If you are just finding out about what we do here, welcome, and here are some links from previous posts, a kind of best of, that will explain more about why we are doing what we are doing here...go to www.turleyok.blogspot.com for more recent updates.
Here is a post of posts that includes commentary on us, growth, church planting, missional church, and more: http://progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com/2010/10/church-planting-101.html. Don't forget to go to the commentary on the UU Growth Summit in Denver last year.
To learn more about the Three R's, relocation, redistribution, and reconciliation, check out www.ccda.org and the powerful story about Civil Rights activist John Perkins...
To actually go deeper with us, check out some of these books that have inspired us:
http://missionalprogressives.blogspot.com/2010/10/few-starter-books-on-being-missional.html
Also, check out some reasons for using the words we use and common misperceptions at
http://missionalprogressives.blogspot.com/2010/10/common-misperceptions-of-missional.html
A shorthand summary of where the "missional church" as a new movement has come from most recently, check out this description at my:
http://missionalprogressives.blogspot.com/2010/10/brief-summary-theological-history-and.html
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Want to be a part of our Ministry in Abandoned Places?
We appreciate every bit of support we get from others in our community, surrounding area, and across the world. We are living proof of miracles among the ruins. And we are just beginning. Amazing what has happened in only four years and now in our new place of our own so much more is blooming...Look at this list, check back as we update it, and thank you for your support. If you are just finding out about us from publicity articles, please explore our website here to learn more about us.
---Plumbing or money for plumbing as we get the first phase of bathroom repair underway.
---Computers, desktops or laptops, for the Computer Center, or money to get some refurbished ones
---Electrical or money for electrical work anticipated to handle the increased computer center
---Food for pantry
---Website and Facebook Site Creation
---Libraries Set Up Help
---Musicians for our Coffeehouse Concerts
---Paint and/or painters to cover over the vandalism we suffered
---Landscape and grounds work to do French Drain, etc. Or adopt a bed at our community gardenkitchenpark (which will have its own wish list soon)
---Picnic tables for our outside welcome areas
---brochures for all sorts of community resources and put together our info kiosk
---children's library, beanbags, playspace for inside and outside
---Artists for Community Art Day Mar. 25 and for other art days
---Stained glass artist to help repair vandalized windows in main room/chapel
---We have a sign place for a permanent electric sign naming our space; sign work or money for sign work
---People to lead book or movie or game nights or crafts coop
---People to lead workshops on relationships, healthy living, neighborhood safety
---Coordinaters for Job Fair
---Buy Ads for Us or Help Promote Events and Resources
---Adopt Us For A Month: $350 for mortgage, $230 for insurance, $400 utilities, or Pay for a newspaper or magazine subscription
---Equip our New Kitchen.
---Contribute to Roof Repair
---Come to Work Day
---More To Come
Use Donate Button or contact information above, or call with ideas or other ways to help which you may think of.
---Plumbing or money for plumbing as we get the first phase of bathroom repair underway.
---Computers, desktops or laptops, for the Computer Center, or money to get some refurbished ones
---Electrical or money for electrical work anticipated to handle the increased computer center
---Food for pantry
---Website and Facebook Site Creation
---Libraries Set Up Help
---Musicians for our Coffeehouse Concerts
---Paint and/or painters to cover over the vandalism we suffered
---Landscape and grounds work to do French Drain, etc. Or adopt a bed at our community gardenkitchenpark (which will have its own wish list soon)
---Picnic tables for our outside welcome areas
---brochures for all sorts of community resources and put together our info kiosk
---children's library, beanbags, playspace for inside and outside
---Artists for Community Art Day Mar. 25 and for other art days
---Stained glass artist to help repair vandalized windows in main room/chapel
---We have a sign place for a permanent electric sign naming our space; sign work or money for sign work
---People to lead book or movie or game nights or crafts coop
---People to lead workshops on relationships, healthy living, neighborhood safety
---Coordinaters for Job Fair
---Buy Ads for Us or Help Promote Events and Resources
---Adopt Us For A Month: $350 for mortgage, $230 for insurance, $400 utilities, or Pay for a newspaper or magazine subscription
---Equip our New Kitchen.
---Contribute to Roof Repair
---Come to Work Day
---More To Come
Use Donate Button or contact information above, or call with ideas or other ways to help which you may think of.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Greetings To Visitors From UU World
Thanks to all who are finding us from this magazine article: http://www.uuworld.org/currentissue.shtml and thanks to the writer, editors, and photographer. This is my chance to give some acknowledgments to others.
Thanks to all who live and serve here with us who are an inspiration to me by their large heart for our neighbors and their passion for finding God and embodying Jesus in ways that others find foolish, un-cool, and dangerous. We know that even though the Empire, and those who choose it, have emptied and abandoned the area (as so many similiar areas in so many cities and even small towns), that it is never truly abandoned as long as love is incarnated through small acts of justice. Thanks to all who have remained here through the years, all who have returned here, all who have relocated here, all who are finding ways to spiritually relocate here. For more on us and current plans and projects and presence and to donate to support us, which is so needed now in our transition, go to www.turleyok.blogspot.com. You can also read more at this site you are on. For more on the missional ways of being church and being progressive go to my www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com.
Thanks for those who have helped guide us to this still emerging point: especially to those who have shaped the UU Christian Fellowship where I have been privileged to serve as Executive Director nationally while working locally in this ministry. How did you get the idea to do that? I am often asked. It's all about Jesus, I say. What I mean is at www.uuchristian.org. And as I have also said, my following Jesus and learning to apply theology to daily life was and continues to be inspired by my connection to Phillips Theological Seminary, an amazing place, welcoming home now for more than a generation to Unitarian Universalists, as students, staff, and faculty, for preparing for ordination or for theologial studies, and where I am also honored to be serving as adjunct faculty and director of minsterial formation for UUism. Check it out, and the online courses, at www.ptstulsa.edu. I encourage people to support both institutions and consider ways they can walk with you spiritually too.
Thanks to the colleagues here in the Tulsa area: Hope Unitarian and All Souls and First Unitarian OKC have supported us with their outreach funds and in other ways. I will be speaking at All Souls Emerson Hall Forum on Sunday, April 3, at 11:30 am on "Life and Death and Resurrection in the 74126." And thanks to my missional cohort of colleagues here from other denominations as we figure out ways to network and collaborate, and in that vein thanks also to our social justice and educational partners that have taught us too, and let us teach them, especially the faculty and students at the OU Graduate School of Social Work in Tulsa and Norman.
A little background on that cover shot: It was taken in the old parsonage next to the old abandoned church building we purchased and are transforming. It is still like it is in the picture. It is very typical of the many such houses in the neighborhoods surrounding us where 40 percent of all empty homes, and there are vast numbers of them, are no longer trying to be sold or rented. Our other recently purchased property nearby for our emerging GardenKitchenPark had similar houses we had torn down to make room for the gardens to come. This building we hope not to have to tear down, though it is severly damaged and vandalized throughout, but to turn into a garden center, recycle center, tool lending library, and demonstration of how native plants can transform an area with low maintenance. Oh, and the photo was taken on a Sunday after worship had been finished back in our former space we hadn't yet moved from, but after we had come to the new grounds to plant a tree. It has me thinking we need to hold a worship service directly here in this damaged place too.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Building The Future: Latest News and More
Hi all. Please share this with others in your institutions and personal social networks who might find common cause with us.
Quite a few weeks we have had: After the blizzard and then the great freeze, then my father's heart attack and hospitalization (he is out and well and beginning his recovery) and meetings with my mother's hospice team, the move into our new The Welcome Table Community Center is picking up again. We got everything out of the former rented space just as the blizzard hit; now we are beginning to unpack and already are having some community oriented meetings as we start to embody this new space, reclaiming an abandoned building and its grounds just as we have started on The Welcome Table Community Garden Kitchen Park nearby too. A lot of Miracles Among The Ruins continuing. Hope you can support us with your presence, volunteer help, or donations at www.turleyok.blogspot.com.
This Sunday Feb. 20 we at A Third Place Community Foundation will host a Vision Retreat for the New Building. Even as we are temporarily getting the old sanctuary space set up and are now using it, and the food pantry room, and even as the vandalism still needs to be fixed and painted over, and the plumbing isn't working, we want to keep our eyes on the horizon and be focused on why we are going to be using it in the first place, and how to best serve all our community for which we exist. We will meet at the Turley United Methodist Church, 6050 N. Johnstown, at noon for a meal and introduction and background from me, then we will go tour the new building and grounds at 5920 N. Owasso, then we will return to the Methodist church where Adriane Jaynes will lead our vision retreat. Come for as much of it as you can come. We should be finished by 4 pm. RSVP if you can make it.
