Sharing Stories, Discerning Hopes

Please fill out this form and click submit.
Thursday, September 9
Friday, September 10
Saturday, September 11, 2021

Since March 2020, we have been careful and prudent as a Community Church, protecting one another and connecting in online and socially-distant settings.  Now it's time to come together again--to worship and pray, to laugh and weep, to respond to the One whose love is never-ending and relentless. 

As we mark this new moment, Dave Grishaw-Jones and our Spiritual Nurture Team will host hour-long conversations for 6-8 members or friends, encouraging reflection and inviting discernment among us.  What's changed for us?  How have we been moved this year?  Where has the Spirit shown up?  Or has the Spirit kept her distance?

Pick some time slots that work for you, and we'll arrange the schedule so that we've got a series of conversations for groups of 6-8, set up over three days.  You'll be assigned to one that you've identified.  Our hope is that most of the church community participates--and that these conversations open our hearts to the gift of spiritual community, to the promise of our ministry in the weeks and months to come!


 
 
 
 
 
CONVERSATION TIME SLOTS

Please select all that apply.
DAVE WRITES:

We anticipate this fall with courage and joy.  We sense new promises “surging in our life,” and long for a sense of “rootedness” that enables us both to belong and bear witness to the loving intentions of God.  The past year has tested our patience, isolated us from community, and exhausted us in ways we’d never even imagined.  Now we look to new opportunities in familiar places, to intimate conversations with dear friends and new ones; we expect to be challenged, moved and called into action within the bright light and liberating arc of God’s love.  On the “live edge of our existence.”  

While there’s always a temptation to pick up where we left off, to return to familiar habits and patterns, we look forward to refreshment and renewal in the places we love and the community we cherish.  We are called not simply to manage the church, or to protect it from waves of change, but “to be the church.”  And this invites a radically open heart, a discerning eye and a community at home in vulnerability and transition.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE--"The Live Edge of Our Existence"--HERE.


REFLECTING ON:

1. What has most surprised you or shaken you this past year? Something about human tenderness?  Something about the presence of God in your life?  Something about your need for human touch and community?

2.  How has your own passion for justice expanded or deepened this past year?  Is there a particular way in which this passion is inspired or nurtured by faith?

3.  Is there a particular loss you'd like to hold in prayer with us, some way in which life has changed or your heart broken over the past year?

4.  How are you experiencing awe and wonder in your life, in your heart, in this world now?  Is there a particular story about this you'd like to share in community now?
Thanks so much for joining us on this journey of renewal!  You'll hear from us in early September, with a schedule, and an invitation to a conversation at one of the times you've identified.

Your spirit is a blessing to us, and to God!

The Spiritual Nurture Team
with Pastor Dave Grishaw-Jones

Description

Please fill out this form and click submit.