become less organizational and more organic.
2010 and The 20-20 Vision:
Current goings on: Sunday mornings we gather mostly in the center for communion, conversation, common meal, sometimes going to be a part of the church with other groups, i.e. churches; in good weather going to worship at our community garden sites or other places. I would like for us to consider worshipping more often as we have some in the past over at our local park O Brien Park where we could worship as part of a weekly community potluck lunch for all in need as we do now in the center, a way to continue decentralizing ourselves. Maybe holding the potlucks in other places too but O'Brien has the nice children's play area which is a plus; as we build up our own parks and gardens we can do this there too, or wherever homeless and hungry might be gathering, which could be even in our parking lot. Also working in the coming months on special projects such as a Community Academy that will meet and offer free classes here the last two Tuesdays of March and April on relationship and leadership skills, part of our partnership with OU; also will be working with another group from OU on our communications with and by the community through development of a new website and transformation visually of one of our walls; and with another group to work on connecting entrepeneurs here and creating systems for developing the connection of social and monetary capital; and also with OU planning for another summer nutrition and hunger project. As well as working with our partners in the schools, especially through the McLain High School Initiative for greenhouse and gardens and helping students with a variety of skills and mentoring and helping to establish the McLain Foundation, much needed for a school now fifty years old without one, and with partners at the parks and the Cherokee School, and with the Healthy Cornerstore Initiative. And continuing to develop our health clinic space and newly expanded Food Pantry and Giving Room and resource center, and our Saving Pets of Turley and Let Turley Bloom projects.
Coming Soon: To help us sustain ourselves for all that above and all that is coming next, besides our weekly worship, a spiritual retreat for leaders on a weekend; a trip for children to the OKC zoo and science center; trip to Drillers game in new downtown stadium, to the new WNBA team game openings, to other places nearby;
Coming Soon We Hope and Pray:
We are beginning to negotiate for the purchase of the space where two run down abandoned houses and lots are in a great space, a full city block, overlooking downtown where we plan to transform the space into a Living Kitchen Garden Pocket Park, a community space for classes cooking growing events and more. We need 100 people to commit to contributing $100 for seed money for this project, at a minimum, more if you can; donors will be recorded on a plaque at the site for their part in a revolutionary new approach in our area to public spaces in neglected places.
We are beginning to negotiate with the bank that owns the historic but closed and running down more every year from mold and neglect 10,500 square foot Turley United Methodist Church former building that was built in the mid 1920s. Here we will create a natural center focusing on the body, mind, and soul. It has three connected but separate main areas: one would house the clinic and office space better, perhaps a fitness center all focusing on the body's health; the other side of the building is the former Fellowship Hall and kitchen where we could focus through our library internet center community gathering space giving room art gallery and new kitchen and healthy cornerstore market on the health of the mind and building community; the middle space is the former sanctuary that is still in good condition with original stained glass, a perfect place for regular daily worship and meditation and prayer, a place for the soul, spirit, heart; outside there is a place for play, there is place for another of our community gardens right next to the building; and below in the basement are the former Sunday school rooms that fixed up would make good rooms for people to come and stay as they work with us as temporary residents, or as needed as a shelter for those engaging with the community. It would become an urban monastery, based on progressive ecumenical Christian ways, in one of the abandoned places of the American Empire. It is near Cherokee School too on north Peoria and would be great access for any partnership on after school events and programs; there is an old parsonage that could be used for office or child care or other uses. All will require a gift from the bank or others to go along with a loan we would take out, and grants down the road to help us sustain and staff and grow, all the while keeping the culture of a third place center which sets us apart from other more "services-centered" organizations.
It is hard to imagine except it is hard to have imagined how far and how different, yet at core driven by same mission, that we have come in the past seven years. Part of the beauty is being open to the permission giving culture that will help us become something unimaginable because the person who helps us to make their dream a reality, making their dream our dream, hasn't yet walked in or contacted us yet, or it will come from one of our own leaders or participants who hasn't let themselves yet dream their passion for themselves and with us for the community.
But now is the time to plant seeds, not only for our gardens and orchard we began last year already, but for the 20-20 Vision, just ten years away, just as those souls who gathered in our living room in Owasso seven years ago this month planted seeds of something they had no way of knowing would take root and bloom as it has and is among us now even though they are not among us still in body.
Finally, this was brought home to me when I was in France earlier this month and toured through the Notre Dame Cathedral. I haven't been much of one for cathedrals and all that building expense while the poor go dying in the shadows of the cathedrals, but I came away with a deeper understanding and a calling for helping our world experience cathedrals of a newer but just as impressive and needed kind. When Notre Dame was first imagined and the work begun on it, by those whose lives were often lived in dire straits, in bleak conditions, with no visible signs of art and of hope around them, those who themselves dug down into the ground for the foundations of Notre Dame knew that they were laboring long on something that several generations of their own families would not see completed; they had a 300 hundred year vision. That's what we are doing here where we are. Except our cathedrals, for our time, should not be the skyscraper mega-church competing with the business world type of cathedrals; we are called to build cathedrals that reflect the alternative society needed today; what people today in similar situations to the cathedral builders of old need are not reinforcements that the good life, the life of the spirit, is found in large ways of consumption and convenience, but is found in small ways of great depth, great relationships, small acts of justice done in great love; our cathedral foundations must be communities that are flexible, adaptable, decentered, and built on the 3Rs pillars of relocating where the poor and the oppressed and the least of these are, of redistributing our time and talent and treasures among them and receiving the same from them, and of taking that leap of faith needed to seek reconciliation with others, especially with those most different from us, and those still outcast, hurting.
It has been a while since I had the time to sit down and write of all that goes on; to follow more check out www.facebook.com/revronrobinson and the blog mentioned above. Come by and chat with us; I am open to go talk with other groups about it all. And wherever you are and whatever your calling is, let this season be one of growth for you and yours.
Thanks, blessings, and more soon,
Ron
Type rest of the post here
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Open For Church, Indeed!
I love holding worship in a place that doesn't look like "a church" so that "the church" can happen so much easier; this morning on the third day of Christmas was an example.
We opened up the community center amid the continuing snow and ice at 10 am and a little after that one of our regular members showed up, then another came in as we gathered by the TV for a "soft chair Sunday". I began sharing Christmas stories from Carl Scovel's book of radio messages, "Never Far From Home" and we began discussing and sharing from them; during this, another one of our regular folks walked in, and then a little later during another story and conversation a man with his two dogs and a chain saw came in; he was out walking and looking for any work to do, and was tired cold and very hungry; he grabbed food and drink and joined us; then later another of our semi-regulars came in. Then later another that comes every month of so on Sunday morning but joins with us during the week off and on. Most people this morning came by walking as much as a mile and a half to be with us, for worship and company and food and drink and to take some of the food back with them from the food pantry, for themselves and family members.
After the stories were told and talked about, I put in the DVD Saving Jesus from the www.livingthequestions.com folks and we watched the episode on Jesus Birth: The Incarnation, listening to Marcus Borg and Amy-Jill Levine and John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong and Walter Brueggemann and John Cobb talk about the scriptures of Jesus birth and the way they hold out the choice about which kind of Son of God is the real one, the one to follow, about the choices of following Empire or Christ and how they are or were opposites, about the real meaning of Christmas and incarnation and the nature of Jesus and God. I thought again about how our church/center is about recreating mangers in the world, not Inns, and how the folks we create these mangers with are more like the ones who hungrily sought out Christ in the world that favored the Caesers. I couldn't help but think about how rare it is that progressive Christian voices are heard and discussed in settings like ours and by our folks.
After the video lessons, we then had even others come in to be with us, to meet up with others who were there, and this was just in time for our "readers' digest condensed version" of the christmas eve liturgy.
First a digression about Christmas Eve; we kept the center open throughout the evening toward the time of the 11 pm to midnight carols and communion service; folks came and ate and left as the roads got worse; by 10 pm it was just two of us in the center getting ready to see if anyone else would be getting out; a teenage boy came in and stopped to see if we had any work he could do; he is a regular in our area; but this night he was on his way walking in the storm from here in north Tulsa to family in West Tulsa. I talked him out of the walk during the night; let him use our phone to try to get a ride knowing it would be futile but he tried calling several people, and by then I talked him into not heading out at least until daylight; in the meantime he helped us clean up to earn some gas money to give someone who would drive him; he helped a few cars out on North Peoria get unstuck, including a county snow plow, then left before the service began. As 11 am came there were three of us for the service. We had a great time of worship, sharing, prayer, singing the liturgy and lighting the candles. The full liturgy is published at www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com. We then stayed and ate early Christmas morning soup together and headed home around 1 am. I ended up in a ditch on the way home and walked the final block or two up the hill home, listening to the Blind Boys of Alabama's Christmas Album from which part of our service had come. Two days later with the help of volunteers at the center I got the truck out of the ditch and home.
So this morning with more stopping by the center gradually and joining us, we handed out candles again and said our prayers again, shared pastoral concerns and prayed the Lord's Prayer again, and sang Silent Night together and shared the light from candle to candle in the darkened room of the center. It was as close to the manger and the spirit of those who might have gathered around it, because of curiousity and having no where else to go and of being stir crazy and of wanting to share life and all its vulnerabilities, as I have been in some time. The homeless vets, the mentally ill, the hungry and the unemployed, the recovering alchoholics and those still struggling with alcohol and other addictions, the ones with family in the hospital still during this season, those estranged from their family, those about to be travelling, those about to go in for medical procedures---we were quite a group in our soft chairs this Sunday morning gathered around candles, one candle each for the weeks of Advent, for peace and joy and love and hope, one candle for Mary, which we had lit for our pastoral prayers throughout Advent, and the central candle lit for the Christ Child.
Then those who could stayed and ate our common meal together as others shared rides back home with those with cars so others wouldn't have to walk as much on their way home as they had to on their way coming in for church earlier. "Never Far From Home" is the title of Carl's book, and it was never so aptly titled for our time together and to be reading from it this morning.
So I just had to share these past few days with you, and especially this morning as we continue in the Christmas season. We won't have worship here next Sunday as most of our leaders will be out of town, or in our case, out of the country. But we know the center will be open most likely by volunteers as it is throughout the week, and whenever that happens church happens; we told all we hope they will take time next Sunday and worship with another church.
We will have a Pancake Breakfast for community residents and leaders on Saturday Jan. 9 from 8 to 10 am, talking about community events and building multi racial multi ethnic multi generational community. We will be walking behind our banner in the Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Tulsa on Monday Jan. 18 at 11 am. We will be at the Turley area community meeting Tuesday Dec. 29 at 7 pm at OBrien Park. We will be in worship on Sunday Jan. 10 at 10 am again talking about the past present and future of our missional community of faith. We will be meeting with others on all sorts of initiatives in the coming weeks to improve the quality of our community and life of our residents in partnership with folks all over north Tulsa. We will be at the week of programs at Phillips Theological Seminary in mid-Jan. see www.ptstulsa.edu about joining with us there. We will be holding a Unitarian Universalist history and polity class through PTS and having classes here at the Center on Thursday evenings beginning Feb. 4. We will be hosting our weekly free medical clinic and classes and recovery group and donation room and food pantry and resource center and free computer center, and through it all trying to remember to love our enemies and choose to live the way of Christ and not Caeser, and to be open to so much more that will be given birth through us in the year ahead.
My family and I will leave Monday for Scotland, England and France, helping my youngest daughter get settled in for a year of pastry studies at Le Cordon Bleu. Keep us in your prayers, and keep one another in your prayers, and for all who journey with us here at A Third Place Center. You can follow our trip through www.facebook.com/revronrobinson.
