A Stone Soup Method

Sunday for Stone Soup, we'll meet at Judd's Peak at 4:30 for some sky watching. We'll focus on learning how to read a biblical text using the Lectio Divina method. Then as we experience the setting sun and rising planets, we'll practice reading the text of place/location using the same questions for Lectio Divina. Our last question is always, "How is God forming me or calling me through this text/context. This will be an interesting experiment and will also teach us how everyone is capable of leading Stone Soup worship. Bring Thanksgiving leftovers or something picnic-like to share as we snack and watch. Dress warmly. Bring binoculars, sky charts and a big hunger for awe!

Thanksgiving!

For Stone Soup this week, we'll have a number of different options for Thanksgiving Services.
Sunday November 20 4:00 p.m. at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Tryon a community Thanksgiving Service.
Wednesday November 23 at noon at Haywood Street Congregation in Asheville. We'll meet at the Saluda UMC at 10 a.m. to car pool and get there in time to share a thanksgiving meal with everyone and then we'll worship together.
Wednesday November 23  7:00 p.m. in Saluda at the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration.
Let me know which one you're interested in going to, I'll be at each one.

Charge Conference and Wild Life Sanctuary 2016!!!

For Stone Soup on Sunday November 6, we'll meet at Columbus UMC at 4:30. There will be the regular business things to be approved as required but also a time of worship and presentation of Wild Life Sanctuary. That is a video witness that Lena and Rob have been working on. It is interviews with people from both churches about "How God Works in Our Lives". It will be inspiring and challenging. Come on out. We'll have a bit of cake at the end. We will not have a meal, we should be through by 5:30ish.
Peace,
See you then...
Rob

Deep Calls To Deep...

Picture from a previous Judd's Peak Stone Soup

Stone Soup will meet on top of Judd's Peak (Orchard Hill) to be present to the things that are most important to us and to participate in the sunset.
We'll meet at Judd's Peak at 6 p.m. Bring picnic or snack things to share, bag chairs and blankets to sit on or cover up with (it's supposed to be chilly). Call Rob (828-606-3452) if you need directions or want to carpool up to the hill.
After a summer Stone Soup, a young person came to me and said something to the effect of, "Thanks, I don't get a chance very often to talk about these kind of deep things..." Well, Sunday evening, we'll get a chance to talk about what is important to us and the things that our hearts truly long for. We'll also get a chance to just stand and be present as the sky changes and night falls. This is meant to be an occasion for our kids to ask any questions that are on their hearts and feel their community be present to them and to God.

Psalm 42

Longing for God and His Help in Distress

As a deer longs for flowing streams,

   so my soul longs for you, O God. 

My soul thirsts for God,

   for the living God.

When shall I come and behold

   the face of God? 

My tears have been my food

   day and night,

while people say to me continually,

   ‘Where is your God?’ 

These things I remember,

   as I pour out my soul:

how I went with the throng,

   and led them in procession to the house of God,

with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,

   a multitude keeping festival. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

   and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

   my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;

   therefore I remember you

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

   from Mount Mizar. 

Deep calls to deep

   at the thunder of your cataracts;

all your waves and your billows

   have gone over me. 

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

   and at night his song is with me,

   a prayer to the God of my life.

Christ Invites to His Table All...

"Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him,
who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another"
This is how the invitation begins in the Service of Word and Table in the United Methodist Hymnal.
Communion begins as an act of hospitality, an invitation to the table.

"Writers in the New Testament portray Jesus as a gracious host, welcoming coming children and prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners into his presence. Such welcome startled and annoyed those who generally viewed themselves as the preferred guests at gatherings. But Jesus, God incarnate, is also portrayed as a vulnerable guest and needy stranger, one who "came to his own home" and often received no welcome (John 1:11). In his life on earth, Jesus experienced the vulnerability of the homeless infant, the child refugee, the adult with no place to lay his head, the despised convict.

This intermingling of guest and host roles in the person of Jesus is part of what makes the story of hospitality so compelling for Christians. Jesus welcomes and needs welcome; Jesus requires that followers depend on and provide hospitality. The practice of Christian hospitality is always located within the larger picture of Jesus' sacrificial welcome to all who come to him."Christine D. Pohl. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition (Kindle Locations 225-226). Kindle Edition. 

And communion ends with an act of hospitality, us, the people who are invited are now the ones inviting. We are called to invite the Spirit of Christ to dwell in us. 

So come join us Sunday October 2 at 11 a.m. at the Saluda United Methodist Church. You don't have to be a member of this or any church, you don't have to have previous communion experience just a desire to come to the forgiving, loving, empowering table of Jesus' amazing hospitality.

Change of Plans!!!

We're Picking Pears Together On Sunday.
Meet at the Pear Tree at 4...see the flyer.
We are gathering people from all walks of life in Saluda to make a beautiful story of love and unity come true. Hear the whole story when we gather.
What unites us is stronger than what divides us!
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you all are one in Christ Jesus.   Galatians 3:28

A Day to Remember

On Sunday September 11 Stone Soup will gather to take Holy Communion to those who cannot get out to church to receive it. So on a day when we remember the great self giving acts of those responding to the terrorist acts on September 11 15 years ago, we will gather to celebrate Jesus' act of self giving commemorated in the Last Supper. Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me."
"And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ,
we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice,
in union with Christ's offering for us,
as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,
and on these gifts of bread and wine.
Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,
that we may be for the world the body of Christ,
redeemed by his blood."
(from the United Methodist Hymnal pg 14 The Great Thanksgiving for communion)

We'll meet at 2 p.m. at the Wesley Cottage share communion and then take it out to those who are shut in.  I will bring the elements needed for communion. We plan on being finished by 4.
Peace,
Rob