As usual, we have been meeting every week on Saturdays, 5:00pm atThe Dugout. That's right, we meet every week unless the Dugout is closed, in which case I will email with alternate plans.
And so guess what? The Saturdayafter Thanksgiving,Saturday, November 28th, the Dugout is CLOSED. Soooo...
Saturday, November 28th, The Pub Church will gather at124 Hamilton St. in Cambridgefor dinner and a movie. Dinner is at 5:00pm and then we will get on the T and head to Harvard Sq. AMC for a movie (TBD).
On Thanksgiving, 11/26,at 5:00pm all are invited to Thanksgiving dinner at 124 Hamilton St. in Cambridge. Please join us in giving thanks, eating good food, and enjoying each other's company. Feel free to bring anyone else with you too. Also if you want to bring a favorite side-dish or dessert let me know so we won't double cook :-)
In other news, The Pub Church has an intern this academic year! Wes Dalton is a Master of Divinity student at the BU School of Theology and is doing his field education with us at pub church. Already a regular participant at pub church, we now get to participate with him in accomplishing his learning objectives. Ask him about it :-)
Welcome to The PubChurch! We are a church in a pub and the Spirit is with us. In this space you are free to move about, order drinks/food, doodle, and express your ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts; all we bring is welcome. Our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING PRAYER
God, you have already blessed this table as the means for our coming together, help us now to share in honesty and towards truth, so that the fruits of this gathering may be loving fellowship and new life. Amen.
TELLING OUR STORY
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By John
CONVERSATIONAL SERMON
Mark 7: 24-30
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.* He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 28But she answered him, ‘Sir,* even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ 29Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
·Initial thoughts? Comments?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
BENEDICTION
Go now in peace, in love, in contemplation, and in whatever way the Spirit pulls at you.
Welcome to The PubChurch! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING PRAYER
From HRC Out with Scripture
Jesus the Annointed, we remember you on this day of the dead. You risked it all to love those who hated you. You present us with a great cloud of saints who have gone before us as
witnesses to divine love.
Lure us to love as you did, and as they did,
with reckless abandon and holy wisdom.
Give us courage when standing for love’s demands.
Provide us the strength to persevere
even in those times
when it means risking it all.
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By Maggie
REMEMBERING OUR SAINTS
A Reflection by Carter Hayward
Among spiritual qualities, why is humility one of the hardest to practice and yet probably the easiest to imitate? Genuine humility is a gift from God that has nothing to do with downcast eyes, a misty voice and noble stories of sacrifice. Humility is, rather, living courageously in a spirit of radical connectedness with others, which enables us to see ourselves as God sees us; interrelated to one another and with the Divine, each of us deeply valued and worthy of respect as every other.
A truly humble person does not deny their self-interest but rather strives to realize how their interests are connected with the well-being of others, all others, not just those most like themselves. A genuinely humble woman does not seek to play herself down, as if she should be small and insignificant next to others, but rather is able to love herself fiercely and struggles to extend this strong love to all others by advocating for their dignity and well-being.
~~~~~~~
·Initial thoughts?
·How have we understood humility?
·Do we know any such people? Any such saints?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
CLOSING PRAYER AND BENEDICTION
Spirit of the Earth, May beauty emerge within us.
May the vivid colors of our gifts come into view.
May the branches of our souls
reveal our essential core of goodness.
Great Spirit of Autumn, Grant us courage to live your wisdom and witness your beauty.
Welcome to The PubChurch! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING REFLECTION
Kabir (version by Robert Bly)
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive. Jump into experience while you are alive! …
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now,
in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire…
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By John
OPENING PRAYER
Spirit, Guide our voices and our thoughts, so that in telling our own stories and listening to the stories of others, we may gain some insight into the mystery of life and into the mystery of the Divine.
Then he summoned the twelve and started sending them out in pairs and giving them authority over unclean spirits. And he instructed them not to take anything on the road, except a staff: no bread, no knapsack, no spending money, but to wear sandals, and to wear no more than one shirt. And he went on to say to them: “Wherever you enter someone’s house, stay there until you leave town. And whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, get out of there and shake the dust off your feet in witness against them.”
So they set out and announced that people should turn their lives around, and they often drove out demons, and they anointed many sick people with oil and healed [them].
~~~~~~~
·Initial thoughts?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
oHalloween party – ideas?
CLOSING PRAYER AND BENEDICTION
Go in peace, filled with courage, strength and hopefulness to meet and engage each other with compassion, patience, and love.
Welcome to The Pub Church! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING PRAYER
Thomas Merton
Go tell the earth to shake
And tell the thunder
To wake the sky
And tear the clouds apart
Tell my people to come out
And wonder
Where the old world is gone
For a new world is born
And all my people
Shall be one.
