Considering Our Scheduling

God: Be Still and Know that I am God
Me: Can I pencil you in next Thursday?

Stillness and peace are gifts from God. Stillness and peace are gifts to be glad for. It is good to know that God is "a very present help in trouble," but why is it so hard for us to be still (46:1)?
 
There are many distractions in our modern lives. However, being distracted has been a long-term problem in terms of faith. In Luke 10:38-42, the story of Martha and Mary reminds us that it is easy to get caught up in our work and be distracted from what is most important. Today, we have only to look to our hand-held devices to be connected to a seemingly endless stream of information.

The condition of constant bombardment of information has been called information overload. It has consequences for scheduling. How do we make sense of all this information and make priorities for our actions, our schedules? How do we confront the demands of our society, in general?

The biblical tradition can offer a perspective on all of this information and these demands. By placing faith in the center of our lives, we can have the proper measure to judge the value of competing information and demands. In Micah 6:6-8, the prophet tells us that it is not sacrifices like burnt offerings that please God, but justice, loving kindness, and a humble walk with our God. We can be assured that God has told us "what is Good" (Micah 6:8). 
 
In light of the many demands of modern life, this week we will consider our schedules: We will be considering the questions of what are our priorities and how does our faith relate to our schedules.

We will meet together, but we will separate youth and adults for the meal and discussion. 

Adults should bring food for a potluck and the youth will have pizza.

Here is our schedule:

Meet together at 6pm at the Wesley Cottage.
Snack and Introduction
Youth and Adults separate at 6:15
Adults gather at Monts’ house. Youth stay at the Wesley Cottage.
Adults will have a potluck. Youth will have pizza.

Meet at the Library at 8:45 to finish with an adult / youth manhunt


UPCOMING STONE SOUP GATHERINGS:

June 22: Meet at 6pm. Discussion of "loving your neighbor, even when they live with you." This meeting will focus on questions such as how do we express love when it is difficult and what are the challenges of loving your neighbor when neighbor is less of an abstract concept and more of an everyday reality. For this meeting we will again meet at the Wesley Cottage and will split the youth and adults for  part of the time.

June 29: Meet at 2pm. Tubing trip on the Green River.

Saturday Stone Soup at Orchard Lake Campground

This weekend there is a special schedule due to Saluda UMC’s Annual Camp Out. Stone Soup will be on Saturday at 8pm at Orchard Lake Campground. We will worship around the campfire.

It has often been imagined that our biblical stories have been passed down the generations in a setting where people gather around a campfire. This seems to make sense given the recent advent of homes connected to an electric grid. It also corresponds with what may or may not be an urban myth that watching a campfire and watching a T.V. affects the brain in similar ways. We also know that fire, like T.V., has been known to appear to speak to its viewer, such as in Moses’ encounter with the burning bush. However unhelpful this comparison may be, I think there are productive points of contrast between the experience of watching television and gathering around the campfire. We participate more directly in starting and maintaining a fire than we do in turning on the T.V. It also seems to me that we participate in relationships more directly in this setting where the fire does not appear to speak as the television, at least not in so many words. 

This will be a great time to get to be together and worship God who speaks in many unexpected ways in many unexpected places. We will gather to share stories of God’s movement throughout our history and our daily lives. We will try to start our first fire with flint and steel.

The Camp Out at Orchard Lake Campground will be for two nights: Friday to Sunday morning. For camping, the cost is 9$ per person per night. For day-time participation, if you are not camping, the cost is 7$ per person. There is no charge for attending Saturday's Stone Soup. 

This will be an occasion for family camping and fellowship. Please note if you aren't able to be with your kids the whole time, you need to be sure they are able to be supervised by someone else.

The general schedule is as follows:

Friday: Meet at Orchard Lake Campground in the late afternoon/early evening. Bring food to grill for dinner, such as hot dogs and hamburgers.

Saturday: Outdoor activities all day. Mexican night for dinner. Stone Soup, worshiping around the campfire, at 8pm. Tune your guitars and rosin up your bows.

Sunday: 8:30am - Breakfast at Edna’s house, a short walk from the campground.

The Camp out will conclude when we finish breakfast. 

Take care,
Dave

Greetings to a Stone Soup Summer

The Stone Soup Summer Begins on Sunday June 1.

We’ll meet at the Wesley Cottage at 7:30 and go from there up to Judd’s Peak (Orchard Hill). 
Bring your binoculars, cameras, water colors yoga mats or whatever you use to observe, take in or be part of a beautiful sunset and time of worship.

Our gathering is to be an occasion to “taste and see how good God is.” For the taste part, bring a light hors d’oeuvre or snack to share and blankets to spread out on.

So, join us for a summer together reflecting on sacred writings, meals together, adventure (spiritual and otherwise), deep beauty, surprising peace and the enduring love of God…join us for Stone Soup.


As the summer intern at Saluda UMC, I have the opportunity to be a contributor to this Stone Soup blog. I will briefly introduce myself here and will perhaps be able to share more later. My name is Dave Grace. I just finished my first year at Duke Divinity School and I am entering a full year of study, 2014-2015, at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. I am studying in both schools to be able to more fruitfully combine Christian Education and Environmental Education and discern how Church ministry can respond to today's ecological needs. I'm excited to be able to take part in Stone Soup to share in the gift of food and community in Saluda, NC.

As I have come into town for only a brief stay this summer, I will offer my thoughts on Stone Soup as a new visitor and eager participant in its community of faith. In the Letter to the Ephesians, there are words of encouragement from another outside perspective:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. -- Ephesians 1:17-19

I would like to offer my encouragement to Stone Soup as well. In bringing together people and places, Stone Soup offers a chance to "taste and see how good God is." When food is shared freely, it is a gift. The world around us yields food, satisfying a need and desire. Whether it is food which is grown with human labor or not, it is certainly a gift. This bringing forth of food is a continual act of creation. We learn about ourselves in sharing this gift of creation with each other and we worship God who creates. As we continue to come into contact with the "great power" of God, we are urged toward wisdom and are shown a new hope and inheritance. I look forward to being able to share this good gift.

Stone Soup on Holiday until June 1, 2014

Stone Soup will be on Holiday until  June 1,2014.

We are undergoing renovation and looking forward 

to increasing our capacity for awe, encountering the 

Divine God, playing frisbee and sharing a meal with you!

In the interim, we encourage you to try out some traditional

worship with us at Saluda United Methodist Church on Sunday

mornings at 11.

Peace,

Rob

Palm Sunday

Stone Soup will meet this Sunday at 11 a.m. for the Palm Sunday worship celebration.
The worship service will begin with the Procession of Palms by the children and choir.
It is a beautiful way to begin Holy Week which leads up to Easter.
For Stone Soup and others we'll have:
4/13 Palm Sunday at 11 a.m. in the Sanctuary
4/17 Maundy Thursday Communion Service at 7 p.m. (remembering Jesus' Last Supper)
4/18 Good Friday Community Service at Tryon Congregational Church at noon
4/20 Easter Sunrise Community Service on Orchard Hill at 6:45 a.m. with light breakfast to follow in the fellowship hall
4/20 Traditional Easter Service at 11 a.m.

Palm Sunday?
Here's Wiki's response:

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus'triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four canonical Gospels.^[3]

In many Christian churches, Palm Sunday includes a procession of the assembled worshipers carrying palms, representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to their substitution with branches of native trees, including box, yew,willow, and olive. The Sunday was often designated by the names of these trees, as in Yew Sunday, or by the general term Branch Sunday.