February 13, 2010 - Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by Andrew Prete

WELCOME

Welcome to The Pub Church! As a church in a pub, the Spirit is with us. So feel free to move about as the Spirit inspires and express yourself openly!

We come together with all our diversity and everything that we all bring is welcome. We pray coming together and sharing our differences with one another and with Spirit, we participate in a new divine reality. We are in sacred space.

OPENING PRAYER

Holy Living God, you have called us to life. You have called us to live in love and compassion with one another – to live according to a different and divine standard; one that does not make sense.

We are grateful! Lead us now to be present to one another with the love and compassion that we see embodied in the life of Jesus, so that all that we do and say in this gathering will bring us closer to you.

TELLING OUR STORY

What is your most memorable experience with prayer?

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 9:14-29

When they had rejoined the disciples, they saw a huge crowd surrounding them and scholars arguing with them. And all of a sudden, when the whole crowd caught sight of him, they were alarmed and rushed up to meet him. He asked them, “Why are you bothering to argue with them?”

And one person from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you because he has a mute spirit. Whenever it takes him over, it knocks him down, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and stiffens up. I asked your disciples to drive it our, but they couldn’t.”

In response he says, “You distrustful lot, how long must I associate with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him over to me!”

And they brought him over to him. And when the spirit noticed him, right away it threw him into convulsions, and he fell to the ground, and jept rolling around, foaming at the mouth. And [Jesus] asked his father, “How long has he been like this?”

He replied, “Ever since he was a child. Frequently it has thrown him into fire and into water to destroy him. So if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”

Jesus said to him, “What do you mean, ‘If you can’? All things are possible for the one who trusts.”

Right away the father of the child cried out and said, “I do trust! Help my lack of trust!”

When Jesus saw that the crowd was about to mob them, he rebuked the unclean spirit, and commands it, “Deaf and mute spirit, I command you, get out of him and don’t ever go back inside him!”

And after he shrieked and went into a series of convulsions, it came out. And he took on the appearance of a corpse, so that the rumor went around that he had died. But Jesus took hold of his hand and raised him, and there he stood. And when he had gone home, his disciples started questioning him privately: “Why couldn’t we dive it out?”

He said to them, “The only thing that can drive this kind out is prayer.”

Silent Meditation: Be still and aware of the Divine presence within and all around us as we prepare for our conversation.

COMMUNION AND SHARING OF RESOURCES

God is with us.

Yes she is.

FEEDBACK AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

v Wednesday Open Conversations

v Quincy next Saturday

BENEDICTION

POSTLUDE

By Andrew

October 31, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by Maggie Keelan

WELCOME

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

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.

May we discover moments of rest

and a harvest of nourishment.

Great Spirit of Autumn,

Wind of Heaven,

Spirit of the Earth,

Thank you.

Now let us go in peace and think in the Spirit!

POSTLUDE

October 24, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by John Gerard

WELCOME

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 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.

CONVERSATIONAL SERMON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjYqyb-BYWI

Mark 6:7-13

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

o Halloween 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.

Blessed be!

POSTLUDE

By John

October 10, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by Andrew Prete

WELCOME

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

o Sara’s events

CLOSING PRAYER AND BENEDICTION

Go in peace and Drink in the Spirit!

POSTLUDE

By Andrew

September 19, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by Marc Lavalle

WELCOME

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 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

o Wes’s class

o Tuesday – John Gerard

o Thursday – Celebrate Bisexuality Day

o Disciples 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!

POSTLUDE

By Marc

September 12, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by Andew Prete

WELCOME

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 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!

POSTLUDE

By Andrew

August 28, 2009 Gathering

PRELUDE

Music by Andew Prete

WELCOME

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 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!

POSTLUDE

By Andrew