Remembering the Christmas Eve Service

Well, lets just start by saying that our Thirdway Christmas Eve service at the Union Gospel Mission wasn’t your average Christmas Eve church service. Or at least it was a far cry from the Christmas pageants put on at the large church where Jason and I grew up, complete with live animals and a cast of more than 200 people.

No seasonal decorations, no special Christmas choir, no one dressed in fancy clothes, no pageantry of any kind.  Just Danny with his guitar and a simple little set of tea-light candles on the stage in the front of the big gym-like room that the UGM calls the chapel—and a bunch of down-and-out guys sitting as far apart from each other as possible, most barely uttering a word. (That is, except for the guy who claims he is a world-renown surgeon, regularly performing “double-lung-double-heart-lung-lung” operations, at least when he is not flying Tie-fighter jets for the military. I kid you not.)

Let’s face it, drumming up your typical feeling of Christmas celebration among a bunch of homeless guys isn’t all that easy. They aren’t exactly looking forward to the end of the service when they get to head home to a big family meal and gift-opening. There is definitely a sense of forlorn sadness that’s impossible to combat, so instead of deny it, we simply joined them there in it, chatted with the ones that wanted to chat, fed everyone, and held our rather humble service.

Of course, for any of the guys who would accept, we also washed their feet and gave them a new pair of socks. Once their feet had been washed, Jason and Rita (Rudy’s mom) provided care to those who had medical issues with their feet.  I had gone out a few days earlier and picked out some professional-grade socks made for construction workers, with extra padding and support, and I got enough that we were able to give some of the guys a few extra pairs. It was fun to be able to give them the best this year, and they snatched up every last pair.

We decided that this year we’d bring fresh fruit along with some desserts, realizing that the expense of good fruit means that it’s something the guys don’t get very much of.  It turned out to be a great idea. The guys piled their plates with the fruit, and left lots of the desserts untouched.  As one guy took some strawberries he said to me, “A food of the gods!  I haven’t had one of these in years.”

I think for me the best part of the night was the very end. Jason convinced Danny to end by playing the “LaLaLa” song (sorry Danny…I don’t know the real title of the song!), so a bunch of us stood around the front of the room with Danny and really did celebrate a little. A couple of the guys even joined in the song during the La La La parts—a wonderful moment, a happy way to end.

I had been sick for several days leading up to the night, and so my voice was nearly gone and I didn’t get to talk to the guys as much as I would have liked. But one of the brief conversations I was able to have really made me think about our little Thirdway community and “where we are at,” as we often say. One of the guys asked me where our church was located, and I stumbled around a little—“well, a lot of us live in the Midway area, and we’ve been meeting in an apartment there, but we kind of need a different space and we’re not sure where to really settle, and we don’t have any money to pay rent….um, I guess we’re kind of a homeless church right now.” You should have seen the recognition register in their eyes. Instant connection. The next thing I knew, they were fighting with each other about whether the UGM would let us meet in their space!  Here they were, homeless and alone on Christmas, but hearing about our own somewhat precarious situation, they instantly connected with our plight and they were showing care for us. Amazing.

So anyway, we didn’t have a flashy Christmas Eve service, but according to the ending of the Christmas story as we tell it, we got to spend our afternoon with some of the most blessed people on Earth—sick, addicted, criminals with not an ounce of influence in this world or a penny to their names. And it was so good. Without any Christmas wreaths (that will soon die) or choir robes (that will fade and tear), it was so beautiful! Jason and I left there very joyful and thankful for such a rare and precious opportunity. We’re already looking forward to next year.

Lisa

Christmas Eve at the Union Gospel Mission

Hi everyone…Sorry that this is coming so last-minute. Here’s the deal with Christmas Eve at the Union Gospel Mission:

We are doing a joint service and foot-care clinic for the homeless men at the Mission. The service will start at 2 p.m., and we will aim to start doing foot care at 3. We would also like to bring some fresh fruits and some desserts for the guys to enjoy.