We depend on the contributions of one another. If you haven't exhausted your resources at the end of the year and wish to support this missional community, please send checks made out to A Third Place Community, and mail here to 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley OK 74126. It will be just another way you can be a part of "the church" here that is making a real difference by making Jesus visible around us here.
blessings and thanks and so much more soon, Merry continuing Christmas on this third day of Christmas, and soon Happy Hogmanay from Edinburgh, Scotland.
We opened up the community center amid the continuing snow and ice at 10 am and a little after that one of our regular members showed up, then another came in as we gathered by the TV for a "soft chair Sunday". I began sharing Christmas stories from Carl Scovel's book of radio messages, "Never Far From Home" and we began discussing and sharing from them; during this, another one of our regular folks walked in, and then a little later during another story and conversation a man with his two dogs and a chain saw came in; he was out walking and looking for any work to do, and was tired cold and very hungry; he grabbed food and drink and joined us; then later another of our semi-regulars came in. Then later another that comes every month of so on Sunday morning but joins with us during the week off and on. Most people this morning came by walking as much as a mile and a half to be with us, for worship and company and food and drink and to take some of the food back with them from the food pantry, for themselves and family members.
After the stories were told and talked about, I put in the DVD Saving Jesus from the www.livingthequestions.com folks and we watched the episode on Jesus Birth: The Incarnation, listening to Marcus Borg and Amy-Jill Levine and John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong and Walter Brueggemann and John Cobb talk about the scriptures of Jesus birth and the way they hold out the choice about which kind of Son of God is the real one, the one to follow, about the choices of following Empire or Christ and how they are or were opposites, about the real meaning of Christmas and incarnation and the nature of Jesus and God. I thought again about how our church/center is about recreating mangers in the world, not Inns, and how the folks we create these mangers with are more like the ones who hungrily sought out Christ in the world that favored the Caesers. I couldn't help but think about how rare it is that progressive Christian voices are heard and discussed in settings like ours and by our folks.
After the video lessons, we then had even others come in to be with us, to meet up with others who were there, and this was just in time for our "readers' digest condensed version" of the christmas eve liturgy.
First a digression about Christmas Eve; we kept the center open throughout the evening toward the time of the 11 pm to midnight carols and communion service; folks came and ate and left as the roads got worse; by 10 pm it was just two of us in the center getting ready to see if anyone else would be getting out; a teenage boy came in and stopped to see if we had any work he could do; he is a regular in our area; but this night he was on his way walking in the storm from here in north Tulsa to family in West Tulsa. I talked him out of the walk during the night; let him use our phone to try to get a ride knowing it would be futile but he tried calling several people, and by then I talked him into not heading out at least until daylight; in the meantime he helped us clean up to earn some gas money to give someone who would drive him; he helped a few cars out on North Peoria get unstuck, including a county snow plow, then left before the service began. As 11 am came there were three of us for the service. We had a great time of worship, sharing, prayer, singing the liturgy and lighting the candles. The full liturgy is published at www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com. We then stayed and ate early Christmas morning soup together and headed home around 1 am. I ended up in a ditch on the way home and walked the final block or two up the hill home, listening to the Blind Boys of Alabama's Christmas Album from which part of our service had come. Two days later with the help of volunteers at the center I got the truck out of the ditch and home.
So this morning with more stopping by the center gradually and joining us, we handed out candles again and said our prayers again, shared pastoral concerns and prayed the Lord's Prayer again, and sang Silent Night together and shared the light from candle to candle in the darkened room of the center. It was as close to the manger and the spirit of those who might have gathered around it, because of curiousity and having no where else to go and of being stir crazy and of wanting to share life and all its vulnerabilities, as I have been in some time. The homeless vets, the mentally ill, the hungry and the unemployed, the recovering alchoholics and those still struggling with alcohol and other addictions, the ones with family in the hospital still during this season, those estranged from their family, those about to be travelling, those about to go in for medical procedures---we were quite a group in our soft chairs this Sunday morning gathered around candles, one candle each for the weeks of Advent, for peace and joy and love and hope, one candle for Mary, which we had lit for our pastoral prayers throughout Advent, and the central candle lit for the Christ Child.
Then those who could stayed and ate our common meal together as others shared rides back home with those with cars so others wouldn't have to walk as much on their way home as they had to on their way coming in for church earlier. "Never Far From Home" is the title of Carl's book, and it was never so aptly titled for our time together and to be reading from it this morning.
So I just had to share these past few days with you, and especially this morning as we continue in the Christmas season. We won't have worship here next Sunday as most of our leaders will be out of town, or in our case, out of the country. But we know the center will be open most likely by volunteers as it is throughout the week, and whenever that happens church happens; we told all we hope they will take time next Sunday and worship with another church.
We will have a Pancake Breakfast for community residents and leaders on Saturday Jan. 9 from 8 to 10 am, talking about community events and building multi racial multi ethnic multi generational community. We will be walking behind our banner in the Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Tulsa on Monday Jan. 18 at 11 am. We will be at the Turley area community meeting Tuesday Dec. 29 at 7 pm at OBrien Park. We will be in worship on Sunday Jan. 10 at 10 am again talking about the past present and future of our missional community of faith. We will be meeting with others on all sorts of initiatives in the coming weeks to improve the quality of our community and life of our residents in partnership with folks all over north Tulsa. We will be at the week of programs at Phillips Theological Seminary in mid-Jan. see www.ptstulsa.edu about joining with us there. We will be holding a Unitarian Universalist history and polity class through PTS and having classes here at the Center on Thursday evenings beginning Feb. 4. We will be hosting our weekly free medical clinic and classes and recovery group and donation room and food pantry and resource center and free computer center, and through it all trying to remember to love our enemies and choose to live the way of Christ and not Caeser, and to be open to so much more that will be given birth through us in the year ahead.
My family and I will leave Monday for Scotland, England and France, helping my youngest daughter get settled in for a year of pastry studies at Le Cordon Bleu. Keep us in your prayers, and keep one another in your prayers, and for all who journey with us here at A Third Place Center. You can follow our trip through www.facebook.com/revronrobinson.
We depend on the contributions of one another. If you haven't exhausted your resources at the end of the year and wish to support this missional community, please send checks made out to A Third Place Community, and mail here to 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley OK 74126. It will be just another way you can be a part of "the church" here that is making a real difference by making Jesus visible around us here.
blessings and thanks and so much more soon, Merry continuing Christmas on this third day of Christmas, and soon Happy Hogmanay from Edinburgh, Scotland.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Eve 2009 Liturgy of Lessons Carols Communion
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service
11 pm to Midnight
Lessons and Carols and Communion
The Living Room Church in “A Third Place” Community Center
6514 N. Peoria Ave., Turley, OK 74126 794-4637/691-3223
Ours is a missional community of free faith seeking to make Jesus visible in the world today through small acts of justice and compassion done in great love. Join us in service throughout the week. Our Welcome Table of Worship is open to all who welcome all, regardless of belief or denomination, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities, economic status, or political affiliations. We don’t think Jesus would have it any other way.
Greetings, Welcome
Prelude
INVOCATION
from "Christmas Beatitudes" by David Rhys Williams
On this blessed day let us worship at the altar of joy, for to miss the joy of Christmas is to miss its holiest secret. Let us enter into the spiritual delights which are the natural heritage of child-like hearts. Blessed are they who have vision enough to behold a guiding star in the dark mystery which girdles the earth. Blessed are they who have imagination enough to detect the music of celestial voices in the midnight hours of life. Blessed are they who have faith enough to contemplate a world of peace and justice in the midst of present wrongs and strife. Blessed are they who have greatness enough to become at times as a little child.
Blessed are they who have zest enough to take delight in simple things.
Blessed are they who have wisdom enough to know that the kingdom of heaven is very close at hand, and that all may enter who have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand.
Today is the day which God has made: Let us rejoice and be glad therein. What is required of us? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. This is our covenant as we walk together in life: In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve others
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
O Come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant
O Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem,
Come and behold him, Born the King of angels
O Come, let us adore him, O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
Sing choirs of angels, Sing in exultation,
O Sing, all ye citizens, of heaven above
Glory to God, In the highest
O Come let us adore him, O come, let us adore him
O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
LIGHTING THE ADVENT & CHRIST CANDLE
In Advent each week we have pointed the way to Christmas. Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope, these are the touchstones in our journey preparing our hearts.
We are Grateful for all the days carrying us to this holy night.
And so we come to Christmas once again, as have those before us through the centuries, the mighty cloud of witnesses who have lighted our way with their lives of faith, hope and love against all odds.
May the lights we burn tonight warm us with memories of their inspiration and their aspirations.
Peace and joy and hope and love---which never come easy and are easily lost—all come together in the liberating spirit of God.
May God’s light heal our lives and world.
And may this light, on this special night of birth, remind us that to be in the spirit of Christmas we must be where peace needs to be born,
Where joy needs to be sung,
Where love needs to be shared,
And where hope needs to be found.
We light these candles once again in this Season which reminds us how to live most fully all our days.
We light these candles to proclaim the coming of the light of God into the world.
With the coming of this light let there be peace. Blessed are the peacemakers.
With the coming of this light let there be joy. Blessed are those who mourn and who suffer in this special time, that their hearts be lifted.
With the coming of this light let there be love. Such great love helps us to love God and one another, especially our enemies.
With the coming of this light let there be hope, that goodness will prevail in our lives and world, that oppression will end, that what unites us is stronger than what divides us, that we will find our way in the light of God and fear not.
With the coming of this light let there be born once again the simple transforming freedom the Christ Child brings to the world, through which the light of God shines in all, that we may be God’s people every day, and care for one another and for all of God’s Creation, with our hearts, minds, souls, and our hands.
We light these candles to proclaim the coming of the light of God into the world.
PRAYER
O God, who hast brought us again to the glad season when we remember the birth of Jesus, grant that his spirit may be born anew in us. Open our ears that we may hear the angel songs, open our lips that we may sing with hearts uplifted, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward all. Amen. (King's Chapel Book of Common Prayer)
FIRST LESSON: Luke 2:1-7
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. The first census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
"AWAY IN A MANGER"
Away in a manger, no crib for his bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head;
The stars in the sky looked down where he lay,
The little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes
But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes
I love thee, Lord Jesus! Look down from the sky,
And stay by my cradle, till morning is nigh
SECOND LESSON: Luke 2: 8-12
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
"THE FIRST NOWELL"
The first Nowell, the angels did say,
was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell,
Born is the king of Israel.
Third Lesson: Luke 2: 13-20
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests." When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
"ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH"
Angels we have heard on high sweetly singing o'er the plains
and the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strain
Gloria, In excelsis Deo; Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.
Shepherds why this jubilee? Why these songs of happy cheer?
What great brightness did you see? What glad tidings did you hear?
Gloria, In Excelsis Deo; Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.
Come to Bethlehem and see, Him whose birth the angels sing
Come adore on bended knee, Christ, the Lord, the newborn King.
Gloria, In Excelsis Deo. Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.
PRAYER OF PEACE AND JUSTICE
"The Work of Christmas" by Howard Thurman
"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart."
PASTORAL PRAYERS
"IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR"
It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old
From angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold
Peace on the earth, good-will to all, From heaven's all gracious King.
The world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing.
But with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long
Beneath the angel strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong
And man, at war with man, hears not, The love song which they bring
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.
READING
from Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, and from Altars in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
MESSAGE and Holy Conversation
“The Difference Between Mangers and Inns”
Rev. Ron Robinson
"O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM"
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.
