RitaTG's picture

RitaTG

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St. Peter's United Church in Sudbury celebrates becoming Affirming with the LGBTQ community

Hello everyone!

It's Pride Week here in Sudbury Ontario!

As part of the festivities St. Peter's United Church held a special welcoming service for the LGBTQ community.     Recently this church has completed, received, and celebrated achieving the Affirming Congregation designation (I don't know if I have said that quite right).

Cambridge Street United Church

Welcome! At Cambridge Street, we aim to be a caring, loving family. Our mission statement: "We, as members of Cambridge Street United Church, seek to follow Jesus Christ through word, music, and social action; thereby, nurturing our personal faith and supporting the faith journey of others.  We promise to be stewards of our living earth, to share with those in need, and to be welcoming to all.” 

Cambridge Street United Church

Welcome! At Cambridge Street, we aim to be a caring, loving family. Our mission statement: "We, as members of Cambridge Street United Church, seek to follow Jesus Christ through word, music, and social action; thereby, nurturing our personal faith and supporting the faith journey of others.  We promise to be stewards of our living earth, to share with those in need, and to be welcoming to all.” 

Cambridge Street United Church


EmergingSpirit's picture

EmergingSpirit

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Church Café Fresh Expressions

cafe

Share is a website which offers how-to advice on starting, developing, and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences. Sponsored by Fresh Expressions and ChurchArmy, two organizations based in the United Kingdom which work toward the development and renewal of Christian community, the Share site is a resource for those involved with innovative expressions of church.

Among Share's growing list of resources includes a helpful overview of café-style churches which are growing in popularity in many places. Share looks at a variety of café / church hybrids, including café-style events on church premises, Christian events in commercial cafés, commercial cafés run by Christians, and doing mission within existing cafés.

See the Share website for the full inspiring collection of church café ideas, as well as additional fresh expression takes on rural ministry, workplace church, children's ministry, on-line fresh expressions, and more.



EmergingSpirit's picture

EmergingSpirit

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Gregory West: Making Church a Digital Education Centre

If you are falling short on ideas to attract new people to the church (during the week) you might want to look to what people are doing online.

  • Digital Photography
  • Social Networking
  • Genealogy

In fact, the main group that is extremely active online and are into social networking today are the retiring Baby Boomers. What a great audience to attract to your church. Many of them missed the computer age, or maybe worked in a place with a computer at a "dumb terminal" and only learned what the specific work programs required and nothing more. What a great target audience to attract. Of course there are the seniors who are the biggest buyers of laptops and want to find their old friends...dead or alive! Hey, I am not joking here.

crazyheart's picture

crazyheart

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Throw out baby with bath water?

This from the Uncomfortable In Church thread

"Christmas Eve - I have seen communion served in a church where there was only one Christmas Eve Service - filled with strangers - most were unused to the ritual of the church - they looked very uncomfortable. I think this leads me to start another thread." CrazyHeart

 

So what I am wondering is how much of ritual and music and readings and other things  should we give up to be welcoming to others who come to the church?

 



EmergingSpirit's picture

EmergingSpirit

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Norm Seli: Summer - The Season for Short Rants

First and foremost, allow me to state unequivocally that we, in The United Church of Canada, need to pastor and minister to our constituency - the folks that have been with us since birth (ours and theirs): The ones who pay the bills; the ones who live out our shared faith in world; the ones who find comfort, challenge and Holy Presence in worship as we have practiced it for many decades.

But, having stated that...allow me to digress.

I was at my local strip mall the other day. As I made my way from the health food store to the ice cream shop, I was not only aware of the irony, but also of the music playing on the speakers. It was Bach...from St. Matthew's Passion, actually. I loved it. It created a tiny perfect Holy Moment for me, in which I was aware of God's Presence, the power of tradition, a sense of past, present and even future. I was, for a moment, part of a glorious moment of praise to God. Ahhhhhhhhhhhmen.

The strip mall was playing that music to keep teenagers from loitering.



EmergingSpirit's picture

EmergingSpirit

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"Two-thirds of teenagers don't believe in God, think reality TV is more important"

A recent article on the website of UK newspaper The Daily Mail reports on a survey of British teens on the importance of God and religion undertaken by Penguin books. The survey was carried out to mark Penguin's publication of controversial novel Killing God by Kevin Brooks.

According to the survey, 66 percent of teens surveyed do not believe a deity exists while 50 percent have never prayed and 16 percent have never been to church. 59 per cent of children believed religion has had a negative influence on the world, 60 percent only go to church for a wedding or christening, yet 91 percent agreed they should treat others the way they wished to be treated themselves.

Both the Church of England and the British Humanist Association have their own takes on these results. To read about them, and form your own opinion, check out the article here.

LBmuskoka's picture

LBmuskoka

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How do we say hello

Since someone recently admonished me to practice what I preach, I'm starting a new thread from the Hate Law & Reporting AbuseI am convinced, and feel free to disagree, that 90% of the problem is a failure to communicate and not a contravention of the Hate Laws.



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RevJamesMurray

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Sermon for May 17 2009

O sing to the Lord a new song.
Preached by Rev. James Murray at Dominion-Chalmers United Church,



EmergingSpirit's picture

EmergingSpirit

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Jesse Hair: A Church for Goths

"Christians are challenged to live and witness to their faith in all parts of their lives and in every place. I am impressed that those of the Goth Eucharist are working out this challenge; going where only few of the church venture and seeking an expression of the Christian gospel in terms that are distinct and new."

-Right Rev. Robert, Bishop of Whitby

It's dark. There are lots of candles. They play Sisters of Mercy, the Cure, Bauhaus, Cruxshadows, (etc.) during the service. The priest is a Goth. And afterwards instead of having coffee they go to a Goth club down the street. This is the Goth Eucharist at St. Edward King and Martyr church, in Cambridge, England.

You may have heard of churches starting alternative services, from "contemporary" evening services to balance a more traditional morning service, all the way to something as thematically specific as a service featuring the music of U2 (also known as a 'U2charist'). St. Edward's Goth Eucharist follows in this line, translating the gospel and Christian worship into yet another vernacular.

http://www.thegotheucharist.org.uk/

What do you think?

 

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