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Nurturing Relational Connections Across Boston's Christian Community

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Oct 18 2019

Heart of Worship Concert

Wow!! Christmas season is fast approaching – what an amazing year its been.

Join us for a Heart Of Worship Concert (John 4:24) organized by Sound From Heaven – Qodesh Family Church Boston. It’s going to be an amazing moment in the presence and move of the Holy Ghost in Sounds from Heaven (Acts 2:2) and with a pure heart of worship.

Tell someone, come as a family, or come as a couple – Discover the young ministers the Holy Ghost is raising in MA.

Concert Info

Venue : 29 East Street, Winchester MA

Date : 26 October 2019

Time :  5:00 PM  Red Carpet Moments

6:00 PM – 9:30 PM  Concert

Cost: Free

Written by Andrew Walker · Tagged: boston music awards, boston night of worship, Boston University, christians, church, church websites, cityonahill, concert

Sep 30 2019

LTI Spiritual Formation in Congregations and Communities Symposium

IS SPIRITUAL FORMATION A PRIORITY IN YOUR CONGREGATION AND COMMUNITY?
Transform Your Leadership. Transform Your Congregation and Community.

It’s challenging for leaders to infuse their ministry settings with transformational practices necessary to bring about heart and soul change in healthy, life-giving ways. In this seven-session, interactive symposium, we invite leaders and teams to explore readily applicable pathways that will aid you in facilitating biblical, contemplative and Trinitarian priorities with those God has called you to serve.

The symposium will offer interactive instruction and collegial dialogue around the process of enfolding and infusing spiritual formation into the life of your church and community. A creative mini soul care retreat and optional spiritual direction will also be offered. Coffee and snacks will be provided each morning, as well as lunch and dinner provided on days one and two. We will conclude prior to lunchtime on Oct 18. Invite your team to join you for this unique spiritual formation and leadership development experience!

See https://mailchi.mp/leadershiptransformations.org/sfsscongandcomm2019 for more information!

Written by Andrew Walker · Tagged: church, community, leaders

Sep 19 2019

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music

The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra (Mark Harvey, director) will open its historic 47th season with a Duke Ellington Celebration, including tuneful classics and joyful sacred music featuring the First Parish of Concord choir, directed by Elizabeth Norton, with Nikki Turpin, narrator.  The concert will be held Sunday, September 22 at 7:00 pm at First Parish Church of Concord MA.  The program is sponsored by the Music Ministry of First Parish in collaboration with The Robbins House.  Aardvark has been called “stunningly beautiful” (New York City Jazz Record), “spellbinding” (The Boston Globe) and “one of the best jazz ensembles in the world” (Jazz Podium, Germany).  The band has been praised for “lush sonorities and a saxophonic blend worthy of Ellington’s finest reed sections” (JazzTimes).

The concert will honor Duke Ellington (1899-1974) in his 120th birthday year with a program celebrating joy, justice, and love – themes that were important for Ellington throughout his life.  Although not a religious event, the program embraces the tenets of Christianity in celebrating social justice, equality and inclusiveness.  The Reverend Dr Mark Harvey, Aardvark’s founder and music director is a retired Methodist minister, who has written compositions on themes of spirituality, peace and justice and led his orchestra in concerts for these causes for 50 years.  The September 22 concert will feature music from Ellington’s Sacred Concerts, including Heaven and New World A-Comin’ which Duke described as “a place where there would be no war, no greed, no categorization, and where love would be unconditional.”  The First Parish choir will join Aardvark in two sacred works:  the ebullient David Danced before the Lord, and It’s Freedom, a powerful expression of Civil-Rights-era fervor with resonance for today.

The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra performs widely, has premiered more than 175 works for jazz orchestra, and has released 15 CDs, including 9 discs on Leo Records and a recording of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music on the Aardmuse label.  Aardvark guests have included Sheila Jordan, Ricky Ford, Geri Allen, Jaki Byard, Jimmy Giuffre and other luminaries.  The band has performed Ellington concerts for more than three decades, including an Ellington Centennial Concert in 1999 at MIT’s mainstage Kresge Auditorium.  Mark Harvey has transcribed many Ducal works, and has written and lectured about Ellington for more than 25 years.