COMMUNION RESPONSE
We lift up our hearts in God for the gifts of Life given for all.
Thanks be to God.
As Christmas reminds us of how the Divine came into the world in one so small, young, and fragile, so the Gifts of Life Abundant are in the ordinary made extraordinary, in the bread of the earth and the juice of the grape becoming food of the Spirit, incarnations of the Sacred.
Thanks be to God.
As Christmas calls us to be mindful of all those in need, all without a room, all with grief and fear, and to work for a world more just, so may this token of our daily bread, and this token of our cup of forgiveness which quenches the thirst of the soul, call us to go feed others.
Thanks be to God.
As Christmas offers us peace and light in times of darkness, may the sacred offering of this small meal, one to another, inspire us to acts of lovingkindness, all in the Spirit of the One born upon this night who showed us faithfulness without fear, preparing a welcome table for all.
Thanks be to God.
Prayer of Confession: Gracious and Loving God, we acknowledge to you, to one another, and to ourselves that we are not what you have called us to be. We have stifled our gifts and wasted our time. We have avoided opportunities to offer kindness, but have been quick to take offense. We have pretended that we could make no contribution to peace and justice in our world and have excused ourselves from risk-taking in our own community. Have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and help us to live our lives differently. We long for peace within and without, for harmony in our families, for the well-being of our neighbors, and the love for our enemies. Yet we have too often not made the hard choices that love requires. Show us how to walk in your path of faithfulness, hope, and love. Amen.
Words of Assurance: One fact remains that does not change: God has loved all, loves all now, and will love all now always, for all time. This is the good news that brings new life. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer of Communion: O God, in the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather at this welcoming table open to all, remembering how Jesus gathered people from all the walks of life, stranger and friend and enemies, gave thanks to you, offered all the bread of life and the cup of blessing and proclaimed a covenant of love for all in your name. We remember too the wonder of his life, as we remember the wonder of all of Creation given unto us and how all are One. We remember the agony of his death, and all the terrors and the tyrannies that oppress people today. And we remember the resurrection, the mystery of faith in the everlasting Spirit, the triumph over fear, as we remember all those who have given Love the ultimate trust and the last word and who have worked to create the beloved community of renewed and abundant life. Help us to remember with this meal especially all those who are hungry, and may we treat all our meals as sacred and to be shared. Take us, bless us, so that even in and with our brokenness we may serve others. Amen.
Jesus said I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. And they said, Lord, when did we do this? And he said, You did this for me when you did it for the least of these.
Here is the bread of life, food for the spirit. Let all who hunger come and eat. Here is the fruit of the vine pressed and poured out for us. Let all who thirst now come and drink. We come to make peace. We come to be restored in the love of God. We come to be made new as an instrument of that love. All are worthy. All are welcome.
And so we join together in saying the prayer Jesus taught to those who would follow in his radically inclusive hospitable and justice-seeking way of the Spirit. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, and ever. Amen.
BREAD OF LIFE, CUP OF HOPE
All are worthy and all are welcome in this free and open communion. We follow the practice of intinction, or dipping of the bread into the cup before eating.
May we remember that in our times of hunger and brokenness, coming from the body and the spirit, that God provides wholeness and abundant gifts of Creation all around us, among us, and within us all, more than enough to share with others.
SHARING CANDLELIGHT FROM THE CHRIST CANDLE
"SILENT NIGHT"
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child, Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar, Heavenly hosts sing Al-le-lu-ia
Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born
Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at thy birth, Jesus Lord at thy birth.
BENEDICTION
Go out into the highways and byways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it and let it shine. Use it to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell but hope and courage. Give them Christmas all year round. Preach and practice the kindness and everlasting love of God.
(18th century American Universalist minister John Murray, adapted)
Parts of the Liturgy have also come from, and been adapted from, Singing The Living Tradition hymnal, UUA, and from The New Century Hymnal, UCC, and the United Church of Christ Book of Worship
11 pm to Midnight
Lessons and Carols and Communion
The Living Room Church in “A Third Place” Community Center
6514 N. Peoria Ave., Turley, OK 74126 794-4637/691-3223
Ours is a missional community of free faith seeking to make Jesus visible in the world today through small acts of justice and compassion done in great love. Join us in service throughout the week. Our Welcome Table of Worship is open to all who welcome all, regardless of belief or denomination, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities, economic status, or political affiliations. We don’t think Jesus would have it any other way.
Greetings, Welcome
Prelude
INVOCATION
from "Christmas Beatitudes" by David Rhys Williams
On this blessed day let us worship at the altar of joy, for to miss the joy of Christmas is to miss its holiest secret. Let us enter into the spiritual delights which are the natural heritage of child-like hearts. Blessed are they who have vision enough to behold a guiding star in the dark mystery which girdles the earth. Blessed are they who have imagination enough to detect the music of celestial voices in the midnight hours of life. Blessed are they who have faith enough to contemplate a world of peace and justice in the midst of present wrongs and strife. Blessed are they who have greatness enough to become at times as a little child.
Blessed are they who have zest enough to take delight in simple things.
Blessed are they who have wisdom enough to know that the kingdom of heaven is very close at hand, and that all may enter who have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand.
Today is the day which God has made: Let us rejoice and be glad therein. What is required of us? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. This is our covenant as we walk together in life: In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve others
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
O Come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant
O Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem,
Come and behold him, Born the King of angels
O Come, let us adore him, O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
Sing choirs of angels, Sing in exultation,
O Sing, all ye citizens, of heaven above
Glory to God, In the highest
O Come let us adore him, O come, let us adore him
O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
LIGHTING THE ADVENT & CHRIST CANDLE
In Advent each week we have pointed the way to Christmas. Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope, these are the touchstones in our journey preparing our hearts.
We are Grateful for all the days carrying us to this holy night.
And so we come to Christmas once again, as have those before us through the centuries, the mighty cloud of witnesses who have lighted our way with their lives of faith, hope and love against all odds.
May the lights we burn tonight warm us with memories of their inspiration and their aspirations.
Peace and joy and hope and love---which never come easy and are easily lost—all come together in the liberating spirit of God.
May God’s light heal our lives and world.
And may this light, on this special night of birth, remind us that to be in the spirit of Christmas we must be where peace needs to be born,
Where joy needs to be sung,
Where love needs to be shared,
And where hope needs to be found.
We light these candles once again in this Season which reminds us how to live most fully all our days.
We light these candles to proclaim the coming of the light of God into the world.
With the coming of this light let there be peace. Blessed are the peacemakers.
With the coming of this light let there be joy. Blessed are those who mourn and who suffer in this special time, that their hearts be lifted.
With the coming of this light let there be love. Such great love helps us to love God and one another, especially our enemies.
With the coming of this light let there be hope, that goodness will prevail in our lives and world, that oppression will end, that what unites us is stronger than what divides us, that we will find our way in the light of God and fear not.
With the coming of this light let there be born once again the simple transforming freedom the Christ Child brings to the world, through which the light of God shines in all, that we may be God’s people every day, and care for one another and for all of God’s Creation, with our hearts, minds, souls, and our hands.
We light these candles to proclaim the coming of the light of God into the world.
PRAYER
O God, who hast brought us again to the glad season when we remember the birth of Jesus, grant that his spirit may be born anew in us. Open our ears that we may hear the angel songs, open our lips that we may sing with hearts uplifted, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward all. Amen. (King's Chapel Book of Common Prayer)
FIRST LESSON: Luke 2:1-7
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. The first census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
"AWAY IN A MANGER"
Away in a manger, no crib for his bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head;
The stars in the sky looked down where he lay,
The little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes
But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes
I love thee, Lord Jesus! Look down from the sky,
And stay by my cradle, till morning is nigh
SECOND LESSON: Luke 2: 8-12
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
"THE FIRST NOWELL"
The first Nowell, the angels did say,
was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell,
Born is the king of Israel.
Third Lesson: Luke 2: 13-20
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests." When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
"ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH"
Angels we have heard on high sweetly singing o'er the plains
and the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strain
Gloria, In excelsis Deo; Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.
Shepherds why this jubilee? Why these songs of happy cheer?
What great brightness did you see? What glad tidings did you hear?
Gloria, In Excelsis Deo; Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.
Come to Bethlehem and see, Him whose birth the angels sing
Come adore on bended knee, Christ, the Lord, the newborn King.
Gloria, In Excelsis Deo. Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.
PRAYER OF PEACE AND JUSTICE
"The Work of Christmas" by Howard Thurman
"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart."
PASTORAL PRAYERS
"IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR"
It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old
From angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold
Peace on the earth, good-will to all, From heaven's all gracious King.
The world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing.
But with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long
Beneath the angel strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong
And man, at war with man, hears not, The love song which they bring
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.
READING
from Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, and from Altars in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
MESSAGE and Holy Conversation
“The Difference Between Mangers and Inns”
Rev. Ron Robinson
"O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM"
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.
COMMUNION RESPONSE
We lift up our hearts in God for the gifts of Life given for all.
Thanks be to God.
As Christmas reminds us of how the Divine came into the world in one so small, young, and fragile, so the Gifts of Life Abundant are in the ordinary made extraordinary, in the bread of the earth and the juice of the grape becoming food of the Spirit, incarnations of the Sacred.
Thanks be to God.
As Christmas calls us to be mindful of all those in need, all without a room, all with grief and fear, and to work for a world more just, so may this token of our daily bread, and this token of our cup of forgiveness which quenches the thirst of the soul, call us to go feed others.
Thanks be to God.
As Christmas offers us peace and light in times of darkness, may the sacred offering of this small meal, one to another, inspire us to acts of lovingkindness, all in the Spirit of the One born upon this night who showed us faithfulness without fear, preparing a welcome table for all.
Thanks be to God.
Prayer of Confession: Gracious and Loving God, we acknowledge to you, to one another, and to ourselves that we are not what you have called us to be. We have stifled our gifts and wasted our time. We have avoided opportunities to offer kindness, but have been quick to take offense. We have pretended that we could make no contribution to peace and justice in our world and have excused ourselves from risk-taking in our own community. Have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and help us to live our lives differently. We long for peace within and without, for harmony in our families, for the well-being of our neighbors, and the love for our enemies. Yet we have too often not made the hard choices that love requires. Show us how to walk in your path of faithfulness, hope, and love. Amen.
Words of Assurance: One fact remains that does not change: God has loved all, loves all now, and will love all now always, for all time. This is the good news that brings new life. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer of Communion: O God, in the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather at this welcoming table open to all, remembering how Jesus gathered people from all the walks of life, stranger and friend and enemies, gave thanks to you, offered all the bread of life and the cup of blessing and proclaimed a covenant of love for all in your name. We remember too the wonder of his life, as we remember the wonder of all of Creation given unto us and how all are One. We remember the agony of his death, and all the terrors and the tyrannies that oppress people today. And we remember the resurrection, the mystery of faith in the everlasting Spirit, the triumph over fear, as we remember all those who have given Love the ultimate trust and the last word and who have worked to create the beloved community of renewed and abundant life. Help us to remember with this meal especially all those who are hungry, and may we treat all our meals as sacred and to be shared. Take us, bless us, so that even in and with our brokenness we may serve others. Amen.
Jesus said I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. And they said, Lord, when did we do this? And he said, You did this for me when you did it for the least of these.
Here is the bread of life, food for the spirit. Let all who hunger come and eat. Here is the fruit of the vine pressed and poured out for us. Let all who thirst now come and drink. We come to make peace. We come to be restored in the love of God. We come to be made new as an instrument of that love. All are worthy. All are welcome.
