Organic Faith

Soul Cafe 5: Contemplation

Join us this Tuesday (8/3/10) for our 5th Soul Cafe!  The topic this month is Contemplation.  Come ready to share a reflection on contemplation in whatever way is meaningful for you: through song, poem, story, artwork, whatever!   Bring friends, bring thoughts, see you Tuesday!

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Organic Faith Spring Retreat

Organic Faith Friends!

I want to announce to one and all the Organic Faith Spring Retreat at LCLC from Friday night March 26th until March 28th (ending around noon).  

Retreats are a great way for a community to spend time together, to grow together and to delve into bigger, deeper conversations than what we might talk about at one of our weekly gatherings.  They also are a heck of a lot of fun. 

So, mark your calendars and start inviting your friends (retreats are a great place to invite new people in!) for the Organic Faith Spring Retreat at LCLC. 

Stay tuned for more information about the retreat schedule and theme!

Reflecting God’s Glory

On Tuesday we met for an evening of fellowship, conversation, and Bible study.  Organic Faith’s own Andy Fitch led us through an evening that centered around Exodus 34:22-35. 

In this passage Moses comes down from Mount Sinai and his face is glowing as a result of his direct encounter with God.   And when the Israelites see Moses they react with fear and so as a result Moses begins to wear a veil over his face that he then removes when he goes to talk with God on top of Mount Sinai. 

Probably not a story you heard about in Sunday school.

Our conversation centered a lot around what it means to reflect, react, and give glory to God.   As we talked through the scripture we asked ourselves, what would it mean for me to be Moses in this passage?  What about if I were the Israelites? 

Through all of this conversation we shared bread and wine together for one reason because it’s a great snack, but also because that specific combination of food and drink reminds us of the meal Jesus shared with his disciples. 

And although we didn’t come to any grad, universal conclusions to our questions about reflection and reacting we did come to some new ideas.

Because in our lives, just like Moses there are times when we have those mountain top experiences with God and it feels as no one else understands.   But then there are those times when we are the Israelites and we are the ones that get so jealous of our friends mountain top experiences, or we just don’t understand what’s going on with them.   And we feel so left out or confused that frankly, it almost scares us. 

But whether we’re Moses or the Israelites we need to realize that the glory of God is a good thing.  And so if we’re Moses, maybe we should think twice about putting that veil on.  And if we’re the Israelites, maybe we need to realize that sometimes God does something different and if it truly gives glory to God then maybe we shouldn’t be so judgmental.

And here’s the really interesting part.  Through our entire 2 hour long conversation about all of these things, we were eating bread and drinking wine.  Again, we didn’t come to any startling conclusions, but in some way Jesus was present in the entire evening.  As we live our lives and seek to give God glory, to reflect His glory to others,  and as we react to the many different ways that individuals reflect God’s glory in their lives, Jesus is present there too.  

House Church Recap

This past Monday marked the very first of the Organic Faith “church” experiments for the summer.   For about a year now we’ve been meeting weekly in a pub (technically it’s a tavern…) for Pub Church.  However, for the summer months we’re putting our pub time (or tavern time…) on hold and instead we’re exploring each week other ways to be “church”.

This week we gave “House Church” a try.  We met in my new, and very barren apartment and we talked about chairs.  Everyone was asked to bring there own chair, partially because I don’t yet have adequate seating, but also so we could ask each other the question, “where are you sitting?”

In our lives so many different factors determine our position in the world.  “Where we sit” is very rarely our choice, but rather it is the result of a number of factors throughout life that influence us.   And yet, as we discussed, so often we get stuck in our chairs and our opinions and our views of the world that we refuse to see the world in any other way. 

At about this point in the conversation we read through chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians.  In this passage, Paul talks about how the church can’t be just one type of person, but it must be the working together of many people and many gifts.  As Paul says, a body can’t be just one gigantic eye, or just a whole bunch of ears, all the parts must work together.

As we reflect this summer on the different ways that we can be church it is important to realize that being church is not about remaining in our chairs, but rather it is about bringing all of our chairs together.  As a gathered group striving to see the world from beyond our chair we are able to learn and grow and be together.  God calls us to trade in the confining and restrictive chairs that we plant ourselves in for the beauty and adventure of community.

Maybe church isn’t about were you meet but the way you let God work through that meeting to change you.

Project Playlist

Organic Faith has recently begun a new excursion as an avenue for fostering a stronger level of connection.  By tapping into the love and appreciation many of us share for music we have begun on a journey we like to call “Project Playlist”.  

Every other week Bill, the brains behind this idea, sends out a theme or an idea to think about.   As a community we process and digest the theme and then send Bill one song that, to us, meets the inspiration. 

It’s a beautiful process of sharing, thinking, and expressing together the different and unique ways that God is meeting us through music. 

In the days ahead I’ll develop a way to share this unique expression of our community here on the internet so that you too can listen to the songs that speak to us and maybe even take part yourself in this musical mind melding we call Project Playlist. 

Everything is Spiritual

We have a saying at our Pub Church gatherings that seems to come up over and over again despite the topic of the week.  It's just a simple three word phrase and yet it seems to sum up one of Organic Faith's core theological convictions:  Everything is Spiritual.  We have arrive at this conviction via different routes and reasons; some of us thanks to Rob Bell's lecture of the same name, some of us thanks to conversation and discussion, some of thanks to a retreat back in February.  Regardless, we all are getting at the same idea -- you don't need to put yourself in a certain time or place or space; you don't need to go looking for God because God is present in and around everything; everything in this life has a spiritual component.  

Some people might call our convictions overly optimistic, but personally I'll take the overly optimistic viewpoint any day.  To me, life becomes infinitely more beautiful when you're compelled to find God's fingerprints on every event, every person, everything you encounter. 

As Organic Faith community journeys onward we hold this conviction close to our hearts and we strive to open our eyes to God's workings all around us, making ourselves and each other more conscious of the subtle and big ways that God meets us.

Experiencing The Resurrection

I think my favorite moment of the last month came on April 18th at about 11:30am.  Myself and four other members of Organic were on our way back from the Buffalo River Clean-up that we had participated in earlier that morning. 

The five of us along with three other Organic Faith members spent the morning cleaning up the paths and the riverbank of Ellicot Creek.  We had all worked really hard and gotten more than a little dirty in the process.  We properly disposed of bottles, papers, cans, tires, car batteries, candy wrappers, and everything in between.   We were tired.

Due to our exhaustion and the temperature that beautiful spring day we drove the entire way home with the windows open.  Sunlight poured in from all angles, the breeze cascaded into the car and on my car’s CD player the music of Nickel Creek played as the five of us exited the parking lot of Amherst Veterans Canal Park.   I don’t know who said first it, but at some point during the ride home we all came into agreement that at that moment life was very good.

In light of the Easter event that we celebrated over the past month I can’t help but reflect on the ways that I experience the resurrection today.   Ever Easter we talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ – his victory of death and subsequently our victory over the death of our sins.  This is certainly a powerful and exciting message, but what about the ways that we continue to experience the ways that our God can bring life from death. 

Despite all the death in this world, despite all the fear, doubt and worry we are still blind-sided by moments when, quite simply, “Life is Good”.  These are the moments when the power of life overcomes the many-faced powers of death and we experience the power of the resurrection here today.

I went to church on Easter Sunday, twice.  However, I experienced Easter so much more fully a week later when as a community Organic Faith brought new life to Amherst Veteran’s Park.   And even more fully when the jumbled soup of good music, sour muscles, spring sunshine, and a job well done all worked together against all deaths in the world to declare life is good.