OpenSpirit

Circling Home to a Feast of Welcome:  OpenSpirit Sunday Evening!

Sunday, March 14, 2010, Edwards Church UCC, Framingham, MA

Potluck Supper at 5:30 pm, OpenSpirit Worship at 7:00 pm

The journey home is rarely a straight line. 

Instead, it is full of twists and turns, of circling around, of coming close and moving away.

It is a journey of discovery: discovering that what seemed to be a wrong turn might instead be an opportunity, awakening to grace revealed on the road.

On Sunday, March 14, join OpenSpirit as we reflect on this circuitous, grace-filled journey home.  We will seek to hear the familiar story of the Prodigal son with new ears.

We will have the opportunity to walk a labyrinth, drawing upon an ancient spiritual tradition to reclaim our own experience of journey and home.  As always, we will be inspired by lively music and nourished by bread and cup.

We will gather at 5:30 pm for a potluck supper.  Worship will begin at 7 p.m. Come for one or both!

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OpenSpirit, a creative worship gathering in the Christian tradition.

Sunday, March 29, 2009; 7:00 – 8:00 pm; MetroWest Performing Arts Center, Framingham.

Snakes.  Slithering, uncoiling, striking; fast as lightening.  Our Lenten sojourn may just bring us eye to eye with this scaly creature of the desert.  And what can paralyze us even faster than the serpent’s venom?  Fear.  Our own fear can poison us, stop us in our tracks, even prevent us from saving ourselves from danger.

Ancient scripture, contemporary events, the stories of our lives … let us reflect together on the role fear plays in our spiritual lives.  Fear can block out beauty and possibility, make us less able to respond to potential harm.  Can we name our fear, bring it into the light, re-claim our own power?

OpenSpirit Lent.  In song and silence, word and community, we affirm together God’s presence in all things.  In Jesus, we know God shares in our struggles and our rejoicing.  We are not alone in this desert, and need not be afraid in any danger.  We can be bread for each other.

OpenSpirit.  All you need is a hunger for the presence of God, a thirst for authentic community.  There is no right or wrong way to worship.  If you want to sing, sing.  If you want to dance, dance!  God invites us to bring our whole selves to worship – all that we are, all we can become.  We can bring our hearts, our minds, our spirits and our bodies, all of who we are, made in the image of God, unique, precious.

The MetroWest Performing Arts Center is accessible to all.  Look for the red door, take the elevator to the third floor.  Be not afraid, even of the snake in the desert.

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OpenSpirit, a creative worship gathering in the Christian tradition.

Sunday, March 22, 2009; 7:00 – 8:00 pm; MetroWest Performing Arts Center, Framingham.

Have you ever gotten lost in the desert?  Desert wilderness can be profoundly disorienting.  Relentless sand, everywhere you look.  The desert can be bereft of roadsigns, directional markers.  Over there – is that an oasis, or a mirage?  Even so, our spiritual journey can bring us suffering, loneliness, and chaos – despite our best laid plans, and our fervent, heartfelt prayers.

In the desert, without a map.  Friends, fellow pilgrims, what does it mean to sojourn in such places – and survive, perhaps even thrive?  What strength can we find in companionship, with those we share bread with day by day?  What animating energy can we find in communal worship, worship that enlivens and sustains our spirits in dry and barren seasons?

Is there, perhaps, a world of orientation that lies, as one poet puts it, “under the map”?  How can we access this deeper layer, find a new way forward, let our spirit-sense discover the way?  Let us seek together this new orientation.   May God surprise us in ways we cannot anticipate. 

OpenSpirit.  All you need to bring is a hunger for the presence of God, a thirst for authentic community.  There is no right or wrong way to be in worship.  If you want to sing, sing.  If you want to dance, dance!  God invites us to bring our whole selves to worship – all that we are, all we can become.  We can bring our hearts, our minds, our spirits and our bodies, all of who we are, made in the image of God, unique, precious.

The MetroWest Performing Arts Center is accessible to all.  Look for the red door, take the elevator to the third floor.  Don’t be lost in the desert!  Come, join us, and be found.

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OpenSpirit, a creative worship gathering in the Christian tradition.

Sunday, March 15, 2009; 7:00 – 8:00 pm.  MetroWest Performing Arts Center, Framingham.

Fellow pilgrims, let us move even deeper into the desert.  These shifting sands can be so beautiful, but this wilderness can be dangerous.  Sometimes we creatures have to adapt to survive a desert sojourn.  Consider the cactus, its marvelous ability to draw and sustain  life in the most dry and barren of conditions. 

Come, March 15th, as we continue to experience the elements of the desert.  We have sifted sand, touched hard rock, tasted living water that springs forth like a fountain.  Now, we ponder cactus, and ask ourselves how we, too, can adapt, store up precious water, make room in ourselves and our lives for God, create space for Spirit.

There is much to discover, this week at OpenSpirit.  A labyrinth offers a reflective, walking meditation.  A prophet finds an angel in the desert, who ministers to him in his fatigue and despair.  Willie and Erin make our hearts sing, our bodies dance.  A poet and a contemplative share words of hope.  And, always, Christ’s table of welcome is spread for us all.

Fellow pilgrims, let us sojourn together, friends both old and new.  And as we walk these desert sands, let us discover God’s presence in our midst.

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OpenSpirit, a new gathering for creative, arts-infused worship:  we are passionate about following Jesus, about radical welcome, about expressing our spiritual yearnings in ways both ancient and new.

OpenSpirit Lent: A Desert Sojourn

Come, walk with us this Lent.  Join us as we explore the desert places of our lives, those wilderness times of testing, of seeking and finding, when God surprises us, again and again.

Each Sunday this Lenten season we come face to face with the elements of the desert, face to face with the power of God.  Sand, rock, and blooming cactus centered our initial gathering on March first.  Manna, mysterious, fed us.  Snow may have been falling around us, but we were warmed by God’s animating Spirit, by sweet sounds of piano and sax, by faces both new and familiar.

We invite you to gather again on Sunday March 8 at 7:00 PM at the Performing Arts Center. Encounter with us living water that bursts forth in ways that astound us, when we need it the most, where we expect it the least.  In the desert, we thirst for God’s gifts.  In the desert, water can flow like a fountain, even from the rock.  In the desert, we need each other, and we need God.

Sunday March 8: "Water from the Rock"

Sojourn with us, Lenten people.  And let us pause, at 7:00 pm every Sunday evening, to seek and celebrate God’s OpenSpirit, through creative worship, stirring music, and deepening community.

Enter the Red Door, take the elevator to the third floor, and come in to the Black Box Theater.  Framingham’s Performing Arts Center, third floor of the Danforth Museum is our new home; a great setting for our worship ‘in the round.’

All are welcome, and financial offerings are voluntary.  Contact Willie Sordillo 508/628-9294.

See below for additional information about OpenSpirit.

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