And so we join together in saying the prayer Jesus taught to those who would follow in his radically inclusive hospitable and justice-seeking way of the Spirit. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, and ever. Amen.
BREAD OF LIFE, CUP OF HOPE
All are worthy and all are welcome in this free and open communion. We follow the practice of intinction, or dipping of the bread into the cup before eating.
May we remember that in our times of hunger and brokenness, coming from the body and the spirit, that God provides wholeness and abundant gifts of Creation all around us, among us, and within us all, more than enough to share with others.
SHARING CANDLELIGHT FROM THE CHRIST CANDLE
"SILENT NIGHT"
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child, Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar, Heavenly hosts sing Al-le-lu-ia
Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born
Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at thy birth, Jesus Lord at thy birth.
BENEDICTION
Go out into the highways and byways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it and let it shine. Use it to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell but hope and courage. Give them Christmas all year round. Preach and practice the kindness and everlasting love of God.
(18th century American Universalist minister John Murray, adapted)
Parts of the Liturgy have also come from, and been adapted from, Singing The Living Tradition hymnal, UUA, and from The New Century Hymnal, UCC, and the United Church of Christ Book of Worship
Tonight A New Kind of Birth
Coming in a few hours: I will be posting the order of service for the 11 pm to midnight worship service tonight, especially for those of you homebound due to the snow and ice storm here in the Tulsa area; for others to enjoy; all can join together wherever you are in the world and know you are virtually connected by the internet, and really connected by God.
This is a special night; we know many of those of you will be with family, will be worshipping elsewhere perhaps on this day; we also know snow and bad weather is upon us; but we will be open at that special time not because there is something especially magical and liturgically correct about it, not because it is a long time tradition with us, and certainly not because we have a big turnout (we had three the first year; five last year), but because there is always the possibility that there is someone who needs to worship, to light candles, to sing, to join in communion, and might have missed other opportunities earlier in the day, or didn't feel comfortable doing so elsewhere, or who might just have the impulse in the minutes and hours ahead of time tomorrow evening that it is something and some place they are called to be on this special night and they saw us open or saw our sign in front of our community center which looks very un-church-like; they might have had a big fight with spouse and family; they might be especially depressed; they might have just gotten out of jail or be on their way back to jail; they might have already had too much to drink for the holiday; or they might just want to be with any who might need to be there, they just might want to be a part of holding this service open for those who may never come.
We will also be open at the Center some Christmas Day as well to provide a place for those who need one on that special day, just as we held a wonderful Christmas Party this past Tuesday and sang carols and laughed and watched a Christmas movie and ate with one another, many of whom it might be their only Christmas party of the season. We also will have Christmas Sunday worship and holy conversation and common meal on Sunday Dec. 27 as usual at 10 am. On Sunday Jan. 3, though, we will encourage in our ecumenical way that all go find another place of worship for that week's worship, or go open up at the Center and just be there as hospitality and conversation for any who might come by; regular liturgical worship will resume on Jan. 10. On Sunday, Jan. 17 we will have our annual Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday in the morning and that evening at 5 pm we will march with others together in the candlelight procession for the worship service at Boston Avenue Methodist Church downtown; then on Monday, Jan. 18 in the morning we will walk with our banner in the MLK Jr. parade through the Greenwood historical section.
The homily and holy conversation we will have during the candlelight service is called "The Difference Between Mangers and Inns." It will be about finding the mangers where Hope is born, where God's spirit is born for us to find, and about recreating mangers where we can be with others on their search too. It is about not letting the Inns, the full places, the popular places, the have-it-all-together places, the safe places, draw our time, talents, treasures and spirit away from the mangers.
In her book, Hope in the Dark, author and activist Rebecca Solnit quotes the philosopher Alphonso Lingis in words that seem to capture the radical essence of Advent and Christmas, who says, "Hope arises in a break with the past. There is a kind of cut and the past is let go of. There is a difference between simple expectation and hope. One could say, "because I see this is the way things are going, this is the way things have developed, I expect this to happen: expectation is based on the pattern you see in the past...I think that hope is a kind of birth--it doesn't come out of what went before, it comes out in spite of what went before. Abruptly there is a break and there's an upsurge of hope, something turned toward the future."
God is supposed to be born in Inns, based on expectations, based on all the stories of the powerful civilizations, and it is in the Inns and the palaces that our expectations lead us to. There is always No Room in the Inns for those who carry God with them; the real invitation after that knock on the door and the mother to be and father--refugees strangers--loom in the doorway, the real invitation is from them to those of us who create Inns and live in them instead of in mangers, the invitation to follow them and leave the Inns.
And so in Christmas too we immerse in the past and traditions and nostalgia, but stay there at our peril; we haven't been waiting through Advent for nostalgia, for the realization of our expectations; we have been waiting for an abrupt disrupture of healing and justice, for the overturning of our expectations.
Each Sunday here when we gather for our worship time in our missional community we see our mission statement before us, that we exist to make visible Jesus in the world. That is of course what we celebrate on Christmas, Jesus' life coming into the world. It is why we are always, or strive to be always, a Christmas community. Making visible is another way of phrasing the Gospel of John's depiction of The Word Becoming Flesh. God isn't supposed to do that; God isn't supposed to become fragile, bounded, vulnerable, earthy, poor. But God does and calls us to the same holy ground. God isn't supposed to take shape in a body and call us to such love of bodies and Creation, but this is what Christmas hope is all about, that a different kind of God than our world expects just might show up in the mangers just around the corner and on the edges of our cities and towns.
It is why, more than any other response we get here at our A Third Place Center---from all the things we do and hold during the year, or just from being open for someone---the response we get the most is "I am surprised this is here" and once they find out more about us and how we operate out of radical trust and grace and openness beyond creed or any other divisions among us and a commitment to have zero funds in our bank account at the end of each month, they are even more surprised we are still here.
I leave you then with a different kind of Christmas carol that captures the spirit of this different kind of birth of God, a hymn by Brian Wren, and where he has appropriately used the word Good as a kind of blessing I hope you will also read Good for God, and understand an even deeper sense of the hymn for this season we have been waiting for:
"Good is the flesh that the Word has become; good is the birthing, the milk in the breast, good is the feeding, caressing and rest, good is the body for knowing the world, Good is the flesh that the Word has become. Good is the body for knowing the world, sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground, feeling, perceiving, within and around, good is the body, from cradle to grave, Good is the flesh that the Word has become. Good is the body from cradle to grave, growing and ageing, arousing, impaired, happy in clothing or lovingly bared, good is the pleasure of God in our flesh. Good is the flesh that the Word has become. Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh, longing in all, as in Jesus, to dwell, glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell, good is the body for good and for God, Good is the flesh that the Word has become."
Amen to all that, thanks for all you do keeping us open and praying for and with us and joining us when you can, blessings, and see you soon somewhere in the flesh, in the Word, in the continuing Christmas spirit, in the intersection of Jesus and Freedom, in Christ,
Ron
This is a special night; we know many of those of you will be with family, will be worshipping elsewhere perhaps on this day; we also know snow and bad weather is upon us; but we will be open at that special time not because there is something especially magical and liturgically correct about it, not because it is a long time tradition with us, and certainly not because we have a big turnout (we had three the first year; five last year), but because there is always the possibility that there is someone who needs to worship, to light candles, to sing, to join in communion, and might have missed other opportunities earlier in the day, or didn't feel comfortable doing so elsewhere, or who might just have the impulse in the minutes and hours ahead of time tomorrow evening that it is something and some place they are called to be on this special night and they saw us open or saw our sign in front of our community center which looks very un-church-like; they might have had a big fight with spouse and family; they might be especially depressed; they might have just gotten out of jail or be on their way back to jail; they might have already had too much to drink for the holiday; or they might just want to be with any who might need to be there, they just might want to be a part of holding this service open for those who may never come.
We will also be open at the Center some Christmas Day as well to provide a place for those who need one on that special day, just as we held a wonderful Christmas Party this past Tuesday and sang carols and laughed and watched a Christmas movie and ate with one another, many of whom it might be their only Christmas party of the season. We also will have Christmas Sunday worship and holy conversation and common meal on Sunday Dec. 27 as usual at 10 am. On Sunday Jan. 3, though, we will encourage in our ecumenical way that all go find another place of worship for that week's worship, or go open up at the Center and just be there as hospitality and conversation for any who might come by; regular liturgical worship will resume on Jan. 10. On Sunday, Jan. 17 we will have our annual Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday in the morning and that evening at 5 pm we will march with others together in the candlelight procession for the worship service at Boston Avenue Methodist Church downtown; then on Monday, Jan. 18 in the morning we will walk with our banner in the MLK Jr. parade through the Greenwood historical section.
The homily and holy conversation we will have during the candlelight service is called "The Difference Between Mangers and Inns." It will be about finding the mangers where Hope is born, where God's spirit is born for us to find, and about recreating mangers where we can be with others on their search too. It is about not letting the Inns, the full places, the popular places, the have-it-all-together places, the safe places, draw our time, talents, treasures and spirit away from the mangers.
In her book, Hope in the Dark, author and activist Rebecca Solnit quotes the philosopher Alphonso Lingis in words that seem to capture the radical essence of Advent and Christmas, who says, "Hope arises in a break with the past. There is a kind of cut and the past is let go of. There is a difference between simple expectation and hope. One could say, "because I see this is the way things are going, this is the way things have developed, I expect this to happen: expectation is based on the pattern you see in the past...I think that hope is a kind of birth--it doesn't come out of what went before, it comes out in spite of what went before. Abruptly there is a break and there's an upsurge of hope, something turned toward the future."
God is supposed to be born in Inns, based on expectations, based on all the stories of the powerful civilizations, and it is in the Inns and the palaces that our expectations lead us to. There is always No Room in the Inns for those who carry God with them; the real invitation after that knock on the door and the mother to be and father--refugees strangers--loom in the doorway, the real invitation is from them to those of us who create Inns and live in them instead of in mangers, the invitation to follow them and leave the Inns.
And so in Christmas too we immerse in the past and traditions and nostalgia, but stay there at our peril; we haven't been waiting through Advent for nostalgia, for the realization of our expectations; we have been waiting for an abrupt disrupture of healing and justice, for the overturning of our expectations.
Each Sunday here when we gather for our worship time in our missional community we see our mission statement before us, that we exist to make visible Jesus in the world. That is of course what we celebrate on Christmas, Jesus' life coming into the world. It is why we are always, or strive to be always, a Christmas community. Making visible is another way of phrasing the Gospel of John's depiction of The Word Becoming Flesh. God isn't supposed to do that; God isn't supposed to become fragile, bounded, vulnerable, earthy, poor. But God does and calls us to the same holy ground. God isn't supposed to take shape in a body and call us to such love of bodies and Creation, but this is what Christmas hope is all about, that a different kind of God than our world expects just might show up in the mangers just around the corner and on the edges of our cities and towns.
It is why, more than any other response we get here at our A Third Place Center---from all the things we do and hold during the year, or just from being open for someone---the response we get the most is "I am surprised this is here" and once they find out more about us and how we operate out of radical trust and grace and openness beyond creed or any other divisions among us and a commitment to have zero funds in our bank account at the end of each month, they are even more surprised we are still here.