So tell the earth to shake
With marching feet
Of messengers of peace
Proclaim my law of love
To every nation
Every race. (continues…)
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By Andrew
CONVERSATIONAL SERMON
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjYqyb-BYWI
Mark 6:1-6
Then he left that place, and he comes to his hometown, and his disciples follow him. When the sabbath day arrived, he started teaching in the synagogue; and many who heard him were astounded and said so: “Where’s he getting this?” and “What’s the source of all this wisdom?” and “Who gave him the right to perform such miracles? This is the carpenter, isn’t it? Isn’t he Mary’s son? And who are his brothers, if not James and Judas and Simon? And who are his sisters, if not our neighbors?” And they were resentful of him.
Jesus used to tell them: “No prophet goes without respect, except on his home turf and among his relatives and at home!”
He was unable to perform a single miracle there, except that he did cure a few by laying hands on them, though he was always shocked at their lack of trust. And he used to go around the villages, teaching in a circuit.
~~~~~~~
• Initial thoughts?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
o John Gerard - Nov.17th opening for Kevin So at Johnny D’s in Somerville
Welcome to The PubChurch! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING MEDITATION
Prayer by Kristin White
Prepare for the Goddess upon your tongue
– the taste of her wisdom in your mouth.
Prepare for Her scent within your nostrils
– the heady call of love and grace and justice.
Prepare for Her swirling purple beauty
– alive with lives of the past, ripe with anticipation of joy to come.
She is moving amongst our fingertips.
Extend our arms to welcome Her.
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By Marc
CONVERSATIONAL SERMON
Mark 5:21-43
See handout - Long text!
~~~~~~~
·Initial thoughts?
·What does the sandwich structure do to the stories?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
God of grape and God of harvest
God of wine and grain and wind and sun
We give thanks for your Creation – earth, and vine, and weather.
We lift up laborers, who work the fields of the world, who bring forth sustenance.
We rejoice in our togetherness.
We love you, heart of our lives and source of our blessings!
And we thank you for these elements, for showing us that you are an embodied material reality and possibility – we join you by sharing this meal now.
Take, eat, drink –
everyone is welcomed at this table.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
oWes’s class
oTuesday – John Gerard
oThursday – Celebrate Bisexuality Day
oDisciples Update
CLOSING PRAYER AND BENEDICTION
Goddess, in this place, in this gathering, we pray for change, to become new vessels, full of courage, wisdom, hope and calm.
May we become new women, new men, new people,
changed, shifted, grown strong and hopeful by your grace and by one another’s love.
May we leave this space different than we arrived.We desire to be new wineskins, strong and healthy, filled with your grace.May our strong bodies hold your grace, pouring it out for well-being and for joy.Go in peace and Drink in the Spirit!
Welcome to The PubChurch! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING MEDITATION
**Adapted from The Prayers of Kierkegaard, p. 59.
Spirit who is in all places, when we meditate on what we will say and how we will say it, you are present; when we have resolved to come into your sacredness, you are present, but perhaps this truth is not always real to us. So bless this gathering in order that each of us individually and communally will in this hour feel your presence and know that you are indeed present.
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By Andrew
CONVERSATIONAL SERMON
Mark 5:1-20
And they came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. And when he got out of the boat, suddenly a person controlled by an unclean spirit cam from the tombs to accost him. This man made his home in the tombs, and nobody was able to bind him, not even with a chain, because, though he had often been bound with fetters and with chains, he would break the fetters and pull the chains apart, and nobody could subdue him. And day and night he would howl among the tombs and across the hills and keep bruising himself on the stones. And when he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran up and knelt before him and, shouting at the top of his voice, he says, “What do you want with me, Jesus, you son of the most high God? For God’s sake, don’t torment me!” – because he had been saying to it: “Come out of that fellow, you filthy spirit!”
And [Jesus] started questioning him: “What’s your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he says, “for there are many of us.”
And it kept begging him over and over not to expel them from their territory.
Now over there by the mountain a large herd of pigs was feeding. And so they bargained with him: “Send us over to the pigs so we may enter them!”
And he agreed. And then the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the bluff into the sea, about two thousand of them, and drowned in the sea. And the herdsmen ran off and reported it in town and out in the country. And they went out to see what had happened. And they come to Jesus and notice the demoniac sitting with his clothes on and with his wits about him, the one who had harbored Legion, and they got scared. And those who had seen told them what had happened to the demoniac, and all about the pigs. And they started begging him to go away from their region. And as [Jesus] was getting into the boat, the ex-demoniac kept pleading with him to let him go along. And he would not let him, but says to him, “Go home to your people and tell them what your patron has done for you – how he has shown mercy to you”
And he went away and started spreading the news in the Decapolis about what Jesus had done for him, and everyone would marvel.