Building the Future:
Visioning Session For New Building Use
Sunday, February 20, 2011
1. Lunch
a. Introduction/Overview – Ron
2. Tour of New Building
3. How can this space serve the community?
a. What does the community need that could be provided here?
b. What partners could we bring along to help?
c. What values do we want the building and the grounds to represent?
4. What have we done that we want to keep?
a. Programs?
b. Activities?
c. Building usage?
5. What have we not done, that we would like to be doing?
6. Sharing our big dreams
We have many project going on now: work on grants and work days for the Garden Park and for Cherokee Elementary School, and for the Safe Routes Sidewalk Project, and for the McLain High School Initiative, and for the community forums for the OU Specialty Health Clinic, and for our leading role in the developing Community Health Workers Project, in addition to the building and Center work. Already we will soon have the food pantry up and running and a little library and a computer center and coffee and chat and game space and our chapel space, and hope to get the recovery group meeting again with us soon, most of which is all in the original sanctuary part of the building. It is a small version of what will come, and we still have the walls with graffiti and broken windows and busted doors and no plumbing and are a little more than broke at the end of each month. But like the seeds under the several feet of snow this past week, things are germinating under the surface. See how far we have come by visiting www.turleyok.blogspot.com.
And the gatherings for The Welcome Table Church continue too; we are looking forward to hosting a Lenten and Easter DVD series on the Economy of Love from Shane Claiborne about the need and ways of supporting one another and building an economy that benefits the least and supports community instead of breaking it apart. We will be scheduling our Movie of the Month for Black History Month. We hold our weekly communion worship and common meal. Read more about the spiritual side of what we do and why at www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com.
Plus check out the ministry I am privileged to be serving as Executive Director at www.uuchristian.org; our plans for General Assembly and the Revival in Washington, D.C. are underway and we have weekly bible reflection on our Virtual Monastery site and work with small groups around the world. And this semester I am teaching and online Supervised Ministry course and also a UU Practical Theology independent study and am director of ministerial formation for unitarian universalism at Phillips Theological Seminary, www.ptstulsa.edu. I hope you will find ways to support both the UU Christian Fellowship and PTS for the great work they are doing; none of what we are involved in here now would be possible without the learnings I have had through both of these institutions.
Come be with us during the week and look for ways to partner with us. We can always schedule volunteer work days with groups to meet your schedule. Worship is held most times for the time being on Sundays at 11 am at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. Visit our websites for updates or call 691-3223.
Thanks and blessings,
Ron
Quite a few weeks we have had: After the blizzard and then the great freeze, then my father's heart attack and hospitalization (he is out and well and beginning his recovery) and meetings with my mother's hospice team, the move into our new The Welcome Table Community Center is picking up again. We got everything out of the former rented space just as the blizzard hit; now we are beginning to unpack and already are having some community oriented meetings as we start to embody this new space, reclaiming an abandoned building and its grounds just as we have started on The Welcome Table Community Garden Kitchen Park nearby too. A lot of Miracles Among The Ruins continuing. Hope you can support us with your presence, volunteer help, or donations at www.turleyok.blogspot.com.
This Sunday Feb. 20 we at A Third Place Community Foundation will host a Vision Retreat for the New Building. Even as we are temporarily getting the old sanctuary space set up and are now using it, and the food pantry room, and even as the vandalism still needs to be fixed and painted over, and the plumbing isn't working, we want to keep our eyes on the horizon and be focused on why we are going to be using it in the first place, and how to best serve all our community for which we exist. We will meet at the Turley United Methodist Church, 6050 N. Johnstown, at noon for a meal and introduction and background from me, then we will go tour the new building and grounds at 5920 N. Owasso, then we will return to the Methodist church where Adriane Jaynes will lead our vision retreat. Come for as much of it as you can come. We should be finished by 4 pm. RSVP if you can make it.
Building the Future:
Visioning Session For New Building Use
Sunday, February 20, 2011
1. Lunch
a. Introduction/Overview – Ron
2. Tour of New Building
3. How can this space serve the community?
a. What does the community need that could be provided here?
b. What partners could we bring along to help?
c. What values do we want the building and the grounds to represent?
4. What have we done that we want to keep?
a. Programs?
b. Activities?
c. Building usage?
5. What have we not done, that we would like to be doing?
6. Sharing our big dreams
We have many project going on now: work on grants and work days for the Garden Park and for Cherokee Elementary School, and for the Safe Routes Sidewalk Project, and for the McLain High School Initiative, and for the community forums for the OU Specialty Health Clinic, and for our leading role in the developing Community Health Workers Project, in addition to the building and Center work. Already we will soon have the food pantry up and running and a little library and a computer center and coffee and chat and game space and our chapel space, and hope to get the recovery group meeting again with us soon, most of which is all in the original sanctuary part of the building. It is a small version of what will come, and we still have the walls with graffiti and broken windows and busted doors and no plumbing and are a little more than broke at the end of each month. But like the seeds under the several feet of snow this past week, things are germinating under the surface. See how far we have come by visiting www.turleyok.blogspot.com.
And the gatherings for The Welcome Table Church continue too; we are looking forward to hosting a Lenten and Easter DVD series on the Economy of Love from Shane Claiborne about the need and ways of supporting one another and building an economy that benefits the least and supports community instead of breaking it apart. We will be scheduling our Movie of the Month for Black History Month. We hold our weekly communion worship and common meal. Read more about the spiritual side of what we do and why at www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com.
Plus check out the ministry I am privileged to be serving as Executive Director at www.uuchristian.org; our plans for General Assembly and the Revival in Washington, D.C. are underway and we have weekly bible reflection on our Virtual Monastery site and work with small groups around the world. And this semester I am teaching and online Supervised Ministry course and also a UU Practical Theology independent study and am director of ministerial formation for unitarian universalism at Phillips Theological Seminary, www.ptstulsa.edu. I hope you will find ways to support both the UU Christian Fellowship and PTS for the great work they are doing; none of what we are involved in here now would be possible without the learnings I have had through both of these institutions.
Come be with us during the week and look for ways to partner with us. We can always schedule volunteer work days with groups to meet your schedule. Worship is held most times for the time being on Sundays at 11 am at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. Visit our websites for updates or call 691-3223.
Thanks and blessings,
Ron
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Moving Day Worship
Last Sunday's liturgy for worship started in our old space we moved out of and then finished in our new building.
About Us:
Simply and Freely Following Jesus in the Spirit of Love and Justice For All. Non-creedal. Believing God’s love is for all, for all time. A missional community dedicated not to ourselves and our organization or our building but to acts of service creating a better life and world, especially for and with those most vulnerable—the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the oppressed.
Here, and wherever two or more gather together in this spirit, we become a part of the church, a people of God seeking to make the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus visible in the world. Our Welcome Table is open to all regardless of church affiliation or beliefs, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, economic status, or political persuasion—we welcome all who respect and welcome all and wish to refresh their souls for the service of God.
Invocation
Today is the day which God has made: Let us rejoice and be glad therein.
What does the Eternal require of us? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
Chalice Lighting Covenant
This is our covenant as we walk together in life as a people of God seeking to make the joyful radical compassionate Jesus visible in the world: In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve all.
From Psalm 92 (423)
Morning Songs: Dona Nobis Pacem 388, Find A Stillness 352, Spirit of Life 123, Tis A Gift 16
Readings and Reflections: 422, 435, 685, 696, 698, 704
Songs of Moving: Love Will Guide Us 131, One More Step 168, Guide My Feet 348, There Is More Love Somewhere 95, I’m On My Way 116
Woyaya
We are going, heaven knows where we are going, We'll know we're there.We will get there, heaven knows how we will get there, We know we will.It will be hard we know, And the road will be muddy and rough,But we'll get there, heaven knows how we will get there, We know we will.We are going, heaven knows where we are going, We'll know we're there.
Picking Up Symbols and Moving To New Building
Reassembling In New Building
Candles For Prayers, Blessings
O God help us to be instruments of Thy peace. Where hate rules let us bring love;
where injury, pardon; where discord, union; where doubt, faith; where despair, hope;
where darkness, light; where sorrow, joy. Let us strive more to comfort others than to be comforted; to understand others--than to be understood; to love others--than to be loved. For it is in giving, that we receive, and in pardoning, that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are raised to eternal life.
Songs of Prayer: Amazing Grace 205, Precious Lord 199, Glory Glory 201
Please share prayers and blessings, joys and sorrows, as we light our candles of community.
Now we join in saying the prayer Jesus taught for all those who would follow in his way of radical compassion, courage, conscience, commitment, and community.
