November 21, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by John Gerard

WELCOME

Welcome to The Pub Church! 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.

POSTLUDE

By John