July 2017

Our community helped to host the Bonfire Festival this week. Musicians and artists from many places came together for workshops and performances. Today our time was part church service and part concert. Quite a few of the musicians sang songs that were meaningful to them. Along the way some beautiful thoughts were shared about God and community. Rosie Sperling Funk read this quote from Thomas Merton. Peter Fitch explained about a new initiative that Andrew Smith is offering, a subscription podcast for spiritual songs, many with a post-church flavour.

‘this light lingers / A Year of Song’ (available July 31, 2017)

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Peter Fitch continues to talk about the early parts of John’s Gospel. Today he focuses on the interaction that Nicodemus has with Jesus. What is Jesus saying to him when he indicates that we need to be “born from above”? (This is actually a more likely translation.) Peter thinks that historic interpretations have created a sense that Christians exist on a different level than others and that this has produced terrible results. He provides a different and more hopeful sense of what this passage might mean.

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This was a training service (third week of the month) so there was a little more time given to an exercise or activity. This week the topic was trust and the activity was an exercise in group Lectio Divina. Peter Fitch led this, based on the story of Nathaniel in John’s Gospel, and several others had rich things to add.

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Peter Fitch shares some more thoughts from a Creativity Workshop he prepared for the Artists Gathering in Kimberley, BC, this year. Before Peter speaks, Nate Petersen gives some reflections from a symposium on faith in Canada that he just attended in Ottawa. Then Peter begins by talking about the unlikely meeting place of spiritual and material concerns. In this he shares his longing for a middle ground, the place where the best of Spirit can infuse our ordinary life without some of the traditional problems of normal religion. In particular, he is looking for the benefits of Christianity without its historic problem of exclusivity. Along the way in the creativity talk, we listened to songs by Andrew Smith and Zoe Fitch.

You can listen to the complete (worship and talk) main service

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This Sunday was dedicated to creativity and to sharing ideas about how to help at the upcoming Bonfire Festival in St. Stephen (July 26-29). There were also some great songs shared before and after the break.

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