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, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Communion Homily: Inheriting The Voices and Visions of those who have come before us in this building, a diverse group beginning with those who founded the first church in our area here on this spot in 1909, Turley Methodist Episcopal, then the Witt Memorial Indian Methodist, then the predominantly African American Zion Baptist. They will be here with us, as are all those who have been with our community in the past who are not with us now, and those who are with us now but could not be here today, and those whom we will meet here for the first time. We inherit this vandalized space, incomplete space, and let it stand for all the brokenness of our lives and our world, as we break the bread of life, but in sharing it become whole, and as we pass the cup of hope for the new spirit of this place and of this people.
Let Us Break Bread Together 406
Passing the Bread of Life and the Cup of Hope
We’re Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table 407
Benedictions Shalom Havyreem and Go Now In Peace 413
Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011
6514 N. Peoria Ave. and 5920 N. Owasso Ave., Turley, OK 74126
The Welcome Table Church
A free universalist Christian missional community
A free universalist Christian missional community
About Us:
Simply and Freely Following Jesus in the Spirit of Love and Justice For All. Non-creedal. Believing God’s love is for all, for all time. A missional community dedicated not to ourselves and our organization or our building but to acts of service creating a better life and world, especially for and with those most vulnerable—the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the oppressed.
Here, and wherever two or more gather together in this spirit, we become a part of the church, a people of God seeking to make the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus visible in the world. Our Welcome Table is open to all regardless of church affiliation or beliefs, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, economic status, or political persuasion—we welcome all who respect and welcome all and wish to refresh their souls for the service of God.
Invocation
Today is the day which God has made: Let us rejoice and be glad therein.
What does the Eternal require of us? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
Chalice Lighting Covenant
This is our covenant as we walk together in life as a people of God seeking to make the joyful radical compassionate Jesus visible in the world: In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve all.
From Psalm 92 (423)
Morning Songs: Dona Nobis Pacem 388, Find A Stillness 352, Spirit of Life 123, Tis A Gift 16
Readings and Reflections: 422, 435, 685, 696, 698, 704
Songs of Moving: Love Will Guide Us 131, One More Step 168, Guide My Feet 348, There Is More Love Somewhere 95, I’m On My Way 116
Woyaya
We are going, heaven knows where we are going, We'll know we're there.We will get there, heaven knows how we will get there, We know we will.It will be hard we know, And the road will be muddy and rough,But we'll get there, heaven knows how we will get there, We know we will.We are going, heaven knows where we are going, We'll know we're there.
Picking Up Symbols and Moving To New Building
Reassembling In New Building
Candles For Prayers, Blessings
O God help us to be instruments of Thy peace. Where hate rules let us bring love;
where injury, pardon; where discord, union; where doubt, faith; where despair, hope;
where darkness, light; where sorrow, joy. Let us strive more to comfort others than to be comforted; to understand others--than to be understood; to love others--than to be loved. For it is in giving, that we receive, and in pardoning, that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are raised to eternal life.
Songs of Prayer: Amazing Grace 205, Precious Lord 199, Glory Glory 201
Please share prayers and blessings, joys and sorrows, as we light our candles of community.
Now we join in saying the prayer Jesus taught for all those who would follow in his way of radical compassion, courage, conscience, commitment, and community.
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, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Communion Homily: Inheriting The Voices and Visions of those who have come before us in this building, a diverse group beginning with those who founded the first church in our area here on this spot in 1909, Turley Methodist Episcopal, then the Witt Memorial Indian Methodist, then the predominantly African American Zion Baptist. They will be here with us, as are all those who have been with our community in the past who are not with us now, and those who are with us now but could not be here today, and those whom we will meet here for the first time. We inherit this vandalized space, incomplete space, and let it stand for all the brokenness of our lives and our world, as we break the bread of life, but in sharing it become whole, and as we pass the cup of hope for the new spirit of this place and of this people.
Let Us Break Bread Together 406
Passing the Bread of Life and the Cup of Hope
We’re Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table 407
Benedictions Shalom Havyreem and Go Now In Peace 413
Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011
6514 N. Peoria Ave. and 5920 N. Owasso Ave., Turley, OK 74126
Friday, February 04, 2011
The Abundant Community: A Vision For Our Future
Hi all. It is no surprise that our activities as a community, official activities anyway, have come to a standsill because of the blizzard. It is good to hear of folks checking in on folks, though, and I am sure all are finding ways to "make Jesus visible in the world" where and how you can, and that is the definition of the church. It looks like we will not be gathering for worship in the new space this Sunday because the roads are just still too bad and getting worse again. But if you can get on to Facebook on Sunday at 11 am we will again have some of our Virtual Church Time together.
We had a great past Sunday beginning in the old space, singing and blessing our time there, and then processing with the cross, the last object to leave the old space, to our new building space where we finished with more singing, prayers, and communion before going out for lunch together. We look forward to many new ways and times to gather together and offer worship opportunities in our new space along with our many opportunities for service too.
We are still hopeful of having a Community Building Vision Retreat on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 13, to dream of ways to serve our area in and through our new space; and we are working on rescheduling a planned budget meeting planning for grants and next phases of The Welcome Table Garden Kitchen Park; and we will be following up our series of DVD discussion of Justice For The Poor from Sojourners with a special workshop day, it is hoped, on Sunday, Feb. 20 to see and discuss and plan based on Shane Claiborne's new DVD and book, Economy of Love. As soon as we can get back to the building we also will be doing more remodelling work, and setting up the expanded Food Pantry room.
But it is no surprise that as I write this about abundant community that we are now in day five of the blizzard in Oklahoma and its continuing effects, day five with more forecast of being cut off from our community, except through technology, and one of the lessons learned from this week is that no matter how wonderful being online is, and it is in its manifold ways, it is not the same as being with others in person. It is in fact others which make us into something other than an individual, and that something is called a person.
And so while I can't wait for the snow to take a break and the roads to become passable enough to return to feel the presence of our new community space, can't wait to actually go inside those cold walls where we had just moved everything into when the blizzard came, can't wait to actually begin opening up what the blinking sign outside the historic and no longer abandoned building at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. already proclaims is coming soon---The Welcome Table Community Center---until then I want to pass on to you some ideas from a recent book called The Abundant Community. This book, subtitled Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, is by John McKnight and Peter Block. Mcknight's previous book called Building Communities From The Inside Out is one that I discovered as a text in one of my seminary classes and discovered later was also used as a text in one of the social work classes that were doing service learning with us here on Tulsa's far northside.
These excerpts from The Abundant Community are all another way of expressing and explaining what we do, fail to do, try again to do, and keep finding ways to do at The Welcome Table. It is a good primer for anyone interested in missional ways of being church too, even though, or maybe precisely because, it doesn't use theology, church history, or scripture. Consider it my homily for this Sunday's worship.
The book ends with a quote from Lois Smidt of www.beyondwelfare.org. "A great community creates conditions where people can fall in love. It is a place where we can make a fuss about one another. A place where we can ask, "How did I ever live without you?" I can truly say, in both of my church plants, that I could and can ask that question, directed to the ones we journey with. What this time in transition for the community center as we move, and what this time away on top of that due to the blizzard, has taught me is how acutely I feel that question. It is a good benchmark for all our communities. It is not about being co-dependent or needy, which is self-directed, but about being so other-directed that it comes to shape our own selves.
The book begins with the three points of awakening that lead us to an abundant community:
1. We see the abundance that we have, individually, as neighbors, and in this place of ours (that is what we did along with the OU Grad Social Work students in the very first community gathering and all since then through what they called strength and asset based mapping; what I call reminding people of our Imago Deo, our likeness to God, the Whose We Are and How We Are Loved that provides an inherent blessing from which all else flows).
2. We know that the power we have grows from creating new connections and relationships among and between what we have (this is a key place for churches too who begin to imagine themselves as missional in their essence, because it asks them to become something deeper within themselves by getting over and beyond themselves).
3. We know that these connections are no accident; they don't just happen by themselves. They have to be nurtured. They call for leaders who will call others.
The authors go on to say that they know too that each of these three steps are fragile ones, as they can become undermined by institutions, marketplace, culture that says to us the false words: "You are inadequate, incompetent, problematic, or broken. We will fix you. Go back to sleep." And they say that another hindrance is that many people think strong local community is simply nice if you have the time and money to focus on. However, the opposite is true:
1. Our very health depends on our neighborhood and community health. That is why we are here heavily involved with OU Community Health and OU Social Work in the new community health worker program for north and west Tulsa you have read me write about before. Medical institutions, as the authors say, are realizing their own limitations now at changing and growing healthy folks especially in the poorest areas; it is through building up community and relationships that health becomes both a goal and a possibility.
