On the Way

by Susan Morley “There is an urge among us to birth a different world.” – Paul Hawken Birthing a baby is more than enough challenge, but a new world! Yikes! Advent is upon us and I am keenly aware of the craving for a different world. The Prayer Hut in Primavera Center is waiting for a symbol worthy of the inner work needed this season. Yet inner movements remain subtle. Clues often are all that … Read More

by Fred Taylor When I first was exposed to The Church of the Saviour, what immediately impressed me was the presence of a lot of blessings—helpful preaching and teaching, heartwarming, healing relationships, laughing and having fun together, and seriousness about things that really matter. In this community there was the awareness and acknowledgement of pain along with contagious joy. The community was grounded in a reality bigger than itself. I wanted what I felt and … Read More

by Kayla McClurg For each of us there comes a moment, or a slow series of moments, when we sense the Great Love of the Universe, the One Who Is Beyond–God–as a personally felt presence. Something cold in us warms, something stiff in us loosens, and we sense a turning, an allowing, a yes. “Yes, I am ready to hear you, God. I am ready to deepen my connection to you and to your family. I am ready to be completely … Read More

by Ray McGovern The ‘institutional church’ is the last thing Jesus had in mind. WE are the church. And there is not a scintilla of evidence that he thought his presence in history would prevent us from worshiping with his Jewish brothers and sisters. So when we say we are the church, we ought to include all. All who trace their origins to the way God revealed God’s self to Abraham…and not exclusively to Abraham. So, okay. … Read More

by Marjory Bankson We are once again standing at a turning point in the life of The Church of the Saviour. The Potter’s House Church has set down its call, and the Eighth Day Faith Community, through the Banyan Tree Mission Group, has picked it up. For some, this time feels like death. For others, it is an exciting time of new birth. When Peter and I arrived at The Church of the Saviour in 1976, we had read all of Elizabeth O’Connor’s … Read More

by Tom Howarth If a person existed on a steady diet of hamburgers and was suddenly switched to a diet of only fish, the chances are pretty good that he or she would not like it very much. Fish, like other things, can be an acquired taste. Similarly, churches, by and large, are not providing us with a diet of true Christianity but one homogenized with the values of our culture so as to be … Read More

by Joelle Novey I remember it so vividly. I am 10 years old, sitting on the banks of a lake at mid-morning, between tall grasses on all sides that closed around and over my head. I am a camper at Jewish summer camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, and usually we pray the regular weekday morning liturgy, from books, on benches inside. But this morning, the counselors have told us to spend the prayer … Read More

by Kate Lasso Traditionally, the Advent season begins with a period of penitence and fasting. Liturgically the use of purple during the weeks leading up to Christmas creates a visual connection between Advent and Lent, the two periods of preparation for Jesus’ birth and death. For early Christians, these four weeks were inextricably linked to the knowledge that Christ came as the “Word made flesh” to live among us and reveal God’s truth to the … Read More