I leave you then with a different kind of Christmas carol that captures the spirit of this different kind of birth of God, a hymn by Brian Wren, and where he has appropriately used the word Good as a kind of blessing I hope you will also read Good for God, and understand an even deeper sense of the hymn for this season we have been waiting for:
"Good is the flesh that the Word has become; good is the birthing, the milk in the breast, good is the feeding, caressing and rest, good is the body for knowing the world, Good is the flesh that the Word has become. Good is the body for knowing the world, sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground, feeling, perceiving, within and around, good is the body, from cradle to grave, Good is the flesh that the Word has become. Good is the body from cradle to grave, growing and ageing, arousing, impaired, happy in clothing or lovingly bared, good is the pleasure of God in our flesh. Good is the flesh that the Word has become. Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh, longing in all, as in Jesus, to dwell, glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell, good is the body for good and for God, Good is the flesh that the Word has become."
Amen to all that, thanks for all you do keeping us open and praying for and with us and joining us when you can, blessings, and see you soon somewhere in the flesh, in the Word, in the continuing Christmas spirit, in the intersection of Jesus and Freedom, in Christ,
Ron
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Three New Books: Reviews on the way
Coming soon: excerpts and reviews of three new books on my shelves;
Follow Me To Freedom by Shane Claiborne and John Perkins, a conversation on leadership for communities that seek to change this new world.
The House Church Book by Wolfgang Simson who wrote the classic Houses That Change the World, with foreword by George Barna; disagree about what is biblical, agree with the call for reformation in structures.
The Amost Church Revitalized by Michael Durall, wise words for Unitarian Universalist churches about the oh so needed shift in thinking of church from the private sphere to becoming a public church, what I call missional community. Much of what we do here is reflected in the ideas and spirit of this book though it is geared for more traditional communities and of larger size. go to www.vitalcongregations.com I was a little surprised and disappointed to see some of the tenor of the negative responses to Durall's book excerpt on public churches that was printed in the UU World; those who think his suggestions are radical won't know what to do with us. lol.
more to come and see below for other new posts.
End
Follow Me To Freedom by Shane Claiborne and John Perkins, a conversation on leadership for communities that seek to change this new world.
The House Church Book by Wolfgang Simson who wrote the classic Houses That Change the World, with foreword by George Barna; disagree about what is biblical, agree with the call for reformation in structures.
The Amost Church Revitalized by Michael Durall, wise words for Unitarian Universalist churches about the oh so needed shift in thinking of church from the private sphere to becoming a public church, what I call missional community. Much of what we do here is reflected in the ideas and spirit of this book though it is geared for more traditional communities and of larger size. go to www.vitalcongregations.com I was a little surprised and disappointed to see some of the tenor of the negative responses to Durall's book excerpt on public churches that was printed in the UU World; those who think his suggestions are radical won't know what to do with us. lol.
more to come and see below for other new posts.
End
Turning Your Congregation Inside Out: Growing Missional Communities
The title of this post is also the title of a workshop I just found out I was approved to lead at the UUA General Assembly in Minneapolis this coming June. I will be joined in presenting it and in conversation with colleague Joel Miller of Buffalo, and it is hoped one or two more to be announced later. It will be a chance to present some of what we have been doing here as church, sowing some seeds for others, and a chance to hear how others are moving to missional manifestation of what we call church, a redundancy if there ever was one. More to follow and you all can help me shape the workshop.
Type rest of the post here
Type rest of the post here
Advent's Unapologetic Interruptions: Church Being Christmas
First, I hope this interrupts your day. Lord knows, I have had many interruptions here at our community center/clinic/library/foodpantry/givingroom cafe/kidspace/internet center today as I have tried to write it to you. And I just got back from a several days surprise trip out of town that was one of those pleasant interruptions but an interruption nonetheless. And as I get into hyper-planning mode not only for the holidays, but for a trip to Europe afterwards, interruptions are often just what I have needed.
And today I am looking at interruptions differently. I was just reminded in the new book by Shane Claiborne and civil rights activist John Perkins "Follow Me To Freedom" how the scriptures are all about interruptions, story after story how God interrupts lives, calls us in new directions, or back to the path; story after story about how Jesus was interrupted constantly, and how Jesus's prophetic actions interrupted the status quo and the powerful on behalf of and in league with the vulnerable.
And this time of the year, God how we hate interruptions, delays in our plans, in checking off our to-do lists. God how we hate to wait too. Whole industries have emerged to make sure we don't have to wait, to make our lives as full of convenience as possible. But then the interruption happens, as it always does. Something new gets added to our agenda. You will be hearing very soon about some exciting new ways we have been interrupted here with good ideas, with love and hope and big visions once again, and ways you can help us interrupt our world with our values and our presence.
Advent is the story of the Great Interruption, as God interrupts the life of Mary, certainly of Joseph, interrupting the powers that be with the greater power that another world is not only possible but it is already here, pregnant and growing, about to be born where no one would ever think to look. Advent is about the affirming spirit of waiting on that birth, on the birth of peace and joy and love and hope, waiting and letting it change us from within so we can change the world without, waiting to connect with others on the road to Bethlehem too, and the road to Egypt too, and the road back to Nazareth too, from where nothing good can supposedly come.
Let me interrupt you with the truth that Advent, Christmas, Christ, the Church is not about Metaphysical Truth but about real Trust, and that, in the words of Wolfgang Simson in his newly released The House Church Book, the church is not to "have" a message but to "be" the message. So it was that God didn't write out spiritual truths in the heavens above Israel 2000 years ago in languages all could easily get; God came in the fragile form, the mortal form, the oppressed and cast-off exiled form, of the baby that had to rely on and trust others for its life and its future. The baby had to wait. The baby was also, as all babies are, an interruption.
So how, as a church being the message of that baby, are we helping people to learn to wait and be open to what is growing within them, and how are we helping people to interrupt their lives, and the lives of those around them, with the surprising love and change that God's universal love brings?
....Last Saturday we picked up on doing the monthly community breakfasts for each second Saturday,next one Jan. 9, 8 to 10 am here but we are intentionally recreating the breakfasts to be multiracial multiethnic multigenerational times and leadership breakfasts where all get the chance to cross lines and learn what is happening in our North Tulsa/Turley area around the center. We got off to a great start. Spread the news and come to the next one. Suggested breakfast donation of $5 and we will have pancakes next time besides a range of healthy items.
...This coming Tuesday Dec. 22 at 6:30 pm we will offer our space for the wider community to gather for a Christmas party of carols and food and good times, reflecting the spirit of abundance with those around us who often live in scarcity or have a spirit of scarcity reflected back onto them.
....We have transformed our old clothing donation room into an open kidspace and gameroom cafe space and expanded food pantry space and still clothing area we call The Giving Room. It is where we have been having our Sunday Advent communion worship services. This Sunday at 10 am we will have our Fourth Sunday of Advent: Waiting on Hope worship with holy conversation and a common meal and decorating more for Christmas. We recently had a Christmas tree decorated and one of the residents who hangs out in the Center said it was the first time in his 60 years he had ever been allowed to decorate a Christmas tree.
...We have been working on community projects of public gardening and are hoping to soon own and transform some hilltop property overlooking downtown Tulsa and make it an outdoor A Third Place LivingKitchen Garden Park, a full acre, a whole city block, that ties in our two most low income areas and one incorporated and one unincorporated both multi racial but one predominantly African American and one predominantly White and American Indian. You can see a little more about this project by going to youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w. We need to get 100 people to send us $100 or more to A Third Place Community, our non-profit, at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley OK 74126 so we can help fund the transformation project. Help us launch this and add your name to the list of givers.
...We will be coordinating with OU-Tulsa to hold community leadership skills classes for all residents free of charge on the last two Tuesdays of Feb. Mar. and April here at our Center, creating the kind of skills that will help people build job resumes, grow their own businesses, help out their own churches and associations.
...We will be helping connect another group of OU students with community residents and agencies interested in developing entrepreneurs and turning what others see as weaknesses, such as our infrastructure and abandoned lots and buildings, into assets.
...We are working with North Tulsa Economic Development Inititiative on the McLain High School greenhouse project, on healthy cornerstores developments in our area; with neighborhood association development.
...And again with OU's School of Community Medicine to move toward creating volunteer community health leaders, feeding the hungry with meals, and getting residents information and assessing their health needs; and with local farmers markets to expand our existing community gardens and orchard;
In all we do, we are guided by the spiritual intersection of following Jesus and Freedom. We celebrate this each Sunday and when we gather for our other meetings, and when we share with others the power of what is happening in our lives and community.
It is why, again this year, in case there are any out in need of companionship on Christmas Eve, Thursday, Dec. 24 at 11 pm we will open our doors for a worship of communion and carols and cider and cookies to bring in Christmas morning.
You never know Who will show up when you open up and wait.
blessings, thanks, and more soon,
Ron
Type rest of the post here
And today I am looking at interruptions differently. I was just reminded in the new book by Shane Claiborne and civil rights activist John Perkins "Follow Me To Freedom" how the scriptures are all about interruptions, story after story how God interrupts lives, calls us in new directions, or back to the path; story after story about how Jesus was interrupted constantly, and how Jesus's prophetic actions interrupted the status quo and the powerful on behalf of and in league with the vulnerable.
And this time of the year, God how we hate interruptions, delays in our plans, in checking off our to-do lists. God how we hate to wait too. Whole industries have emerged to make sure we don't have to wait, to make our lives as full of convenience as possible. But then the interruption happens, as it always does. Something new gets added to our agenda. You will be hearing very soon about some exciting new ways we have been interrupted here with good ideas, with love and hope and big visions once again, and ways you can help us interrupt our world with our values and our presence.
Advent is the story of the Great Interruption, as God interrupts the life of Mary, certainly of Joseph, interrupting the powers that be with the greater power that another world is not only possible but it is already here, pregnant and growing, about to be born where no one would ever think to look. Advent is about the affirming spirit of waiting on that birth, on the birth of peace and joy and love and hope, waiting and letting it change us from within so we can change the world without, waiting to connect with others on the road to Bethlehem too, and the road to Egypt too, and the road back to Nazareth too, from where nothing good can supposedly come.
Let me interrupt you with the truth that Advent, Christmas, Christ, the Church is not about Metaphysical Truth but about real Trust, and that, in the words of Wolfgang Simson in his newly released The House Church Book, the church is not to "have" a message but to "be" the message. So it was that God didn't write out spiritual truths in the heavens above Israel 2000 years ago in languages all could easily get; God came in the fragile form, the mortal form, the oppressed and cast-off exiled form, of the baby that had to rely on and trust others for its life and its future. The baby had to wait. The baby was also, as all babies are, an interruption.
So how, as a church being the message of that baby, are we helping people to learn to wait and be open to what is growing within them, and how are we helping people to interrupt their lives, and the lives of those around them, with the surprising love and change that God's universal love brings?
....Last Saturday we picked up on doing the monthly community breakfasts for each second Saturday,next one Jan. 9, 8 to 10 am here but we are intentionally recreating the breakfasts to be multiracial multiethnic multigenerational times and leadership breakfasts where all get the chance to cross lines and learn what is happening in our North Tulsa/Turley area around the center. We got off to a great start. Spread the news and come to the next one. Suggested breakfast donation of $5 and we will have pancakes next time besides a range of healthy items.
...This coming Tuesday Dec. 22 at 6:30 pm we will offer our space for the wider community to gather for a Christmas party of carols and food and good times, reflecting the spirit of abundance with those around us who often live in scarcity or have a spirit of scarcity reflected back onto them.