2. Our safety depends on our neighborhoods; the more we watch out for our neighborhood in many ways and watch out for one another, the safer we all become. Police and other resources, as we discover in times of emergencies like the blizzard, are likewise limited in how safe we really are.
3. The future of the earth is actually in the hands of local neighborhoods, not only in how we green our properties and our lives, but how we move from being consumers to citizens.
4, Our economy is most resilient at the most local level as possible. We have seen the effects of globalization, outsourcing, economies based on paperwork and projections instead of productivity; we have also seen the examples of microlending and other ways of pooling our resources in our main streets that can withstand the vagaries of Wall Street.
5. Connected to the first point about our health, we have come to see that the very food we eat is best sustained on a neighborhood level.
6. The individualization and professionalization of our childcare, removing youth from a connection with their neighbors and neighborhood, results in later "youth problems" which are instead adult abdication of caring for our neighborhood children. Our children are a wealth to be shared as well, strengths to give to others.
Finally, seventh, it is locally in neighborhoods that the major difference is revealed between "service" which outside institutions and professions provide, including in many ways churches based on a consumer model, and "care" which is "freely given commitment from the heart of one to another.
These are the Seven Responsibilities of The Abundant Community: health, safety, environment, economy, food, children, and care.
It is interesting how we through our The Welcome Table Church and a third place community foundation, and our projects The Welcome Table Center and The Welcome Table GardenKitchenPark and our various partnerships and initiatives are beginning to plant seeds of growth in each of these seven areas. As we look at how we can envision relating to one another and our various neighborhoods through our new building, and helping others to do the same where they are, it is these seven areas where we hope to connect people's passions. Imagine what we could transform with a small group team of folks focusing on each of these areas. Which of the seven areas calls to you? How can we help connect you with others who have a similar passion? By bringing your gifts to bear in any one of these areas you will be affecting the abundance in the others; but we know that if we try individually to do them all, nothing will get done; we need to create all the spokes of the wheel for it to turn. Imagine us growing each of these areas into fully supported areas.
This will be our amazing vision for 2011. We have already begun in so many ways; the model of The Abundant Community will help us to shape and show and sustain what we have started. Whether you are living here now or not, there is a place and a way for you to receive from the revolutionary abundance beginning to be revealed here in a zipcode where only scarcity is so often portrayed and lived out. The rest of McKnight's book is about those seven areas and the ways that simple families and neighbors and community groups like ours and others here are actually shaping another world possible. I will be posting more from the book and giving some of its links to connect with others engaged in the same struggles as we are.
And if you are interested in how to grow an organic missional incarnational church as well, and have the impulse and the instinct and the faith, this is a good book to start with too for how to actually implement it and inspire others.
Thanks, blessings, and more soon, Ron
We had a great past Sunday beginning in the old space, singing and blessing our time there, and then processing with the cross, the last object to leave the old space, to our new building space where we finished with more singing, prayers, and communion before going out for lunch together. We look forward to many new ways and times to gather together and offer worship opportunities in our new space along with our many opportunities for service too.
We are still hopeful of having a Community Building Vision Retreat on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 13, to dream of ways to serve our area in and through our new space; and we are working on rescheduling a planned budget meeting planning for grants and next phases of The Welcome Table Garden Kitchen Park; and we will be following up our series of DVD discussion of Justice For The Poor from Sojourners with a special workshop day, it is hoped, on Sunday, Feb. 20 to see and discuss and plan based on Shane Claiborne's new DVD and book, Economy of Love. As soon as we can get back to the building we also will be doing more remodelling work, and setting up the expanded Food Pantry room.
But it is no surprise that as I write this about abundant community that we are now in day five of the blizzard in Oklahoma and its continuing effects, day five with more forecast of being cut off from our community, except through technology, and one of the lessons learned from this week is that no matter how wonderful being online is, and it is in its manifold ways, it is not the same as being with others in person. It is in fact others which make us into something other than an individual, and that something is called a person.
And so while I can't wait for the snow to take a break and the roads to become passable enough to return to feel the presence of our new community space, can't wait to actually go inside those cold walls where we had just moved everything into when the blizzard came, can't wait to actually begin opening up what the blinking sign outside the historic and no longer abandoned building at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. already proclaims is coming soon---The Welcome Table Community Center---until then I want to pass on to you some ideas from a recent book called The Abundant Community. This book, subtitled Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, is by John McKnight and Peter Block. Mcknight's previous book called Building Communities From The Inside Out is one that I discovered as a text in one of my seminary classes and discovered later was also used as a text in one of the social work classes that were doing service learning with us here on Tulsa's far northside.
These excerpts from The Abundant Community are all another way of expressing and explaining what we do, fail to do, try again to do, and keep finding ways to do at The Welcome Table. It is a good primer for anyone interested in missional ways of being church too, even though, or maybe precisely because, it doesn't use theology, church history, or scripture. Consider it my homily for this Sunday's worship.
The book ends with a quote from Lois Smidt of www.beyondwelfare.org. "A great community creates conditions where people can fall in love. It is a place where we can make a fuss about one another. A place where we can ask, "How did I ever live without you?" I can truly say, in both of my church plants, that I could and can ask that question, directed to the ones we journey with. What this time in transition for the community center as we move, and what this time away on top of that due to the blizzard, has taught me is how acutely I feel that question. It is a good benchmark for all our communities. It is not about being co-dependent or needy, which is self-directed, but about being so other-directed that it comes to shape our own selves.
The book begins with the three points of awakening that lead us to an abundant community:
1. We see the abundance that we have, individually, as neighbors, and in this place of ours (that is what we did along with the OU Grad Social Work students in the very first community gathering and all since then through what they called strength and asset based mapping; what I call reminding people of our Imago Deo, our likeness to God, the Whose We Are and How We Are Loved that provides an inherent blessing from which all else flows).
2. We know that the power we have grows from creating new connections and relationships among and between what we have (this is a key place for churches too who begin to imagine themselves as missional in their essence, because it asks them to become something deeper within themselves by getting over and beyond themselves).
3. We know that these connections are no accident; they don't just happen by themselves. They have to be nurtured. They call for leaders who will call others.
The authors go on to say that they know too that each of these three steps are fragile ones, as they can become undermined by institutions, marketplace, culture that says to us the false words: "You are inadequate, incompetent, problematic, or broken. We will fix you. Go back to sleep." And they say that another hindrance is that many people think strong local community is simply nice if you have the time and money to focus on. However, the opposite is true:
1. Our very health depends on our neighborhood and community health. That is why we are here heavily involved with OU Community Health and OU Social Work in the new community health worker program for north and west Tulsa you have read me write about before. Medical institutions, as the authors say, are realizing their own limitations now at changing and growing healthy folks especially in the poorest areas; it is through building up community and relationships that health becomes both a goal and a possibility.
2. Our safety depends on our neighborhoods; the more we watch out for our neighborhood in many ways and watch out for one another, the safer we all become. Police and other resources, as we discover in times of emergencies like the blizzard, are likewise limited in how safe we really are.
3. The future of the earth is actually in the hands of local neighborhoods, not only in how we green our properties and our lives, but how we move from being consumers to citizens.
4, Our economy is most resilient at the most local level as possible. We have seen the effects of globalization, outsourcing, economies based on paperwork and projections instead of productivity; we have also seen the examples of microlending and other ways of pooling our resources in our main streets that can withstand the vagaries of Wall Street.
5. Connected to the first point about our health, we have come to see that the very food we eat is best sustained on a neighborhood level.
6. The individualization and professionalization of our childcare, removing youth from a connection with their neighbors and neighborhood, results in later "youth problems" which are instead adult abdication of caring for our neighborhood children. Our children are a wealth to be shared as well, strengths to give to others.
Finally, seventh, it is locally in neighborhoods that the major difference is revealed between "service" which outside institutions and professions provide, including in many ways churches based on a consumer model, and "care" which is "freely given commitment from the heart of one to another.
These are the Seven Responsibilities of The Abundant Community: health, safety, environment, economy, food, children, and care.
It is interesting how we through our The Welcome Table Church and a third place community foundation, and our projects The Welcome Table Center and The Welcome Table GardenKitchenPark and our various partnerships and initiatives are beginning to plant seeds of growth in each of these seven areas. As we look at how we can envision relating to one another and our various neighborhoods through our new building, and helping others to do the same where they are, it is these seven areas where we hope to connect people's passions. Imagine what we could transform with a small group team of folks focusing on each of these areas. Which of the seven areas calls to you? How can we help connect you with others who have a similar passion? By bringing your gifts to bear in any one of these areas you will be affecting the abundance in the others; but we know that if we try individually to do them all, nothing will get done; we need to create all the spokes of the wheel for it to turn. Imagine us growing each of these areas into fully supported areas.