~~~~~~~
·Initial thoughts?
·Does today’s text shed any more light on the good news Mark is communicating?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
BENEDICTION
Today is the beginning of everything. Go in peace, with new life, and Drink in the Spirit!
Welcome to The PubChurch! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING MEDITATION
Adapted from Mary Daly’s, Wickedary
Ontological Courage is the courage to Be an Other, one who participates in the realm outside the parameters of patriarchal predictability. An Other has the Courage to refuse inclusion in the State of the Living Dead – the Courage to break out from the deadforms of archetypal deadtime – to take leap after leap of Living Faith. An Other has the Courage to Sin – to commit Original Acts of participation in Be-ing; the Courage to be intellectual in the most direct and daring way, claiming and trusting the deep correspondence between the structures/processes of one’s own mind and the structures/processes of reality. An Other has the Courage to Act on one’s own deepest intuitions as they are inspired by the Divine.
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By Andrew
CONVERSATIONAL SERMON
Luke 9:57-62
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests; but the son of Adam has nowhere to rest his head.”
To another he said, “Follow me.”
But he said, “First, let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Leave it to the dead to bury their own dead; but you, go out and announce God’s imperial rule.”
Another said, “I’ll follow you, sir; but let me first say good-bye to my people at home.”
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is qualified for God’s imperial rule.”
~~~~~~~
·Initial thoughts? How do Jesus’ interactions strike you?
·Do we have commitments for which we are willing to Courageously Leap, for which we are willing to not look back?
·What Acts do we do toward these commitments?
·What kinds of support and encouragement can we offer one another toward each Other’s Original Acts?
·Does today’s text shed any light on our discussion?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
BENEDICTION
May the Goddess bless you and bless you kindly. May you be Courageous, Sin Big and Drink in the Spirit!
Welcome to The PubChurch! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. In this space feel free to move about, help yourself to drinks/food, doodle, and express ideas openly!
We come together with diversity of thoughts, stories, talents, hopes and hurts. All we bring is welcome; our prayer is that in coming together with all our differences and with Spirit, we participate toward a new divine reality. This is sacred space.
OPENING MEDITATION
by Donald Jeffrey Hayes, Earth Prayers, p155
Do not stifle me with the strange scent of low growing mountain lilies – do not confuse me with salubrious odor of honeysuckle!
I cannot separate in my mind
Sweetness from sweetness – Mimosa from wild white violets; Magnolia from Cape Jasmine!
I am from the north tide country, I can understand only the scent of seaweed; Salt marsh and scrub pine riding on the breath of an amorous fog!
O do not confuse me
With sweetness upon sweetness;
Let me escape safely from this gentle madness –
Let me go back to the salt of sanity
in the scent of the sea…!
TELLING OUR STORY
I see you!
I am here!
PEACE – TOAST
In this place we creatively express;
Some of us are focused, some are a mess!
We participate during the sermon
And people do connect, we are learnin’
Greet all with a handshake, toast or a wave
At all times feel free to yell, rant or rave
Fake not friends, we can arrive as we are.
Cheers! Here’s to sacred space in a bar!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
By John
CONVERSATIONAL SERMON
Mark 4:35-41 (end of Ch. 4)
Later in the day, when evening had come, he says to them, “Let’s go across on the other side.”
After sending the crowd away, they took him along since he was in the boat, and other boats accompanied him. Then a great squall comes up and the waves begin to pound against the boat, so that the boat suddenly began to fill up. He was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. And they wake him up and say to him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are going to drown?
Then he got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Be quiet, and shut up!” The wind then died down and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so cowardly? You still don’t trust, do you?”
And they were completely terrified and would say to one another, “Who can this fellow be, that even the wind and sea obey him?”
~~~~~~~
·Thoughts on today’s reading?
·Who is this ‘fellow’ anyway???
·What do they find so terrifying?
COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES
God is with us.
Yes she is.
FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
BENEDICTION
And now may the Goddess bless you all and bless you kindly – Be at Peace and Drink in the Spirit!
Xochitl Alvizo is a candidate for ordination with the Disciples - her new church denomination as of 2006. They have been wonderfully supportive of her and of The Pub Church as a new church start.
Likewise, The Pub Church has received unqualified support from New Church Ministry, a general ministry of the Disciples. Xochitl and TPC have benefited from their new church planters training as well as ongoing mentoring support. And all though there are differences in theology and approach among new church planters and New Church Ministry, their support has continued nonetheless. We love them! http://www.newchurchministry.org/
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