....We have transformed our old clothing donation room into an open kidspace and gameroom cafe space and expanded food pantry space and still clothing area we call The Giving Room. It is where we have been having our Sunday Advent communion worship services. This Sunday at 10 am we will have our Fourth Sunday of Advent: Waiting on Hope worship with holy conversation and a common meal and decorating more for Christmas. We recently had a Christmas tree decorated and one of the residents who hangs out in the Center said it was the first time in his 60 years he had ever been allowed to decorate a Christmas tree.
...We have been working on community projects of public gardening and are hoping to soon own and transform some hilltop property overlooking downtown Tulsa and make it an outdoor A Third Place LivingKitchen Garden Park, a full acre, a whole city block, that ties in our two most low income areas and one incorporated and one unincorporated both multi racial but one predominantly African American and one predominantly White and American Indian. You can see a little more about this project by going to youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w. We need to get 100 people to send us $100 or more to A Third Place Community, our non-profit, at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley OK 74126 so we can help fund the transformation project. Help us launch this and add your name to the list of givers.
...We will be coordinating with OU-Tulsa to hold community leadership skills classes for all residents free of charge on the last two Tuesdays of Feb. Mar. and April here at our Center, creating the kind of skills that will help people build job resumes, grow their own businesses, help out their own churches and associations.
...We will be helping connect another group of OU students with community residents and agencies interested in developing entrepreneurs and turning what others see as weaknesses, such as our infrastructure and abandoned lots and buildings, into assets.
...We are working with North Tulsa Economic Development Inititiative on the McLain High School greenhouse project, on healthy cornerstores developments in our area; with neighborhood association development.
...And again with OU's School of Community Medicine to move toward creating volunteer community health leaders, feeding the hungry with meals, and getting residents information and assessing their health needs; and with local farmers markets to expand our existing community gardens and orchard;
In all we do, we are guided by the spiritual intersection of following Jesus and Freedom. We celebrate this each Sunday and when we gather for our other meetings, and when we share with others the power of what is happening in our lives and community.
It is why, again this year, in case there are any out in need of companionship on Christmas Eve, Thursday, Dec. 24 at 11 pm we will open our doors for a worship of communion and carols and cider and cookies to bring in Christmas morning.
You never know Who will show up when you open up and wait.
blessings, thanks, and more soon,
Ron
Type rest of the post here
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
An Altar in the World: Thanksgiving Message and Mission From Here
Another glimpse into church life here: Locally, beyond the highlights I will mention below about our missional expression of the church here in Turley, you can get a glimpse of some of the range of what's been going on over at www.turleyok.blogspot.com and you might also want to check out the updates and various reflections over at www.uuchristian.org. And feel free to follow along at www.facebook.com/revronrobinson.
From this community where all money goes into mission, where all our volunteers, and where we are guests in our own created place for others, here in this abandoned place of empire:
Much has been going on. We took over providing a community breakfast; and though we fed 20 last Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day itself, this year, this past Sunday we fed 100 and included a performance for all by Johnny Cervantes and The Oklahomans classic country band; earlier in worship we had our annual Reverse Offering giving back cash to people who will put it into the world in small acts of justice and compassion done with great love to change the world, and then come back on Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday to share stories about their decisions, any partnerships they fostered with it, and what an affect it had.
I will relate from last year how one decision is still giving a year later. One family of five pooled their offerings and bought great looking and healthy standard shelves for our fledgling food pantry, which made it more professional looking and spurred on additional donations and then at the UUCF Revival the folks who came out to the Center spruced the pantry up even more, and from it we took on a whole food justice mission as a priority working with our OU graduate school partners, and that has led us to becoming one of the major partners in a whirlwind of relationships and helping coordinate community gardens, new grocery stores, healthy cornerstore initiatives, school sponsored gardens and food growing programs, all in the past couple of months with new grants underway and hope and possibilites to come. Out of this will come this Spring a focus on creating new and varied entrepeurship and micro-investment and other ways to create the gift of work to more and more in our dire economic and underserved area...In many ways this effort was propelled by that family's gift decision, and it of course by our decision to live missionally and do the reverse offering. And that story is one that we could trace because it happened in connection with our community center; think of the stories we can't trace because people's decisions on how to use their gift happened in unseen and unreportable ways at least to us.
We have celebrated All Saints Sunday, and we celebrated with the Turley United Methodist Church its 100th year in the community (I prepared and delivered the story of its history during the centennial worship service; its old building now vacant is one we want to buy and fix up and transform into a larger community center, foodjustice center; better bigger health clinic; and urban monastery with prayer and meditation chapel and even barebones lodging for people who come to volunteer and be renewed missionally; and we are partnering with them on land for one of our community garden sites now, and want to buy a whole city block across from their property for an outdoor A Third Place Center and livingkitchen and pocket park for the area that is a bridge between the two poorest parts of our low income area, and at a juncture for racial demographics as well). And we made special thankfulness cards for our windows, and lit special candles, and have been singing a lot more lately in worship, and more spirited; it is great to see our two year old member halt his roaming when he hears certain songs we sing each Sunday and come to join our circle and hold hands :)...the power of a common liturgy.
This 10 am Sunday, Nov. 29, we will have our First Sunday of Advent Worship Service focusing on Peace, with special litany and also some discussion of the biblical story based on scholars presentations on a DVD (to be followed in Advent on Dec. 6 with focus on Joy, Dec. 13 on Love, and Dec. 20 on Hope; with our Christmas Eve candlelight lessons and carols and communion beginning at 11 pm and ending at midnight).
This Sunday, following our worship and common meal, we will begin remodelling the Giving Room to get ready for expanded food pantry, for consignments, for a healthy eating cafe space, and continued clothing donation room, with a new kidspace inside it, and a new wider opening and welcoming space where Let Turley Bloom will promote itself and its garden projects. Stop by our Project Day and lend a hand. (If you don't see me there all afternoon it's because I will be getting ready for a non-heart related medical procedure early this next morning; keep me as ever in your prayers, thanks).
We will be continuing all the other offerings--a special crafts night for all arts and crafts folks to share and learn and just talk and show their wares and wishes, Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 6:30 pm, and the same night we will host another foodjustice meeting; the next Tuesday Dec. 8 at 6:30 pm we will host a fun showing and discussion of the movie Greenfingers (we will have a holiday movie, Joyeaux Noel, later in the month); also in December on the 15th we will offer a program for parents of all ages about how to use the internet to help their children's education, not hinder it; and we will be working on many different local projects and services tied in to our ongoing events and partnerships.
And Right now outside the center on our portable electric sign one side reads: No More Stuff Give Love Instead Celebrate Friday Buy Nothing Day. We do our part by giving stuff away, as a clearinghouse of sorts for stuff, and will be again holding a big free book event for all ages, and encouraging people to spiritually declutter their lives too.
I titled this column An Altar in the World, an homage to the wonderful new book by that name by Barbara Brown Taylor. But it also signifies what we do here in our part of the northernedge of Tulsa, and why. Her previous book was Leaving Church, and we too, as church, have left church as most people have known it; now we take on the task of not only creating an altar in the midst of the world, our community center in which we worship and serve Christ by seeking to be mediocre followers of a first century carpenter, but also finding ways to help people create other alters in their worlds, of work, and of home, and in their relationships of many sorts, in their gardens, along their roads, in their random acts of kindness and beauty and blessings.
And it occurs to me that the titles of her chapters in the book also are touchstones for what we do here, and what, when we fail to do them, at least we know what we are moving toward becoming. Think over this past year's columns and accounts and dreams and surprises and see how they in their essence are reflected by these practices of how one builds an altar in the world: the practice of waking up to God (vision, seeing anew); the practice of paying attention (reverence); the practice of wearing skin (incarnation, perhaps the most important one for the incarnational church, and the most challenging); the practice of walking on the earth (groundedness); the practice of getting lost (wilderness); the practice of encountering others (community); the practice of living with purpose (vocation); the practice of saying no (sabbath); the practice of carrying water (physical labor); the practice of feeling pain (breakthrough); the practice of being present to God (prayer); the practice of pronouncing blessings (benediction).
Local folks, this book will be the annual gift for our study, for our ever hoped-for spiritual retreat away in the new year, as we inspire ourselves into surprising ourselves ever again.
To all, a Thanksgiving full of freedom, of community, of grace, of belovedness, and living for and with others into the fullness of being God's own particular chosenness You.
If you feel called to participate in the mission of the church through us, by the way, especially at this end of the year time when some are looking at end of the year deductions and/or are simply moved by the Spirit they hear stirring within them to do something outlandishly beyond themselves, checks payable to A Third Place Community Foundation, 6514 N. Peoria Ave., Turley, OK 74126 (or Tulsa, same zipcode, gets to us the same) are greatly appreciated. You can make them out to Epiphany Church or The LivingRoom Church but they will just be funnelled over to the Community Center eventually. You can always chat with me at 918-691-3223 or 918-430-1150 or 918-794-4637 too. Join the Experiment in Progressive and Missional church.
blessings, thanks, and of course more soon,
Ron
Type rest of the post here
From this community where all money goes into mission, where all our volunteers, and where we are guests in our own created place for others, here in this abandoned place of empire:
Much has been going on. We took over providing a community breakfast; and though we fed 20 last Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day itself, this year, this past Sunday we fed 100 and included a performance for all by Johnny Cervantes and The Oklahomans classic country band; earlier in worship we had our annual Reverse Offering giving back cash to people who will put it into the world in small acts of justice and compassion done with great love to change the world, and then come back on Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday to share stories about their decisions, any partnerships they fostered with it, and what an affect it had.
I will relate from last year how one decision is still giving a year later. One family of five pooled their offerings and bought great looking and healthy standard shelves for our fledgling food pantry, which made it more professional looking and spurred on additional donations and then at the UUCF Revival the folks who came out to the Center spruced the pantry up even more, and from it we took on a whole food justice mission as a priority working with our OU graduate school partners, and that has led us to becoming one of the major partners in a whirlwind of relationships and helping coordinate community gardens, new grocery stores, healthy cornerstore initiatives, school sponsored gardens and food growing programs, all in the past couple of months with new grants underway and hope and possibilites to come. Out of this will come this Spring a focus on creating new and varied entrepeurship and micro-investment and other ways to create the gift of work to more and more in our dire economic and underserved area...In many ways this effort was propelled by that family's gift decision, and it of course by our decision to live missionally and do the reverse offering. And that story is one that we could trace because it happened in connection with our community center; think of the stories we can't trace because people's decisions on how to use their gift happened in unseen and unreportable ways at least to us.
We have celebrated All Saints Sunday, and we celebrated with the Turley United Methodist Church its 100th year in the community (I prepared and delivered the story of its history during the centennial worship service; its old building now vacant is one we want to buy and fix up and transform into a larger community center, foodjustice center; better bigger health clinic; and urban monastery with prayer and meditation chapel and even barebones lodging for people who come to volunteer and be renewed missionally; and we are partnering with them on land for one of our community garden sites now, and want to buy a whole city block across from their property for an outdoor A Third Place Center and livingkitchen and pocket park for the area that is a bridge between the two poorest parts of our low income area, and at a juncture for racial demographics as well). And we made special thankfulness cards for our windows, and lit special candles, and have been singing a lot more lately in worship, and more spirited; it is great to see our two year old member halt his roaming when he hears certain songs we sing each Sunday and come to join our circle and hold hands :)...the power of a common liturgy.
This 10 am Sunday, Nov. 29, we will have our First Sunday of Advent Worship Service focusing on Peace, with special litany and also some discussion of the biblical story based on scholars presentations on a DVD (to be followed in Advent on Dec. 6 with focus on Joy, Dec. 13 on Love, and Dec. 20 on Hope; with our Christmas Eve candlelight lessons and carols and communion beginning at 11 pm and ending at midnight).