Aardvark is: Arni Cheatham, Peter H. Bloom, Phil Scarff, Chris Rakowski, Dan Zupan/saxes and woodwinds; K.C. Dunbar, Jeanne Snodgrass/trumpets; David Harris, Jay Keyser/trombones; Jeff Marsanskis, Bill Lowe/bass trombones, tuba; John Funkhouser/piano; Rick McLaughlin/string bass; Harry Wellott/drums; Jerry Edwards and Grace Hughes, vocalists; and Mark Harvey, arranger/music director.   The orchestra is managed by Americas Musicworks, Rebecca DeLamotte, director, telephone 617 776 8778

Written by Andrew Walker · Tagged: church, collaboration, gathering, justice

Jun 01 2019

Being Part of Something Greater – Sage’s Story of Finding Faith in Jesus

“It all changed when I felt God. It wasn’t anymore just to be at church to be at church. It was be at church because you wanted to be there, to be around people who talk about and love God… I want to be baptized because it’s being part of a greater thing than just life. It’s filling yourself with love and hope and faith. It’s just wonderful.”

-Sage Kerstetter

Rebekah Kerstetter is one of our UniteBoston Neighborhood Dinner Coordinators in the Medford area. At our neighborhood dinner this past week, she shared about her daughter Sage choosing to be baptized at Highrock Covenant Church this past Easter. Watch the video below to hear about the transformation that happened in Sage’s life as she committed to follow God. Let’s continue to pray for the next generation of youth in our churches and communities to have life-changing encounters with Jesus!

See more stories from HighRock Arlington here.

Written by uniteboston · Categorized: Blog · Tagged: baptism, boston, christianity, christians, church, highrock, jesus, love

Mar 03 2019

What does it mean today to be ecumenical?

“The message we joyfully proclaim is that we are reconciled to God and to one another through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. “Being ecumenical” means feeling a holy unrest at our failure to live consistent with our message, more interested in proving our “rightness” and the other’s “wrongness” than in seeking together to know what the Spirit is asking of us and to do it.”

You may hear people using the term “ecumenical,” but what does it mean? The word “ecumenism” is used to describe the efforts to bring together Christians of varying traditions and backgrounds. This week’s blog is written by Father Tom Ryan, director of the Paulist Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in downtown Boston. Father Tom has valuable recommendations for how all Christians can be “ecumenical” in their day-t0-day lives. Read his post below to learn how you can take part in the healing movement of uniting God’s separated people.


 

UniteBoston Neighborhood Dinner at Tony’s house in Revere, which Father Tom Ryan attended.

What Does It Mean Today To Be Ecumenical?

by Fr. Tom Ryan, CSP

Recently a friend asked, “What does being ‘ecumenical’ mean?” It was one of those questions that stop you cold because the answer goes off in so many directions you don’t know where to begin. Later, I took paper and pencil in hand and began to reflect on the lessons of my last 35 years in ecumenical work.

Here are some of the things which, in my experience, “being ecumenical” means:

1. To pray regularly for the unity of the Church, as Christ wills it and when he wills it. As theologian, Yves Congar, said; “The way through the door of unity is on our knees.” Prayer is important because prayer’s effect is in us. Prayer changes our hearts, and it is our hearts that most of all need to be changed.

Photo at a Taize Prayer service, MIT Chapel

 

2. To be rooted in a particular Christian tradition, to know it well, and to be able to present to others the coherency of that tradition’s response to the Gospel. The genuine ecumenists are not at the margin of their church’s life, but at the heart of it. They know what is important in the Christian life and can recognize those elements in other churches even if they may be differently expressed.

3. To take an active part in the careful and honest appraisal of whatever needs to be done for the renewal of one’s own church. Ecumenism is not a specialty within the Church, but an expression of every dimension of its life. It helps the Church to be more the Church and to be faithful to her calling. Dialogue is the meeting of churches.

4. To be fascinated and curious about that which is different. Risk peeping out of our provincial perspectives and opening ourselves to the bigger picture. Ecumenism is a way of living that dares to think globally and live trustfully with differences in community.

