Crowded Table 4.0
The season of Crowded Table is very much about identity- it started with the wondering of who we are when we gather around the communion table. It’s a deeply complicated and weighted practice and we wondered together what does a communion table look like that is deeply Storyline. Then the next season, we talked about the ancestors of faith gathered around this table with us, people like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Ernesto Cardinal who put their very life and bodies on the line to make everyone had a seat at this crowded table, reminding us that we did not invent this table, it has existed long before us and will continue after us, and we have a responsibility to make it longer not shorter.
Then last year we took it very personal about the many frictions and conflicts that can happen when you are at a crowded table and people are making messes and bumping into you. And we explored self-differentiation and practices that allow us to be at the table and moved by the table without expecting or desiring complete uniformity of thought.
But what’s next? It can so often be so easy to get stuck, we get to the table and we experience belonging, sometimes for the first time, we take the necessary pause to rest and be goo at the table, just as we are, but then something happens. We get stuck. It’s easy to do. We get used to who we share the table with and we forget that this is not all there is. So in this season, we will be using the organizing spiral move out of places of stuckness — both internal and external. To consider how we can both find our place at our table, know it’s where we belong, but also know we can get up out of our chairs when we need too!
Then last year we took it very personal about the many frictions and conflicts that can happen when you are at a crowded table and people are making messes and bumping into you. And we explored self-differentiation and practices that allow us to be at the table and moved by the table without expecting or desiring complete uniformity of thought.
But what’s next? It can so often be so easy to get stuck, we get to the table and we experience belonging, sometimes for the first time, we take the necessary pause to rest and be goo at the table, just as we are, but then something happens. We get stuck. It’s easy to do. We get used to who we share the table with and we forget that this is not all there is. So in this season, we will be using the organizing spiral move out of places of stuckness — both internal and external. To consider how we can both find our place at our table, know it’s where we belong, but also know we can get up out of our chairs when we need too!
Fall Gathering Schedule
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Oct. 4th | 10 am- Gathering @ Chapel Theater - 4107 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222
Oct. 11th | 10 am- Gathering @ Chapel Theater - 4107 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222 Oct. 18th | 10 am- Gathering @ Chapel Theater - 4107 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222 Oct. 25th | Sabbath Sunday- No Gathering Nov. 1st | 10 am- Gathering @ Chapel Theater - 4107 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222 Nov. 8th | 10 am- Gathering @ Chapel Theater - 4107 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222 Nov. 15th | 10 am- Gathering @ Chapel Theater - 4107 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222 Nov. 22nd | Sabbath Sunday- No Gathering |