This Sunday, following our worship and common meal, we will begin remodelling the Giving Room to get ready for expanded food pantry, for consignments, for a healthy eating cafe space, and continued clothing donation room, with a new kidspace inside it, and a new wider opening and welcoming space where Let Turley Bloom will promote itself and its garden projects. Stop by our Project Day and lend a hand. (If you don't see me there all afternoon it's because I will be getting ready for a non-heart related medical procedure early this next morning; keep me as ever in your prayers, thanks).
We will be continuing all the other offerings--a special crafts night for all arts and crafts folks to share and learn and just talk and show their wares and wishes, Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 6:30 pm, and the same night we will host another foodjustice meeting; the next Tuesday Dec. 8 at 6:30 pm we will host a fun showing and discussion of the movie Greenfingers (we will have a holiday movie, Joyeaux Noel, later in the month); also in December on the 15th we will offer a program for parents of all ages about how to use the internet to help their children's education, not hinder it; and we will be working on many different local projects and services tied in to our ongoing events and partnerships.
And Right now outside the center on our portable electric sign one side reads: No More Stuff Give Love Instead Celebrate Friday Buy Nothing Day. We do our part by giving stuff away, as a clearinghouse of sorts for stuff, and will be again holding a big free book event for all ages, and encouraging people to spiritually declutter their lives too.
I titled this column An Altar in the World, an homage to the wonderful new book by that name by Barbara Brown Taylor. But it also signifies what we do here in our part of the northernedge of Tulsa, and why. Her previous book was Leaving Church, and we too, as church, have left church as most people have known it; now we take on the task of not only creating an altar in the midst of the world, our community center in which we worship and serve Christ by seeking to be mediocre followers of a first century carpenter, but also finding ways to help people create other alters in their worlds, of work, and of home, and in their relationships of many sorts, in their gardens, along their roads, in their random acts of kindness and beauty and blessings.
And it occurs to me that the titles of her chapters in the book also are touchstones for what we do here, and what, when we fail to do them, at least we know what we are moving toward becoming. Think over this past year's columns and accounts and dreams and surprises and see how they in their essence are reflected by these practices of how one builds an altar in the world: the practice of waking up to God (vision, seeing anew); the practice of paying attention (reverence); the practice of wearing skin (incarnation, perhaps the most important one for the incarnational church, and the most challenging); the practice of walking on the earth (groundedness); the practice of getting lost (wilderness); the practice of encountering others (community); the practice of living with purpose (vocation); the practice of saying no (sabbath); the practice of carrying water (physical labor); the practice of feeling pain (breakthrough); the practice of being present to God (prayer); the practice of pronouncing blessings (benediction).
Local folks, this book will be the annual gift for our study, for our ever hoped-for spiritual retreat away in the new year, as we inspire ourselves into surprising ourselves ever again.
To all, a Thanksgiving full of freedom, of community, of grace, of belovedness, and living for and with others into the fullness of being God's own particular chosenness You.
If you feel called to participate in the mission of the church through us, by the way, especially at this end of the year time when some are looking at end of the year deductions and/or are simply moved by the Spirit they hear stirring within them to do something outlandishly beyond themselves, checks payable to A Third Place Community Foundation, 6514 N. Peoria Ave., Turley, OK 74126 (or Tulsa, same zipcode, gets to us the same) are greatly appreciated. You can make them out to Epiphany Church or The LivingRoom Church but they will just be funnelled over to the Community Center eventually. You can always chat with me at 918-691-3223 or 918-430-1150 or 918-794-4637 too. Join the Experiment in Progressive and Missional church.
blessings, thanks, and of course more soon,
Ron
Type rest of the post here
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Location and Cost and Diversity and more about Ministerial Education/Formation
I really like what colleagues Christine Robinson at http://www.iminister.blogspot.com/ and Scott Wells at http://www.revscottwells.com/ have to say, again, on issues related to the system of ministerial education, and especially with Scott, on wondering about greater options to the "standard seminary approach" to formation for at least most denominational oriented church ministers. My questions run even deeper in questioning the system, I think, and proposing a shift to "seminary congregations" dispersed around the country, say 10 of them.
But let me say, as I work in part for a seminary, that I love seminaries, gained soooo much from them, and can't imagine being the kind of minister I am without them, to a large degree. In fact, my love for the seminary is why I want to see them de-centralize and be re-located missionally so more can be touched by their mission, and they can be touched more by the mission of others. The question that needs to come up for all churches, institutions of all kinds, and seminaries, and especially here for the system of liberal Protestant ministerial formation, is: given the changing new context of religion and ministry and leadership and churches, if we were starting over from virtual scratch, how would we do it? We are the inheritors of much for good and ill now, and we can't undo that even if we wanted to, but we need to at least hold forth the vision of what could be, needs to be, so that we can see what is possible and be surprised by what is more possible than we can imagine.
We are on the path to this already with more and more online courses (so faculty don't always have to be in physical proximity with students), with the plethora of non-UU seminaries educating ministers for UU churches (such as my seminary, http://www.ptstulsa.edu/), with churches and seminaries moving more toward leadership formation irrespective of ordination outcome, extending their degree programs and non-degree programs, and as churches are looking more at the old model of educating, raising up, from within. And with the great rise in community ministries extra-parish. Collaboration is the new watchword.
So, imagine the seminary libraries online more or completely online for all practical purposes; imagine a scholarship institute that cultivates the research interests of seminary faculty and others related to the work of ministry, either in a setting of its own or that exists as a convocation, perhaps in a retreat center managed by another institution already so that you don't have building costs limiting you; and this institute could be the site of offering intensives where faculty and students from around the country could meet, but it wouldn't be a requirement to do so, much as the situation is now.
And imagine 10 congregations around the country being identified and resourced as seminary congregations, with the UUA getting involved primarily to help initiate the change by setting a deadline for when it will stop its current system, and then as also mentioned at the final fellowship process end, to certify and connect and celebrate associationally the ministries produced. It seems it would connect formation and theological education into the life of the churches in a region in a new way, could help them with leadership, could spur on covenantal lateral relations and even a kind of regional capital campaign to help fund the work.
Hard road to get there, as Scott mentions in his piece, and hard to get even someplace like it I suppose (when so many UU churches reap the theological education funded and endowed by non-UUs; a lot of addiction all around to kick), but with all the changes afoot or on the horizon for UU seminaries and churches and our ministry demographics and desired settings and the economic and cultural changes, this could be the time to have change thrust upon us. And, thinking missionally or publicly, do it all in the framework not of how do we produce new leaders for our own organizations, but how do we do it to produce what our various areas need, and carry it out in collaboration with others not a part of our sphere?
These 10 congregations might enlarge themselves by using the project as a way to engage with other non-UU churches, major non-profits, and for-profits interested in the vision. Not sure but how this might bring costs to students down too in the long run as we shift the locus.
This is connected too with the sometimes stated desire for more entrepeneurial and bi-vocational ministries and how to plant in a multiple of cultures. Many seminaries in the liberal Protestant tradition just have not had the expertise or the focus or the will to engage with ministerial formation and practice in the light of entrepenuerism and church planting and organic and missional callings as the more conservative Protestant seminaries and church-based seminaries have done, not to mention as have the unaccredited non-degree but all important parachurch networks. I think going to a more local, congregation-seminary system can only help that situation by getting theological education more into the needs of the churches and able to draw on expertise beyond itself to help meet the needs.
And I would like to see the 10 congregations picked not only for their passion and mission and resources which could handle a bump in identity and mission, but also for some theological particular depth in orientation besides trying to be able to produce a generic UU minister to a generic anything to anybody UU congregation; at least some might offer to go deeper into leadership in the life of a Christian, humanist, etc. formation. Another reason, lol, besides regionalism, to shoot for ten...
Start with the congregations and what they do well already and have to offer and think how to turn them inside out to expand and grow into having seminary tracks connected to them. All of them will be in places where there are other institutions offering courses such as biblical languages, e.g., and care, and systems dynamics, and many of the other knowledge-based classes that students connected with the church could draw upon.
Let those 10 seminary-churches replace the three regional MFC subcommittees (ministerial fellowship committee); let the one national MFC be focused on the overall work of the 10 and relate with them to the UUA and vice-versa and be advocates and accountability with them, instead of being individual-minister-to-be oriented. Let the internships and student ministries be rolled into the life and work of those 10 seminary-churches. Make sure of course that there are CPE (clinical pastoral education) opportunities in the cities of the 10 sites.
Connected to the mission of this blog, in fact I think the 3Rs of missional church might be a roadmap here too. 1. Relocate the formation (responsibility, authority, and trust for it along with the physical relocations); 2. Redistribute resources (move online with library, and many classes, promoting of course to those pursuing ordination and those not and don't worry too much about that since ordination itself is a matter best left to congregational discernment, and redistribute funds by redirecting local donors and funding to the new sites); and 3. Reconcile (churches and other groups with theological education and leadership, and also promoting cultural reconciliation by creating new leaders for new or underserved areas with new groups).
Since we are just daydreaming our way along to a different kind of church.
End.
Type rest of the post here
But let me say, as I work in part for a seminary, that I love seminaries, gained soooo much from them, and can't imagine being the kind of minister I am without them, to a large degree. In fact, my love for the seminary is why I want to see them de-centralize and be re-located missionally so more can be touched by their mission, and they can be touched more by the mission of others. The question that needs to come up for all churches, institutions of all kinds, and seminaries, and especially here for the system of liberal Protestant ministerial formation, is: given the changing new context of religion and ministry and leadership and churches, if we were starting over from virtual scratch, how would we do it? We are the inheritors of much for good and ill now, and we can't undo that even if we wanted to, but we need to at least hold forth the vision of what could be, needs to be, so that we can see what is possible and be surprised by what is more possible than we can imagine.
We are on the path to this already with more and more online courses (so faculty don't always have to be in physical proximity with students), with the plethora of non-UU seminaries educating ministers for UU churches (such as my seminary, http://www.ptstulsa.edu/), with churches and seminaries moving more toward leadership formation irrespective of ordination outcome, extending their degree programs and non-degree programs, and as churches are looking more at the old model of educating, raising up, from within. And with the great rise in community ministries extra-parish. Collaboration is the new watchword.
So, imagine the seminary libraries online more or completely online for all practical purposes; imagine a scholarship institute that cultivates the research interests of seminary faculty and others related to the work of ministry, either in a setting of its own or that exists as a convocation, perhaps in a retreat center managed by another institution already so that you don't have building costs limiting you; and this institute could be the site of offering intensives where faculty and students from around the country could meet, but it wouldn't be a requirement to do so, much as the situation is now.
And imagine 10 congregations around the country being identified and resourced as seminary congregations, with the UUA getting involved primarily to help initiate the change by setting a deadline for when it will stop its current system, and then as also mentioned at the final fellowship process end, to certify and connect and celebrate associationally the ministries produced. It seems it would connect formation and theological education into the life of the churches in a region in a new way, could help them with leadership, could spur on covenantal lateral relations and even a kind of regional capital campaign to help fund the work.
Hard road to get there, as Scott mentions in his piece, and hard to get even someplace like it I suppose (when so many UU churches reap the theological education funded and endowed by non-UUs; a lot of addiction all around to kick), but with all the changes afoot or on the horizon for UU seminaries and churches and our ministry demographics and desired settings and the economic and cultural changes, this could be the time to have change thrust upon us. And, thinking missionally or publicly, do it all in the framework not of how do we produce new leaders for our own organizations, but how do we do it to produce what our various areas need, and carry it out in collaboration with others not a part of our sphere?