5. To be willing to learn. Truth is seldom discovered in isolation but rather through dialogue in diverse community. Each Christian tradition has preserved better than others one or more aspects of the mystery of God’s work in Christ. The work of unity aims at restoring the fullness to our common appreciation of that mystery.

Photo from a prayer gathering at the Greek Orthodox service during January’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

6. To cultivate a historical consciousness. We’re on a journey. The church we have is not the church God wants. An ecumenically minded person refuses to worship false gods, and the present expression of the church is not God. Similarly, there is a refusal to make absolute a stage of development that is only the next step on the way to something greater.

7. To be ready to celebrate vitality in the body of Christ wherever it is found. What advances the reign of God in any church helps all churches. The churches are not like competing corporations in the business world, so that the stakes of one rises as the lot of others falls. Any loss of divine truth and life is a loss to Christ and his Church. The only triumph a Christian seeks is that of Jesus and his cross. Our rivalry is not with one another, but with sin.

8. To be willing to work together. Ecumenism is an understanding of human society that identifies fear of the “other” as one of the greatest evils we face. The principle given to all the churches for their life together is: Do everything together as far as conscience permits.

9. To feel the scandal of our divisions. Unity is for mission. Our primary mission is to announce the Good News. The message we joyfully proclaim is that we are reconciled to God and to one another through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. “Being ecumenical” means feeling a holy unrest at our failure to live consistent with our message, more interested in proving our “rightness” and the other’s “wrongness” than in seeking together to know what the Spirit is asking of us and to do it.

10. To be open to God’s will for the Church. Our unity is God’s gift, and the way to give more visible expression to that gift will also be God’s gift. But we will have to empty ourselves of our self-righteousness and let go of our power games in order to let this be God’s work.

11. To appreciate the important role of provisional regulations and church structures in our evolution from alienation to reconciliation. To accept that the only constant is change and the only refuge is the insecure security of faith. To struggle against the temptation to live in a closed, safe, secure system that reduces our level of fear and satisfies our desires for control. God is a verb. And in the dynamism of the provisional, God’s Spirit is at work, endlessly correcting, improving, adjusting, reorienting.

12. To have an appreciation for the hierarchy of truths in Christian doctrine. A belief has greater or lesser consequence in the measure in which it relates to the foundation of the Christian faith. Grace has more importance than sin, the mystical aspect of the Church more than it’s juridical, the Church’s liturgy more than private devotions, baptism more than penance, the Eucharist more than the anointing of the sick. Placing the greater stress on those doctrines in closest relation to the heart of Christian faith enables us to build further agreement.

13. To try to understand others as they understand themselves. To avoid any expression, judgment or action that falsifies their condition. Ecumenical honesty means we do not look upon others through the prism of their weakest elements, or over-generalize their positions with statements like “Protestants say … Anglicans do … Orthodox are … Catholics will …” Rather, our ideals are put next to their ideals, our practices next to their practices, as opposed to our ideals next to their practices.

West Roxbury neighborhood dinner at Sally’s house

14. To be alert to the presence of God and the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of other Christians and members of other living faiths. The Church of God does not have a mission as much as the mission of God has a church. The Church is the sign and sacrament of God’s presence in the world, but God’s activity is by no means limited to the Church and its members. The Church serves the advance of the Kingdom but is not tantamount to it.

15. To have a biblical patience. Biblical patience calls for creative waiting, doing now what we can instead of moaning about what church disciplines will not allow us to do. It means being willing to accept or absorb negativity so that the person who is the source of it will eventually go beyond it. Christ suffered for unity. At times so will we. Biblical patience involves staying with it, searching for the healing that comes from understanding and forgiveness. Everyone is in favor of Christian unity. Some are even willing to work for it. But few are willing to suffer for it.

Fr. Tom Ryan leads the Paulist National Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. You may find more information about the office, it’s newsletter/journal Koinonia, ecumenical retreats, and inter-congregational Gospel Call missions at tomryancsp.org

Written by uniteboston · Categorized: Blog · Tagged: church, ecumenical, ecumenism, history, jesus christ, paulist, prayer, tom ryan, unity

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