This will be our amazing vision for 2011. We have already begun in so many ways; the model of The Abundant Community will help us to shape and show and sustain what we have started. Whether you are living here now or not, there is a place and a way for you to receive from the revolutionary abundance beginning to be revealed here in a zipcode where only scarcity is so often portrayed and lived out. The rest of McKnight's book is about those seven areas and the ways that simple families and neighbors and community groups like ours and others here are actually shaping another world possible. I will be posting more from the book and giving some of its links to connect with others engaged in the same struggles as we are.
And if you are interested in how to grow an organic missional incarnational church as well, and have the impulse and the instinct and the faith, this is a good book to start with too for how to actually implement it and inspire others.
Thanks, blessings, and more soon, Ron
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Civility Needs Communities Or Else It Dies...And People Too
Today, in Arizona with the shooting and deaths of public officials and citizens at a public event, we see many problems in our society being magnified in one horrible episode. Certainly, a disturbed individual, but also issues of the spread of weapons, and an attack on the First Amendment rights to gather peacefully and expression opinions. What underlies much of this, and where it happens when churches and mosques and synagogues and temples are attacked, when physicians performing abortions are attacked, etc, is that civility and the ability to disagree without being disagreeable, and to in fact encourage seeking out opposing viewpoints and learning from them, is under attack and has been virtually destroyed.
The prophet Isaiah asks us to come together and reason together, but instead our media age creates a climate where people get in echo chambers and ramp up their own rhetoric of us vs. them and objectification of persons without concern for others and how it will be received; we dehumanize; we label; we go for the quick soundbite cutting down of others; we use inflammatory imagery; we seek to gain someone's attention rather than their conscience and consciousness; we do it to create consumers and to turn even public discourse into something to sell and make a profit out of, and to be consumers of our own feelings rather than citizens who need one another in order to become our fullest selves; passionate expression replaces thought and fact seeking and concern for the greater common good and for community.
But, here is the rub. Civility will not become real in our world with rallies, with books, with speeches and sermons. This is because it is not a matter of the head or the heart. Also because those tend to be received only by others who are already in our own echo chambers. It can only become real through practice; through failure and feedback and forgiveness and grace and showing up again to live with those who are different from us. Words and events, as important as they are, come and go. But relationships and communities last and make impacts, even though they do not make the news cycle. What is needed now, is vital now for the survival of civil society, are relationships of persons seeking the deepest freedom in community, where they are reminded again and again that the good life means getting over the preoccupation with self, that life is not about me and my wants but about serving God through serving the least of these who struggle with needs not wants. We must create newer, and create better communities dedicated to the practices of civility, especially those which are planted in places where these relationships are most in need and where community is most vulnerable, and that includes not just geographic places, but places that reach out to those disturbed, those outcast. Communities that are missional and foster "third places" for the cultivating of common good out of differences are the very soil for growing the soul of the Common Good.
Whether it is assassinations in Arizona, or gang violence here in our locale where recent drive-bys have wounded children and left bullet holes in baby cribs, or bullying of gay and lesbian students leading to suicide, there is first created an environment in the community where everything is seen through the lens of enemies and of fear, or the drive to elevate the self in others eyes, a kind of celebrity culture come home to roost, and also out of a reactive concern for being shamed and dishonored. We have let those communication outlets become dominant that are based on creating fear and enemies of others and been surprised when such communication begets similar communities in which people get constant reinforcement of that perspective. The way to counter them is not just to put out a different communication; it is to create and embody the values of which we are speaking, and to do so requires committment to communities of civility, relationships rooted in radical stances of civility.
What are we each doing to seed and nurture and sustain and spread such community?
Go to http://www.turleyok.blogspot.com/ for ideas drawn from how we are doing it; or http://www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com/ for more presentations on the topic.
The prophet Isaiah asks us to come together and reason together, but instead our media age creates a climate where people get in echo chambers and ramp up their own rhetoric of us vs. them and objectification of persons without concern for others and how it will be received; we dehumanize; we label; we go for the quick soundbite cutting down of others; we use inflammatory imagery; we seek to gain someone's attention rather than their conscience and consciousness; we do it to create consumers and to turn even public discourse into something to sell and make a profit out of, and to be consumers of our own feelings rather than citizens who need one another in order to become our fullest selves; passionate expression replaces thought and fact seeking and concern for the greater common good and for community.
But, here is the rub. Civility will not become real in our world with rallies, with books, with speeches and sermons. This is because it is not a matter of the head or the heart. Also because those tend to be received only by others who are already in our own echo chambers. It can only become real through practice; through failure and feedback and forgiveness and grace and showing up again to live with those who are different from us. Words and events, as important as they are, come and go. But relationships and communities last and make impacts, even though they do not make the news cycle. What is needed now, is vital now for the survival of civil society, are relationships of persons seeking the deepest freedom in community, where they are reminded again and again that the good life means getting over the preoccupation with self, that life is not about me and my wants but about serving God through serving the least of these who struggle with needs not wants. We must create newer, and create better communities dedicated to the practices of civility, especially those which are planted in places where these relationships are most in need and where community is most vulnerable, and that includes not just geographic places, but places that reach out to those disturbed, those outcast. Communities that are missional and foster "third places" for the cultivating of common good out of differences are the very soil for growing the soul of the Common Good.
Whether it is assassinations in Arizona, or gang violence here in our locale where recent drive-bys have wounded children and left bullet holes in baby cribs, or bullying of gay and lesbian students leading to suicide, there is first created an environment in the community where everything is seen through the lens of enemies and of fear, or the drive to elevate the self in others eyes, a kind of celebrity culture come home to roost, and also out of a reactive concern for being shamed and dishonored. We have let those communication outlets become dominant that are based on creating fear and enemies of others and been surprised when such communication begets similar communities in which people get constant reinforcement of that perspective. The way to counter them is not just to put out a different communication; it is to create and embody the values of which we are speaking, and to do so requires committment to communities of civility, relationships rooted in radical stances of civility.
What are we each doing to seed and nurture and sustain and spread such community?
Go to http://www.turleyok.blogspot.com/ for ideas drawn from how we are doing it; or http://www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com/ for more presentations on the topic.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Manna From Heaven
www.turleyok.blogspot.com for news on the community and for how to donate to us; www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com for deeper thoughts on why we do what we do.
1. This Sunday from 11 am to 1 pm we will show the movie Manna From Heaven, set in Buffalo, NY but with messages and stories evocative of our community here as we move people from consumers to citizens, from scarcity to abundance, shaping a giveback people and shared economy. We will have worship and common meal before, during and after the movie. 6514 N. Peoria for a few more Sundays. Come relax and discuss ways to help this month as we move out of our space.
Needs: People to show up whenever you can to help pack and move, especially on Tuesday evenings, but let me know when you have time to help and we will make arrangements if possible. thanks. 691-3223.
2. Next Friday, Jan. 14, 6 pm celebrate with dinner with us as we bid farewell to this space and say thanks to all the volunteers and community folks who have helped us find our footing and become such a force in our community. RSVP.
Needs: bring food or drink to share, and your stories of what this space has held. Also get current info on our move and our new plans in all our areas.
3. Sat. Jan. 15 10 am to 2 pm: Moving Sale. Help us find homes for some of the items we don't want to move; books, clothing, computer equipment misc, and etc.
Needs: people to help us make box advertisements and set around the streets, and work during it.
4. Sunday, Jan. 16, 11 am Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday worship, sharing stories of what we did with our reverse offering money from thanksgiving. 5 pm marching in the candlelight procession and attending the interfaith service at Boston Ave. Methodist Church.
5. Monday, Jan. 17 11 am Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade. Come ahead of time and meet up with us at Pine and Greenwood area and march and ride with us in the annual parade. rsvp if you can.
While we are moving and morphing this month, we are also continuing to meet and put together some truly revolutionary projects that will renew our community, empower our residents, and grow healthy lives and neighborhoods through small acts of justice done with great love.
We have been finishing promising grants for the Miracle Among The Ruins GardenKitchenPark to continue its transformation. We have been working on grants for a "disruptively innovative" approach to health care that will begin in our underserved, no served, health care areas of north and west Tulsa a new Community Health Worker plan that will be made up of neighborhood residents, filling a niche along with the new OU specialty clinic and new health department primary clinic and existing Morton clinic and others. And we are working on the grant to bring sidewalk and safety to the Cherokee School area here on North Peoria where there are none. And we continue to work with current and potential partners in education, health care, parks, neighborhoods and more and those who drop by the community center for connections and assistance.
Thanks and blessings and more soon, come and see, come and join in, there is always room around The Welcome Table....