Those of us who are not medical will do the initial foot washing. Any of the guys who have extra medical needs with their feet (some will need help clipping their nails, some may have other issues) can then see Jason or Rudy’s mom to get the medical foot care they need.

If you plan on coming, please let me know so that we at least have a rough idea of the number of people we will have. I’ll bring all of the washing buckets and lotion from last year, but if there are many more Thirdwayers (and any family/friends of yours who you think would want to participate), I’ll have to pick up some more of those. Respond by commenting here, through facebook, or by calling me.

Also, please let me know if you would be willing to provide some of the fruit or desserts. I’ll fill in whatever we need, but it would be a great help to me if some of you contributed something as well.

The service and foot washing will be held at the St. Paul location, just beyond 35E on University Avenue — 435 University Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN 55130.

Jason and I are excited to be able to do this again. It was a very meaningful way to spend Christmas Eve last year, and we hope that many of you will be able to come down and celebrate Jesus by hanging out with the guys at the Mission. I guarantee you’ll hear some amazing life stories, and get a glimpse into the lives of the forgotten of our society.

Lisa

Notes from Covenant Community

Folks,

Wanted to drop some notes about the meeting tonight.  There were quite a few folks missing tonight.  That was hard because there were voices we did not get to hear from, on the other hand the folks that were there had some good time and space to share and listen.  Most of the conversation was dialogue about the notes from the last leadership team meeting.  There were a handful of comments to the post, all of them were difficulties folks had with the directions we agreed on at the leadership team meeting.

We talked about the difference between continuing in the way we have so far, primarily giving out time and energy toward caring for each other, and the concept of “church planting”  By that I mean giving more time and energy to helping our community grow and creating space to share our faith and life with folks who are not connected to faith and community.  We shared pretty unanimously that most of us are not being intentional about making relationships with folks that don’t have faith and community, and don’t often think about inviting and extending hospitality to folks.  In fact most of us felt that our sunday meeting is not very welcoming, and often not very rewarding or meaningful for us.  We agreed that we need to 1.  Widen our view of the area that we are called to.  It is the University Corridor, not the Hamline Midway Neighborhood.  2.  We need to open and adjust our sunday meeting to be more welcoming, not in content but in the shape and feel.  Natalie commented that it is all of our role to nurture ourselves in solitude, and to bring that freedom and joy when we are together.  So it is all of our work to make our gathering meaningful and rewarding.  We all felt like moving out of the Hamline House is a good thing for us to be able to welcome folks better.  There was significant pushback on choosing Sunday Nights.  The challenge we face is that this is one of the only times beyond Sunday morning that feels right for a gathering.  If we had finances we could rent a space.  We are going to look for some options that are free on Sunday Mornings, so pray for that!!  If we don;t find something we will keep waiting.  If we haven’t found something by Early Summer, we might ask folks to reconsider their other commitments on Sunday Nights.

Jen shared that she felt like part of the challenge right now is that it feels like a few in our community are trying to pull the rest of the community forward.  The coffeeshop, our finances, our gatherings etc can feel draining for some of us.  I talked for a minute about the day to day experience of prioritizing the Kingdom of god over our other priorities, and asked the question “Are we all giving our best to the part of the body of Christ that we are covenanted to?”  Overall my sense was that if we are going to move forward it is going to cost us all something.

Toward the end a few detail things came up.  Alisha suggested that if folks are uncomfortable with the flyering for the coffeeshop, trade time with another person that is more comfortable with flyering (even though noone really wants to do it, it is some of the hard work that every community has). Take their coffeeshop shift in exchange, or kids week or go in groups of two.  the goal is still to have all of our sections flyered by the end of December.  The coffeeshop has lost money every month, and Tim and Alisha have been bearing the financial load of all of it.  Any way each of us can help with this is showing care to Tim and Alisha, not only helping the marketing plan.

