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Hi Dave,
We hope you're
well and that the Easter season brought some good time
with family and friends and is having a renewing,
residual effect on your moments. That's what it's all
about, after all--new life every day.
Want to
make sure you know that we'll be doing Baptisms on Sunday, May
13 right after our Sunday Gathering starting about
noon. If you'd like to be baptized
or have any questions,  you can reply here or call
949-293-4259 or see any of the pastors at any
of our gatherings. You can also just show up
on Sunday ready to go. It would be great
if you could come and join us for our Gathering at 10AM
and stay with us through the baptisms, but you can also
arrive at about 11:30AM as we're finishing up the
Gathering, and we'll carpool to a nearby
residence for water baptism in a pool/jacuzzi.
Be sure to bring your swimsuit or other clothes to get
wet in and a towel.
Our
special Evening with Chris Falson
is coming up in a month. Be sure to save
the date of Friday,
May 18 starting at 7PM for a great
evening of Chris' story and music.
Also want to
remind you that Conversations continues
on Wednesday evenings at 7:30PM for the rest of April.
Conversations is an open topic
discussion format  where we can stretch out and really
dig into the topics and tangents that interest us most.
Come join us for good coffee and conversation and bring
whatever you want to discuss in your
head.
After
all that, take a look below for latest
messages... | |
latest
messagesThe Middle
Way (Sunday, 3.11.12)
A 17-year-old
challeges his father by asking whether what he believes
is really true, or just what he believes... It's a
question each of us should be asking ourselves.  The 17-year-olds among us are
asking... If our older generations don't ask
as well, they become increasingly irrelevant to the
journey. A new video that has gone viral on the
internet, gathering millions of views in an astonishingy
short period of time, raps out to music that at
least one young poet hates religion, and by the
way, Jesus does too. Our young people know there's
something wrong with the institutional church--that the
emperor has no clothes, and though religion in
this poem is standing in for the hypocrisy, corruption,
and impotence of our institutional faith, we still need
to be careful with our words. Did Jesus really hate
religion; does it serve no purpose? Actually, today,
Jesus would shock us with his absolute devotion to
his religion. By any reading of the New Testament, he
followed every ritural and code of 1st century Judaism
to the letter. He didn't come, as he said, to abolish
the Law (the religion of his day and people), but to
fulfill. It's not that religion has no purpose or place
in our lives, it's that we always tend to do it badly.
Reforms come and go, and in between generations
lose their way and leaders lose their integrity. Once
the corporate expression that is religion becomes
separated from the personal experience that is
spirituality, I suppose we can all say we hate religion.
But spirituality without the structure and daily
practice that religion can provide quickly becomes just
as dry. The truth is never at the extremes. The middle
way that brings the extremes into unity is exactly what
Jesus meant by fulfilling instead of
abolishing.Water and
Wind (Sunday, 3.25.12)
What does a
middle way between religion and spirituality look like?
Religion without authentic spirituality is empty at
best, abusive at worst.  But Thomas Keating wrote that
though the spiritual life doesn't need to be
felt, it does need to be practiced. The
daily practice of our spirituality is our religion,
whether personal or denominational, but as we become
increasingly disenchanted with our religion, we are
taking an increasingly passive role in our spirituality,
letting the religious structures that have stood
for centures around Christianity fall away. Jesus has
two critical conversations back to back in John 3 and 4.
One is with a Pharisee named Nicodemus and the other
with an unnamed Samaritan woman. Both Nicodemus and the
woman have questions for Jesus about the nature of God
and worship, and both are so limited in their
thinking that the symbols Jesus uses to break them
free--water and wind--completely escape them at
first. For Nicodemus, Jesus presents the water
of baptism as the cleansing and practice of an active
spirituality, but one that must be based in the wind,
the constant and unknowable movement and breath of
spirit. For the woman, water becomes the living
water that like wind and spirit is always flowing,
in motion, and will usher in true worship that
knows no mountain or limited space. To follow the middle
Way is to be born again: to drink living water, to blow
about without needing to understand every principle and
process--yet at the same time, following a daily
practice, a worship in spirit and truth that constatly
brings God's presence into sharp and active focus. It's
the only Way to the Father: the middle way of water and
wind.Click here to pick these messages
up.conversations, wednesday
nights
Join us Wednesday evenings at
7:30PM for Conversations--free flowing discussion on
open topics and tangents.soak! friday, may
11
 With Good Friday
falling on Soak night in April, the next Soak is
Friday, May 11 at 7PM. Come join us for two hours of
music, prayer, and each other. men's breakfast
saturday, may 12
The next Men's
Breakfast will be Saturday
morning, May 12th at 9AM. All you men come
join us for music, worship, prayer and a message
from Pastor Mike.
an evening with chris falson,
may 18
Join
us Friday, May 18 at 7PM for an evening of the
music and story of internationally acclaimed Christian
recording artist Chris Falson in a very intimate
setting.Be well
always--hope to see you
soon. | |
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