1. This Sunday from 11 am to 1 pm we will show the movie Manna From Heaven, set in Buffalo, NY but with messages and stories evocative of our community here as we move people from consumers to citizens, from scarcity to abundance, shaping a giveback people and shared economy. We will have worship and common meal before, during and after the movie. 6514 N. Peoria for a few more Sundays. Come relax and discuss ways to help this month as we move out of our space.
Needs: People to show up whenever you can to help pack and move, especially on Tuesday evenings, but let me know when you have time to help and we will make arrangements if possible. thanks. 691-3223.
2. Next Friday, Jan. 14, 6 pm celebrate with dinner with us as we bid farewell to this space and say thanks to all the volunteers and community folks who have helped us find our footing and become such a force in our community. RSVP.
Needs: bring food or drink to share, and your stories of what this space has held. Also get current info on our move and our new plans in all our areas.
3. Sat. Jan. 15 10 am to 2 pm: Moving Sale. Help us find homes for some of the items we don't want to move; books, clothing, computer equipment misc, and etc.
Needs: people to help us make box advertisements and set around the streets, and work during it.
4. Sunday, Jan. 16, 11 am Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday worship, sharing stories of what we did with our reverse offering money from thanksgiving. 5 pm marching in the candlelight procession and attending the interfaith service at Boston Ave. Methodist Church.
5. Monday, Jan. 17 11 am Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade. Come ahead of time and meet up with us at Pine and Greenwood area and march and ride with us in the annual parade. rsvp if you can.
While we are moving and morphing this month, we are also continuing to meet and put together some truly revolutionary projects that will renew our community, empower our residents, and grow healthy lives and neighborhoods through small acts of justice done with great love.
We have been finishing promising grants for the Miracle Among The Ruins GardenKitchenPark to continue its transformation. We have been working on grants for a "disruptively innovative" approach to health care that will begin in our underserved, no served, health care areas of north and west Tulsa a new Community Health Worker plan that will be made up of neighborhood residents, filling a niche along with the new OU specialty clinic and new health department primary clinic and existing Morton clinic and others. And we are working on the grant to bring sidewalk and safety to the Cherokee School area here on North Peoria where there are none. And we continue to work with current and potential partners in education, health care, parks, neighborhoods and more and those who drop by the community center for connections and assistance.
Thanks and blessings and more soon, come and see, come and join in, there is always room around The Welcome Table....
Thursday, December 30, 2010
2011: The Welcome Table Year
www.turleyok.blogspot.com (2011 will find us with a new website, stay tuned) Please share the following report with others on your email, social networks, or groups. Thanks especially for all your help this year.
Well, we are saying goodbye to 2010 and as I wrote last time it has been an amazing year for us here with many pieces falling together in our mission of renewing community, empowering residents, and growing healthy lives and neighborhoods, all through small acts of justice done with great love. We go out of the year being a presence in three places of our own--current center, new gardenpark, and new center building where we held our midnight Christmas Eve candlelight communion service for the community--as well as all those spaces like Cherokee and Greeley schools, O'Brien Recreation Center, 66th and N. Lewis intersection, and many others around here we are helping to turn into sites of beauty and sustainability. We plant rescue, we seed bomb, we pick up trash dumped on us, we light areas of darkness, we throw parties, we feed people, we host a health clinic, we give away clothes, and internet space.
All of this done by volunteers; I don't know of another place like it that has done so much on such a scale in so short a time all without paid staff in the greater Tulsa area for sure. Not always smoothly, not able to do all we hope and plan to do, but this past year has showed us so much is possible when you set out to show that another world, another way of doing things, being community, is possible. This coming month we won't have a lot of our usual stuff as we are shutting things down for the move, but we will have a great Volunteer Appreciation Dinner and Farewell to our Space event (stay tuned for day and time) and also a Big Moving Sale Giveaway to help us in the move, also stay tuned for day and time.
We are going to be closing down the current center next month, moving into the new building, reorganizing, relaunching and beginning new projects and partnerships, creating a community hub with a vision of many spokes from it all over our part of far north Tulsa. There is some loss in every change, though, and it will be hard to transition and shut things down for awhile as we get ready to do a relaunch and grand opening later in Spring or Summer; but the metamorphosis will be worth it, as it was when we moved into the current space from our smaller original spot here on North Peoria back in 2007, and the same uncertainty and loss when we left our birthplace in the Owasso suburb and moved here in 2004; and there is a lot of cost; don't get me started on the exorbitant gas deposit we are trying to raise ($1,000 it turns out), plus the major plumbing in this big historic to our area building that has been abandoned for several years, plus paying more for insurance than planned, plus having rent still and utilities in the current space while we phase it out, plus the work we have been doing to secure the building from the vandalism to the stained glass windows, walls, and doors....(if you would like to help volunteer to paint over grafitti or help clean and prepare the space drop me a line and we will set a date). And we are moving ahead to with the transformation and creation of the GardenKitchenPark with two major grants in the works and much volunteer efforts to coordinate to begin its transformation this Spring too...
Did I mention www.turleyok.blogspot.com where you can make end of the year donations easily safely and don't have to have a paypal account to do so?
We continue to be a presence for the common good though even as we are focusing much energy on this particular part of our own transformation...we are still working on projects with Cherokee School for community sidewalks in our area, and with OU Tisdale Specialty Health Clinic to set up community forums, and with OU Social Work and OU Community Health to shape the revolutionary new health hub at our new building to be a center for the Community Health Worker project to pay neighborhood leaders here to work with medical professionals on true community health projects to keep people from needing to go to the emergency rooms and even primary care clinics themselves so much; just as the clinics are being phased out fully soon, we are hoping to launch this new initiative by then to set up networks of health literacy and mentoring care. We continue to work with McLain High School on its initiatives. And the fun part--we will again be in the Martin Luther King, Jr. candlelight march Sunday night Jan. 16 and the Monday morning parade Jan. 17. And we work with the Turley Community Association and O'Brien Park Advisory Board.
Do you have a group we can partner with, to help bring your mission into our area? Let us know.
What will the end of 2011 look like here? It is truly mind boggling to envision it, based on this past year...In our new space at 5920 N. Owasso just off Peoria Ave--the grounds will be hosting vegetable and flower beds and outdoor resting space with community art, beautifying this area (oh I forgot to mention Friday March 25 we will host a Community Art Day in our new space, working with broken glass and other items from the vandalism, turning into healing restorative welcoming art)...The building could have its three prong focus of Community Health Hub (health library, classes, workshops, support groups, fitness, etc); the Community Center Wing could have its food justice center and library including tool lending library and community space and giveaway space and computer center space and community resources kiosk and art gallery and who knows what as we find new partners to bring their mission into our space; and the Community Chapel could be offering a quiet meditative personal and special prayer time several times a day as people of many faiths and churches offer centering and contemplative and communal daily office prayer and meditation services. And the old rundown parsonage on the property might be housing a Garden Center....I think it will take us a few more years to get the basement rooms ready for people to come stay and serve with us or find respite but we need to keep that vision alive. We might have a green remodeling effort underway. We might have Ty Pennington coming to transform us, who knows? lol feel free to write him and his extreme makeover; we certainly are hoping to do that to our whole area.
2011 should see us having our Building Dedication Service and our Groundbreaking Groundblessing service up on the hill at the community garden park. stay tuned and come celebrate. donate toward it at www.turleyok.blogspot.com
But what we haven't envisioned is the most exciting of all. In five years I would love to have spokes from our hub going out throughout our area; community space in the rundown McLain Center and/or the adjacent Northridge Shopping Center where the new North Tulsa Leadership School is taking it on as a project, and in every neighborhood around McLain we would have taken over or been given an abandoned house to transform and turn over to a neighborhood association for their use; connecting mentors with McLain students and employing them in projects to plant new seeds of hope...But we thought it would take five years, not nine months, to get to where we are now from where we were just one year ago, so who knows? Part of relaunching will be working on the partnerships and the funding to help make the connections that make all the miracles possible....and the most revolutionary vision is perhaps, as always, the simplest....
Imagine in the next year, in 2011, we are able to help people become a part of the 3R Renewal movement here: Simple Visions are the Most Radical and Most Rewarding. 1. we lift the spirits and empower those who are Remainers, and who have kept alive the presence of hope through the years of its abandonment and economic disinvestment; 2. we find ways to help those who used to live here but who have moved away to become Returners, most importantly by physically moving back here, but until that is possible connecting their presence with their gifts and talents and passions to our needs here; and 3. inspiring Relocaters, those who will choose to sell their more expensive homes or quit renting their more expensive apartments and homes in the cool comfortable parts of town and in groups preferably will move here for the first time and become a part of the wider community, finding their own economic health improved and finding they have so much more opportunity to make an impact and even have more money to put into other things. It is so simple, so transformative. Imagine. Every big church of 1000 or more, for example, encouraging just five to 10 of its folks or families to look at moving here and buying up some of the abandoned homes in one block so they can live near each other, supporting one another, building up the one block with gardens and parties and connections working with those who have remained, living more simply so others may simply live, here as others are doing around the world in the New Friars Movement, see http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Living-Mission/Scott-Bessenecker/e/9780830836338 a renewal for their whole church's mission as well. We would be glad to help cast that vision with anyone.