Danny is going to work with Facebook group, so there is one group for thirdway folks and another for fans of thirdway that don’t actually come to thirdway.  So if you see invites or changes, that is what’s going on.  I think that’s it, but I can miss details sometimes, if you have something you think was important that wasn’t here, add it by way of a comment.

Peace to you all…Seth

Thirdway Covenant Community

Hey y’all! This Sunday is the third Sunday of the month! And I’m sure you all know what that means!

That’s right, it’s the Thirdway Covenant Community meeting! We’re meeting at the Gilbert’s @ 6:30-8:00. Make sure you eat dinner beforehand and remember that this meeting is for covenant community members only.

See you there!

Caring For the Vision

The leadership team met last night, and we were reminded that our main task is to care for the vision of thirdway, as opposed to figure everything out.  There were two parts of the vision that we chatted about last night.

The first was around the tensions between intentional community and church planting.  I shared that I was wondering if we still felt passionate about church planting, or should we be settled moving deeper into community together.  Church planting takes time, energy, and resources and I wondered if we should undertake that.  The general consensus was that we have been working hard to prepare our community, so that we would be ready to plant a church.  The team felt like we are now ready to set our vision toward planting a church.  By that we mean giving more time and energy our gatherings in a way that would lead to new folks finding us, and hearing about our commitments to community, peace, reconciliation, and love.  This way of life following Jesus is meaningful and we should feel honored to share that with folks!  So we are going to form a new team in addition to Sprirtual Life, Common Work, Common Life, and Mission and Service.  Their role will be to care for our gatherings and the way we welcome new folks into our community.  On that note, we do not have a place to meet come January.  We are going to look for a place that would be cheap/free, which will probably be church buildings in our neighborhood.  The only way we can make something work like that. is to change the time we meet.  We are going to move our gathering time to Sunday Night at 6PM, and I am going to begin working on a space to meet.  We will keep you informed.

On another note we talked about the way I am spending my time.  As most of you know, I have been giving more time to groundswell, trying to give energy to helping the coffeeshop be more profitable.  I have also been asked by Hamline United Methodist to consult with them through May about their youth ministry (which has been good since their pay has been making up the gap in our budget).  My work for thirdway will also include keeping connected to the teams and their leaders, as well as heading up the team that will begin to care for our gatherings.

I will be continuing to visit mennonite churches that are part of the Central plains Conference, sharing with them the vision and asking for help and support.  Pray for me in this work, and for the mennonite churches in the conference to partner with us!  That is all for now. Peace to all of you, Seth.

Woodland Hills

Well,  this last weekend we joined Woodland Hills for worship, and I taught.  I know lots of folks couldn;t make it cause of the snowstorm, so here is the link.

Seth

Thirdway Christmas Partay!

Where:  Hamline House

When:   Friday, December 17  from 7pm-9pm

What to Bring:  A White Elephant Gift, and a Christmas treat to share!

Lets get together share special Christmas treats and have a little fun

The Common life Team will be providing the beverages.  (Egg Nog, Hot Cider, Hot Cocoa)

 

So here is the important part:  THE “RULES” FOR WHITE ELEPHANT (just a few)

1.  Don’t spend over $10 (IF you choose to buy a gift)

2.  Your gift does not need to be new, but please do not give   ”trash”.  Here are a few things NOT to bring as a gift, a 1/2 roll of toilet paper, or an old eraser, tin cans, an old broke pair of roller skates etc….

3.  Have your gift wrapped or bagged

4.  12 years old and older

 

**Kids are invited, but we will not be having them participate in the White Elephant.  We are going to try to have snackies and a Christmas movie projected onto the wall in the Jesus room for them to watch if they would like.

Please RSVP so we know how many to plan for, and let us know if you have any questions!!!!

See you there!

Peace on Earth!

The Common Life Team! (Jessie, Jen, Rudy, Danny, Joey Church, and maybe Pearl)