These 10 congregations might enlarge themselves by using the project as a way to engage with other non-UU churches, major non-profits, and for-profits interested in the vision. Not sure but how this might bring costs to students down too in the long run as we shift the locus.
This is connected too with the sometimes stated desire for more entrepeneurial and bi-vocational ministries and how to plant in a multiple of cultures. Many seminaries in the liberal Protestant tradition just have not had the expertise or the focus or the will to engage with ministerial formation and practice in the light of entrepenuerism and church planting and organic and missional callings as the more conservative Protestant seminaries and church-based seminaries have done, not to mention as have the unaccredited non-degree but all important parachurch networks. I think going to a more local, congregation-seminary system can only help that situation by getting theological education more into the needs of the churches and able to draw on expertise beyond itself to help meet the needs.
And I would like to see the 10 congregations picked not only for their passion and mission and resources which could handle a bump in identity and mission, but also for some theological particular depth in orientation besides trying to be able to produce a generic UU minister to a generic anything to anybody UU congregation; at least some might offer to go deeper into leadership in the life of a Christian, humanist, etc. formation. Another reason, lol, besides regionalism, to shoot for ten...
Start with the congregations and what they do well already and have to offer and think how to turn them inside out to expand and grow into having seminary tracks connected to them. All of them will be in places where there are other institutions offering courses such as biblical languages, e.g., and care, and systems dynamics, and many of the other knowledge-based classes that students connected with the church could draw upon.
Let those 10 seminary-churches replace the three regional MFC subcommittees (ministerial fellowship committee); let the one national MFC be focused on the overall work of the 10 and relate with them to the UUA and vice-versa and be advocates and accountability with them, instead of being individual-minister-to-be oriented. Let the internships and student ministries be rolled into the life and work of those 10 seminary-churches. Make sure of course that there are CPE (clinical pastoral education) opportunities in the cities of the 10 sites.
Connected to the mission of this blog, in fact I think the 3Rs of missional church might be a roadmap here too. 1. Relocate the formation (responsibility, authority, and trust for it along with the physical relocations); 2. Redistribute resources (move online with library, and many classes, promoting of course to those pursuing ordination and those not and don't worry too much about that since ordination itself is a matter best left to congregational discernment, and redistribute funds by redirecting local donors and funding to the new sites); and 3. Reconcile (churches and other groups with theological education and leadership, and also promoting cultural reconciliation by creating new leaders for new or underserved areas with new groups).
Since we are just daydreaming our way along to a different kind of church.
End.
Type rest of the post here
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
New This's and That's: Stringfellow, Volf, new programs; All Saints; progressive Christian DVD
Just got back from a few days retreat in Cleveland OH with the UU Christian Fellowship Board. We stayed in the wonderful RiversEdge Center, hospitality by the Sisters of Saint Joseph. If you need a place with a variety of good programs and resources, up to date, and yet with the touchstones of worship in the ancient styles, check it out. I include it now along with some of my favorite places for retreat: Sisters of Saint Margaret in Boston area, Walker Center in Boston area, Glastonbury Abby in Hingham Mass, Camp Allen near Houston.
Looking forward to a Christmastide to Epiphany vacation to Edinburgh, London, and Paris.
I loved being introduced to the writings of William Stringfellow, Episcopalian, lawyer for the oppressed, back when I was in seminary (thanks Gary Blaine), and on my recent trip I discovered a treasure trove of his writings in the bookstore at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Cleveland. www.trinitycleveland.org. They have created a good missional sense of place along with, of course, a beautiful worshipping space. The cathedral is open to walk-ins off the street, locals hang out on the steps, there is a common area that looked like it had wifi free and a place to sit and eat, there is a coffeeshop, and the bookstore, and probably much more than we had time to explore. But a good place with friendly people embodying the gospel.
Our church at a third place revolves around those three Rs; relocation, redistribution, reconciliation, and Stringfellow's work reflects those three Rs too; I am enjoying his final book The Politics of Spirituality, good forceful biblical spirituality that grounds the spiritual in the common life of us all, i.e. politics. I wish Stringfellow had lived long enough, as a gay Episcopalian, to have enjoyed the movement of his particular church toward the justice and radical hospitality he lived and wrote about. In this All Saints season he is one of my saints. His version of spirituality is not about individualism and feel goodism, but is one and the same with engaged action. If by chance you haven't experienced Stringfellow it can change your understanding of church, religion, and biblical imperatives.
I also recently attended a seminar at Hillcrest Hospital in Tulsa where Miroslav Volf lectured all day on Forgiveness in a culture stripped of grace. Wonderful. I rushed out and bought his book from which the lectures in general came: It is called Free of Charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace. Volf is with the Yale Divinity School and a lot of his work and good resources can be found at www.yale.edu/faith. Sign up for their email newsletter.
Volf's lectures reminded me of the spirit of radical grace and hospitality that has guided our transformation with The LivingRoom Church into a missional faith community and the opening and operation of our A Third Place Center. He talks about the three modes of human relationships as taking, trading, and giving. So much of our culture is based on taking and trading; it is the dominant mode of living. And yet the gospel call is for life given to others because we have received life abundance, because God is a giving God in great creation and diversity of spirit. How much of our church values though are based on either a model of taking and building up of one's self and one's own community, or especially more and more on the model of trading, where there is a fee and cost for everything, all in the guise of reality. Against all that Jesus says to create relationships and communities of radical giving and forgiving, that it is the surest way toward love and real accountability and justice. Using those principles, in A Third Place we have a place where people receive health care free of charge, computer access free of charge, food and meals free of charge, a library free of charge, can serve others free of charge, create gardens, help school children, find and spread community spirit in a place of neglect and abandonment and where the culture is skewed toward taking and trading.
Finally, in light of the above, a report that this past Saturday night our group of a few "mediocre followers of a first century carpenter" organized a splendid festival party happening on Halloween night for our whole community, with close to 200 people participating. People from all parts of life, races, ages, people just getting out of jail, people struggling in many ways, but for one night pausing to come and be with others, to bring others to the party, free of charge. I know some Christians have this negative thing about Halloween, but if they would allow themselves to experience and to see beneath the surfaces of an event like our Halloween event, they would experience it as a Jesus kind of thing.
Stay tuned for much more about how we are getting involved in new ventures growing our food pantry and food and health programs, partnering with more and more schools (we hosted a great brainstorming and grant planning session a week or so ago; we are hosting a free program for info on weatherization projects for low income housing tomorrow Nov. 4 at 7 pm; we hosted a gathering on the census; we will be showing the documentary "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" Tuesday Nov. 10 at 7 pm with a meal and community gardening planning; and more to come.); partnering more with the park programs; we hosted a great OU social work class looking at how to resource some of our vision plans for our local area. We are truly a church turned inside out and upside down in the spirit of Jesus.
And our worship on Sundays has been spirited. More singing from a variety of traditions; we celebrated and lit candles for All Saints Day on Sunday to remember those famous or known only to us who have meant so much to us; we have had great conversation growing out of watching the brand new DVD on progressive Christianity, geared for young adults especially, Dream by the www.livingthequestions.com group. As we head toward the holidays the life of our small band of freely following Jesus folks is strong as we strive to make Jesus visible in the world; much more to come so thanks for walking with us even through cyberspace, or come visit and spend time with us if you are in the area.
Type rest of the post here
Looking forward to a Christmastide to Epiphany vacation to Edinburgh, London, and Paris.
I loved being introduced to the writings of William Stringfellow, Episcopalian, lawyer for the oppressed, back when I was in seminary (thanks Gary Blaine), and on my recent trip I discovered a treasure trove of his writings in the bookstore at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Cleveland. www.trinitycleveland.org. They have created a good missional sense of place along with, of course, a beautiful worshipping space. The cathedral is open to walk-ins off the street, locals hang out on the steps, there is a common area that looked like it had wifi free and a place to sit and eat, there is a coffeeshop, and the bookstore, and probably much more than we had time to explore. But a good place with friendly people embodying the gospel.
Our church at a third place revolves around those three Rs; relocation, redistribution, reconciliation, and Stringfellow's work reflects those three Rs too; I am enjoying his final book The Politics of Spirituality, good forceful biblical spirituality that grounds the spiritual in the common life of us all, i.e. politics. I wish Stringfellow had lived long enough, as a gay Episcopalian, to have enjoyed the movement of his particular church toward the justice and radical hospitality he lived and wrote about. In this All Saints season he is one of my saints. His version of spirituality is not about individualism and feel goodism, but is one and the same with engaged action. If by chance you haven't experienced Stringfellow it can change your understanding of church, religion, and biblical imperatives.
I also recently attended a seminar at Hillcrest Hospital in Tulsa where Miroslav Volf lectured all day on Forgiveness in a culture stripped of grace. Wonderful. I rushed out and bought his book from which the lectures in general came: It is called Free of Charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace. Volf is with the Yale Divinity School and a lot of his work and good resources can be found at www.yale.edu/faith. Sign up for their email newsletter.
Volf's lectures reminded me of the spirit of radical grace and hospitality that has guided our transformation with The LivingRoom Church into a missional faith community and the opening and operation of our A Third Place Center. He talks about the three modes of human relationships as taking, trading, and giving. So much of our culture is based on taking and trading; it is the dominant mode of living. And yet the gospel call is for life given to others because we have received life abundance, because God is a giving God in great creation and diversity of spirit. How much of our church values though are based on either a model of taking and building up of one's self and one's own community, or especially more and more on the model of trading, where there is a fee and cost for everything, all in the guise of reality. Against all that Jesus says to create relationships and communities of radical giving and forgiving, that it is the surest way toward love and real accountability and justice. Using those principles, in A Third Place we have a place where people receive health care free of charge, computer access free of charge, food and meals free of charge, a library free of charge, can serve others free of charge, create gardens, help school children, find and spread community spirit in a place of neglect and abandonment and where the culture is skewed toward taking and trading.
Finally, in light of the above, a report that this past Saturday night our group of a few "mediocre followers of a first century carpenter" organized a splendid festival party happening on Halloween night for our whole community, with close to 200 people participating. People from all parts of life, races, ages, people just getting out of jail, people struggling in many ways, but for one night pausing to come and be with others, to bring others to the party, free of charge. I know some Christians have this negative thing about Halloween, but if they would allow themselves to experience and to see beneath the surfaces of an event like our Halloween event, they would experience it as a Jesus kind of thing.
Stay tuned for much more about how we are getting involved in new ventures growing our food pantry and food and health programs, partnering with more and more schools (we hosted a great brainstorming and grant planning session a week or so ago; we are hosting a free program for info on weatherization projects for low income housing tomorrow Nov. 4 at 7 pm; we hosted a gathering on the census; we will be showing the documentary "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" Tuesday Nov. 10 at 7 pm with a meal and community gardening planning; and more to come.); partnering more with the park programs; we hosted a great OU social work class looking at how to resource some of our vision plans for our local area. We are truly a church turned inside out and upside down in the spirit of Jesus.
And our worship on Sundays has been spirited. More singing from a variety of traditions; we celebrated and lit candles for All Saints Day on Sunday to remember those famous or known only to us who have meant so much to us; we have had great conversation growing out of watching the brand new DVD on progressive Christianity, geared for young adults especially, Dream by the www.livingthequestions.com group. As we head toward the holidays the life of our small band of freely following Jesus folks is strong as we strive to make Jesus visible in the world; much more to come so thanks for walking with us even through cyberspace, or come visit and spend time with us if you are in the area.
Type rest of the post here
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