Here where even two days before Christmas two young children, age two and five, were shot by stray bullets in a drive by shooting in the middle of the afternoon at a convenience store just four blocks from our new community building...here where that is supposed to be more proof and the final nail on the coffin of the image of our area that it instead becomes the catalyst for small groups of ordinary radicals and revolutionaries and the new pioneers to return or relocate to this very area, reinvesting our money and our presence right here.
The vision is so simple. But so was Jesus'. Something about the rich and the young and the impressive selling what owns them and being owned by the poor instead (my interpretation :) ). The poor you will always have with you, Jesus said to his followers, because, because, if you are a follower of where I am you will always be with the poor. So simple. It is not about numbers, anonymity, feelings, major productions and programs. All those things are complicated. Following Jesus is simple. (reminds me that there has been a thing going around on Facebook where you put your so called elevator speech or essence of your church up on a church sign you can mock up: mine would be this following the name of the church..."Life. It isn't about You. Come and join and be reminded of this saving grace."
Speaking of which, we will bring in 2011 with the final video session of our series from Sojourners, Justice For the Poor, this Sunday, Jan. 2, with the episode "From Serial Charity to A Just Society." We decided last Sunday to close out the series by doing two things of a "glocal" nature. Of course so much of the programs is geared to those living in suburbia and not in our area doing what we are already doing, but we too can do so much more: we are going to pick a project to support from Heifer International to support a poor village in another country, and we are going to plan a retreat that will include a visit to the Heifer Headquarters in Little Rock, and ranch, to help us continue to dream sustainably for our new building and new incarnation. An apt way to keep the spirit of the dynamic new DVD series going after we end it. Even if you haven't watched any of the episodes, plan to come eat with us and/or watch with us this Sunday at 12:30 pm at our current space 6514 N. Peoria Ave. And we will have our celebration of the Second Sunday of Christmas and the coming of Epiphany with communion at 11 am...
www.turleyok.blogspot.com did I mention we are broker than broke going into our move this next month? Back to the way we have been these past four years putting it all into mission, trusting that there will be enough to go around, that there always is, if we all share, if we all take no more than we need, and if we look for ways to surprise ourselves and others with small acts of justice done with great love.
Our new gardenpark is The Welcome Table Community GardenKitchenPark. Our new center will be tied in by being named The Welcome Table Community Center. These and our other projects are still coordinated by the A Third Place Community Foundation we started in 2009. But our little band of organic radical free Jesus followers will have another name change to match what we have helped inspire (something nice about finally finding your name created out of the mission you have been doing, rather than the usual other way) and are becoming The Welcome Table Free Universalist Missional Community. See more on that at http://progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com/2010/12/some-things-that-set-us-apart-from.html. We have overlapping circles of community here; some who are leaders in the Center and Park go to other churches or none at all; some go to other churches and our own on a regular basis; some are leaders in all three; and some come to the worshipping community but not to the missional side of things so much. Such an abundance of approaches we are growing to cherish and nurture.
Help us make 2011 truly A Welcome Table Year... www.turleyok.blogspot.com or contribute and surprise us yourselves and the world at this vital time of the year, and crucial for us, by sending payable to A Third Place Community Foundation, new address, 5920 N. Owasso Ave., Turley, OK 74126.
blessings of the continuing Christmastide, the turning of the new year, new life, new hearts...
Ron
Well, we are saying goodbye to 2010 and as I wrote last time it has been an amazing year for us here with many pieces falling together in our mission of renewing community, empowering residents, and growing healthy lives and neighborhoods, all through small acts of justice done with great love. We go out of the year being a presence in three places of our own--current center, new gardenpark, and new center building where we held our midnight Christmas Eve candlelight communion service for the community--as well as all those spaces like Cherokee and Greeley schools, O'Brien Recreation Center, 66th and N. Lewis intersection, and many others around here we are helping to turn into sites of beauty and sustainability. We plant rescue, we seed bomb, we pick up trash dumped on us, we light areas of darkness, we throw parties, we feed people, we host a health clinic, we give away clothes, and internet space.
All of this done by volunteers; I don't know of another place like it that has done so much on such a scale in so short a time all without paid staff in the greater Tulsa area for sure. Not always smoothly, not able to do all we hope and plan to do, but this past year has showed us so much is possible when you set out to show that another world, another way of doing things, being community, is possible. This coming month we won't have a lot of our usual stuff as we are shutting things down for the move, but we will have a great Volunteer Appreciation Dinner and Farewell to our Space event (stay tuned for day and time) and also a Big Moving Sale Giveaway to help us in the move, also stay tuned for day and time.
We are going to be closing down the current center next month, moving into the new building, reorganizing, relaunching and beginning new projects and partnerships, creating a community hub with a vision of many spokes from it all over our part of far north Tulsa. There is some loss in every change, though, and it will be hard to transition and shut things down for awhile as we get ready to do a relaunch and grand opening later in Spring or Summer; but the metamorphosis will be worth it, as it was when we moved into the current space from our smaller original spot here on North Peoria back in 2007, and the same uncertainty and loss when we left our birthplace in the Owasso suburb and moved here in 2004; and there is a lot of cost; don't get me started on the exorbitant gas deposit we are trying to raise ($1,000 it turns out), plus the major plumbing in this big historic to our area building that has been abandoned for several years, plus paying more for insurance than planned, plus having rent still and utilities in the current space while we phase it out, plus the work we have been doing to secure the building from the vandalism to the stained glass windows, walls, and doors....(if you would like to help volunteer to paint over grafitti or help clean and prepare the space drop me a line and we will set a date). And we are moving ahead to with the transformation and creation of the GardenKitchenPark with two major grants in the works and much volunteer efforts to coordinate to begin its transformation this Spring too...
Did I mention www.turleyok.blogspot.com where you can make end of the year donations easily safely and don't have to have a paypal account to do so?
We continue to be a presence for the common good though even as we are focusing much energy on this particular part of our own transformation...we are still working on projects with Cherokee School for community sidewalks in our area, and with OU Tisdale Specialty Health Clinic to set up community forums, and with OU Social Work and OU Community Health to shape the revolutionary new health hub at our new building to be a center for the Community Health Worker project to pay neighborhood leaders here to work with medical professionals on true community health projects to keep people from needing to go to the emergency rooms and even primary care clinics themselves so much; just as the clinics are being phased out fully soon, we are hoping to launch this new initiative by then to set up networks of health literacy and mentoring care. We continue to work with McLain High School on its initiatives. And the fun part--we will again be in the Martin Luther King, Jr. candlelight march Sunday night Jan. 16 and the Monday morning parade Jan. 17. And we work with the Turley Community Association and O'Brien Park Advisory Board.
Do you have a group we can partner with, to help bring your mission into our area? Let us know.
What will the end of 2011 look like here? It is truly mind boggling to envision it, based on this past year...In our new space at 5920 N. Owasso just off Peoria Ave--the grounds will be hosting vegetable and flower beds and outdoor resting space with community art, beautifying this area (oh I forgot to mention Friday March 25 we will host a Community Art Day in our new space, working with broken glass and other items from the vandalism, turning into healing restorative welcoming art)...The building could have its three prong focus of Community Health Hub (health library, classes, workshops, support groups, fitness, etc); the Community Center Wing could have its food justice center and library including tool lending library and community space and giveaway space and computer center space and community resources kiosk and art gallery and who knows what as we find new partners to bring their mission into our space; and the Community Chapel could be offering a quiet meditative personal and special prayer time several times a day as people of many faiths and churches offer centering and contemplative and communal daily office prayer and meditation services. And the old rundown parsonage on the property might be housing a Garden Center....I think it will take us a few more years to get the basement rooms ready for people to come stay and serve with us or find respite but we need to keep that vision alive. We might have a green remodeling effort underway. We might have Ty Pennington coming to transform us, who knows? lol feel free to write him and his extreme makeover; we certainly are hoping to do that to our whole area.
