Starting a new thing

Here's a link to some helpful reflections on starting a new community. Bob Hyatt gives a critical evaluation of the "10 Keys to Effective Church Planting" -- thankfully leading us out of the madness of a marketing/managerial approach (focus on "effectiveness" and numbers) to a more organic and holistic approach (focus on "faithfulness" and community). I think his advice in #6, "quit being a builder, try being a gardener," gets the metaphor just right.

|next-wave, bob hyatt|

TONIGHT

Click image for a higher resolution
8.5x11 size printable flyer

Stations: an evening of alt.worship in anticipation of Holy Week

Friday, April 7
7-8:30

Parish Hall
St. Luke's Episcopal Church

Wyoming Avenue
Downtown Scranton, PA

peacemealcommunity.org

The Suffering of God

Came across this quote today while reading Barbara Brown Taylor (one of our best Episcopal preachers), and thought it connected beautifully the themes of lent/cross and our peacemeal/piecemeal identity:

"Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God who suffers. It is not all that popular an idea, even among Christians. We prefer a God who perevents suffering, only that is not the God we have got. What the cross teaches us is that God's power is not the power to force human choices and end human pain. It is, instead, the power to pick up the shattered pieces and make something holy out of them--not from a distance but right close up" (God in Pain, p. 118).

| Barbara Brown Taylor, lent, cross |