2011 should see us having our Building Dedication Service and our Groundbreaking Groundblessing service up on the hill at the community garden park. stay tuned and come celebrate. donate toward it at www.turleyok.blogspot.com
But what we haven't envisioned is the most exciting of all. In five years I would love to have spokes from our hub going out throughout our area; community space in the rundown McLain Center and/or the adjacent Northridge Shopping Center where the new North Tulsa Leadership School is taking it on as a project, and in every neighborhood around McLain we would have taken over or been given an abandoned house to transform and turn over to a neighborhood association for their use; connecting mentors with McLain students and employing them in projects to plant new seeds of hope...But we thought it would take five years, not nine months, to get to where we are now from where we were just one year ago, so who knows? Part of relaunching will be working on the partnerships and the funding to help make the connections that make all the miracles possible....and the most revolutionary vision is perhaps, as always, the simplest....
Imagine in the next year, in 2011, we are able to help people become a part of the 3R Renewal movement here: Simple Visions are the Most Radical and Most Rewarding. 1. we lift the spirits and empower those who are Remainers, and who have kept alive the presence of hope through the years of its abandonment and economic disinvestment; 2. we find ways to help those who used to live here but who have moved away to become Returners, most importantly by physically moving back here, but until that is possible connecting their presence with their gifts and talents and passions to our needs here; and 3. inspiring Relocaters, those who will choose to sell their more expensive homes or quit renting their more expensive apartments and homes in the cool comfortable parts of town and in groups preferably will move here for the first time and become a part of the wider community, finding their own economic health improved and finding they have so much more opportunity to make an impact and even have more money to put into other things. It is so simple, so transformative. Imagine. Every big church of 1000 or more, for example, encouraging just five to 10 of its folks or families to look at moving here and buying up some of the abandoned homes in one block so they can live near each other, supporting one another, building up the one block with gardens and parties and connections working with those who have remained, living more simply so others may simply live, here as others are doing around the world in the New Friars Movement, see http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Living-Mission/Scott-Bessenecker/e/9780830836338 a renewal for their whole church's mission as well. We would be glad to help cast that vision with anyone.
Here where even two days before Christmas two young children, age two and five, were shot by stray bullets in a drive by shooting in the middle of the afternoon at a convenience store just four blocks from our new community building...here where that is supposed to be more proof and the final nail on the coffin of the image of our area that it instead becomes the catalyst for small groups of ordinary radicals and revolutionaries and the new pioneers to return or relocate to this very area, reinvesting our money and our presence right here.
The vision is so simple. But so was Jesus'. Something about the rich and the young and the impressive selling what owns them and being owned by the poor instead (my interpretation :) ). The poor you will always have with you, Jesus said to his followers, because, because, if you are a follower of where I am you will always be with the poor. So simple. It is not about numbers, anonymity, feelings, major productions and programs. All those things are complicated. Following Jesus is simple. (reminds me that there has been a thing going around on Facebook where you put your so called elevator speech or essence of your church up on a church sign you can mock up: mine would be this following the name of the church..."Life. It isn't about You. Come and join and be reminded of this saving grace."
Speaking of which, we will bring in 2011 with the final video session of our series from Sojourners, Justice For the Poor, this Sunday, Jan. 2, with the episode "From Serial Charity to A Just Society." We decided last Sunday to close out the series by doing two things of a "glocal" nature. Of course so much of the programs is geared to those living in suburbia and not in our area doing what we are already doing, but we too can do so much more: we are going to pick a project to support from Heifer International to support a poor village in another country, and we are going to plan a retreat that will include a visit to the Heifer Headquarters in Little Rock, and ranch, to help us continue to dream sustainably for our new building and new incarnation. An apt way to keep the spirit of the dynamic new DVD series going after we end it. Even if you haven't watched any of the episodes, plan to come eat with us and/or watch with us this Sunday at 12:30 pm at our current space 6514 N. Peoria Ave. And we will have our celebration of the Second Sunday of Christmas and the coming of Epiphany with communion at 11 am...
www.turleyok.blogspot.com did I mention we are broker than broke going into our move this next month? Back to the way we have been these past four years putting it all into mission, trusting that there will be enough to go around, that there always is, if we all share, if we all take no more than we need, and if we look for ways to surprise ourselves and others with small acts of justice done with great love.
Our new gardenpark is The Welcome Table Community GardenKitchenPark. Our new center will be tied in by being named The Welcome Table Community Center. These and our other projects are still coordinated by the A Third Place Community Foundation we started in 2009. But our little band of organic radical free Jesus followers will have another name change to match what we have helped inspire (something nice about finally finding your name created out of the mission you have been doing, rather than the usual other way) and are becoming The Welcome Table Free Universalist Missional Community. See more on that at http://progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com/2010/12/some-things-that-set-us-apart-from.html. We have overlapping circles of community here; some who are leaders in the Center and Park go to other churches or none at all; some go to other churches and our own on a regular basis; some are leaders in all three; and some come to the worshipping community but not to the missional side of things so much. Such an abundance of approaches we are growing to cherish and nurture.
Help us make 2011 truly A Welcome Table Year... www.turleyok.blogspot.com or contribute and surprise us yourselves and the world at this vital time of the year, and crucial for us, by sending payable to A Third Place Community Foundation, new address, 5920 N. Owasso Ave., Turley, OK 74126.
blessings of the continuing Christmastide, the turning of the new year, new life, new hearts...
Ron
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tonight Christmas Eve 11 pm Candlelighting Service Liturgy in New Building
2010 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service
Lessons and Carols and Communion
The Welcome Table
Free Universalist Missional Community
5920 N. Owasso Ave. Turley, OK 74126
INVOCATION
from "Christmas Beatitudes" by David Rhys Williams
"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 season each week we have pointed the way to Christmas. Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope, these are the touchstones in our journey preparing our hearts for this holy night when we begin again in the spirit of the Child. 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 unconditional love.
May the lights we burn tonight warm us with memories of their inspiration and their aspirations.
In miracle and mystery, Jesus was born, light shining in the darkness. In miracle and mystery, all are born, new lights of life full of hope.
May our lives be the Light of this Good News.
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 hope needs to be found,
And where love needs to be shared.
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
"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
"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
"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
PASTORAL PRAYERS
After each prayer is mentioned, say in unison: O Light that shines in our darkness: come and free us with your love.
"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
MESSAGE
“The Glory Shone Around Them”
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.
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, of sadness even in holiday season, 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. There is always enough of what all need if we all share and take no more than we need. That is the way it is in God’s inn, God’s welcome table, open to all regardless of who they are, what they believed, especially for those who are suffering, and oppressed. Come let us celebrate at the table the birth of the one who would make table gatherings in the midst of strangers and enemies, in the abandoned places of the Empire, reminding all there of God‘s healing presence.
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
This is a Day which God has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad therein (Psalm 118).
And let us treat it as the gift it is--with surprise, delight, care, and attention, and look for ways to share this holy day and all Life’s gifts with others.
For what does the Eternal ask from us?
To live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6).
Go now in peace, and may the peace of God go with you all the days of your life.
Go now in joy, finding the deepest spirit in the simplest of things.
Go now in love, dedicated to making it visible as justice for all.
Go now in hope, the spirit of the Christ Child bringing light into your life and world.
Lessons and Carols and Communion
The Welcome Table
Free Universalist Missional Community
5920 N. Owasso Ave. Turley, OK 74126
INVOCATION
from "Christmas Beatitudes" by David Rhys Williams
"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 season each week we have pointed the way to Christmas. Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope, these are the touchstones in our journey preparing our hearts for this holy night when we begin again in the spirit of the Child. 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 unconditional love.
May the lights we burn tonight warm us with memories of their inspiration and their aspirations.
In miracle and mystery, Jesus was born, light shining in the darkness. In miracle and mystery, all are born, new lights of life full of hope.
May our lives be the Light of this Good News.
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 hope needs to be found,
And where love needs to be shared.
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
"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
"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
"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
PASTORAL PRAYERS
After each prayer is mentioned, say in unison: O Light that shines in our darkness: come and free us with your love.
"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
MESSAGE
“The Glory Shone Around Them”
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.
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, of sadness even in holiday season, 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. There is always enough of what all need if we all share and take no more than we need. That is the way it is in God’s inn, God’s welcome table, open to all regardless of who they are, what they believed, especially for those who are suffering, and oppressed. Come let us celebrate at the table the birth of the one who would make table gatherings in the midst of strangers and enemies, in the abandoned places of the Empire, reminding all there of God‘s healing presence.
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
This is a Day which God has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad therein (Psalm 118).
And let us treat it as the gift it is--with surprise, delight, care, and attention, and look for ways to share this holy day and all Life’s gifts with others.
For what does the Eternal ask from us?
To live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6).
Go now in peace, and may the peace of God go with you all the days of your life.
Go now in joy, finding the deepest spirit in the simplest of things.
Go now in love, dedicated to making it visible as justice for all.
Go now in hope, the spirit of the Christ Child bringing light into your life and world.
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