Kairos will collect food and donations for the Quakertown Food Pantry on Saturday, March 27 and Sunday, March 28, from 9 am to 1 pm, outside Boyer’s Market on Broad Street in Quakertown. Anyone is welcome to help out. For info contact Bob at 267.702.4262.
Saturday, March 27 and Palm Sunday, March 28 — Food drive at Boyer’s Market, Broad Street between 3rd and 4th Streets, 9 am to 1 pm both days. Collection of in-date canned and non-perishable food items, grocery store gift cards or cash to benefit the Quakertown Food Pantry, which provides emergency food to our neighbors experiencing food insecurity.
Palm Sunday — March 28 — 11 am. Meet at Boyer’s to process (with palms) to our outdoor service. Afterwards, help deliver collected food to the Pantry nearby.
Holy Thursday — April 1 — 7 pm — Home service with footwashing. For info/directions, call Bob at 267.702.4262.
Good Friday — April 2 — 7 pm — Home service / adoration of the cross. For info/directions, call Bob at 267.702.4262.
The Vigil of Easter — Saturday, April 3 — 7 pm — Our contemporary adaptation of this ancient service tells the story of God’s love for us and carries us from the cross to the empty tomb. Location TBA.
This Sunday, Feb. 21, we’ll meet at Karthaus’ at 4 pm. Our worship/discussion will be on Tokbox at approx. 5:30 pm. We hope you’ll join us! Read on to see what we’ll be discussing to prepare for the conversation, and if you can’t be with us on Sunday leave your thoughts and comments on the blog so we can include them. Here’s a taste:
Penance as guilt is just what our monkey minds want. The part of our brain stem that focuses on survival and preservation of the status quo often gets its way by imposing anxiety and fear, and guilt just piles on to its agenda. But repentance — the ultimate aim of “doing penance” — is about taking action. The word literally means to “turn around,” to “head in a new (right) direction.” Guilt, though, feeds on our insecurities and need to blame and, left unchecked, leads us to despair. It is the root of thinking that we’re not good enough, that we can’t do anything to solve a larger problem that causes the guilt, and so leads to inaction — the exact opposite of repentance.
Read on for more reflections and discussion questions. (more…)
Tomorrow Kairos will gather at 4 pm at Barbette’s (Call or email Bob at 267-702-4262 for directions/info.)
Our focus will be “Imitating Christ’s humility,” drawing on Paul’s beautiful description of Jesus’ emptying himself for us, taking the form of a slave, in Philippians 2. We’ll look at how our response to Jesus’ kenosis (emptying) plays out on the global stage (as in aid to Haiti and Africa) and how we might express similar solidarity with the poor and marginalized.
Read on for more about the gathering.
There are many people who approach faith and their relationship with the Holy as hunters. We scan our environment looking for the places and people and events in which the Spirit is active, not just for truths and ideas about God. When we find those spaces we can drop everything to “pounce” — to explore what the Spirit is up to and join in. We may not be as good at tilling the fields of religious life, listening to sermons waiting for God to speak (which Brian McLaren points out is a spiritual discipline), serving on committees, perpetuating institutions.
This is what we are trying to do at Kairos Community. We’re trying hard to be open to those who are watching and waiting and noticing and want to embrace the movements of the Spirit even if they don’t buy the whole package. We serve side by side, people who “believe” and those who balk, and share our journeys and honor those that are not explicitly Christian as well as those that are. We’re hunters and farmers. And we want to sharpen the hunter skills, to foster our awareness of how God is working in and around us every day, and learn to appreciate those moments of distracted noticing and movements of the Spirit amid daily life.
Join Kairos Community for a day of connecting with the Source.
Where: Upper Tinicum Lutheran Church Parish House 1426 Bridgeton Hill Road, Upper Black Eddy (Lat/long for GPS 40.561731, -75.114597)
When: Sunday, February 28 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Chronos, not Kairos time). Please plan on arriving early so we can get our coffee*, etc. We would like to start promptly at 9 a.m.
Who: Interested adults and teens. Feel free to invite others or bring a friend. This is an adult event. No child care will be provided.
Leader: Pat Herbst has been a spiritual director for many years and formerly was a pastoral assistant and educator at Assumption B.V.M. parish in Colesville, outside Bethlehem. She’s excellent!
Cost: Asking for donation of $25 per person to cover costs.
For more information contact Bob via email.
Our kids have directed their Advent collections, a little shy of $50, to Haiti relief through Lutheran World Relief. You can text LWR to 40579 to donate $10 to their efforts. LWR is a great organization that puts all relief donations to work to help people in need.
In the face of such destruction, many people are moved to ask how a loving God can let something like this happen — again and again — to Haiti. Aside from the theories of Pat Robertson, this is a question that theologians and regular believers struggle with.
Check out this article in Newsweek which asks “If God is good and intervenes in the world, then why does he make innocents suffer? Why, as Job might have said, would God “crush an impoverished people with a tempest and multiply their wounds without cause? He will not let them get their breath.”"
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
This coming Sunday we’ll meet at 4 pm at Karthaus’. We’re going to continue our discussion from last week of “Expedition Behavior” or gifts we have been given for our journey of faith.
Last week we talked about these key points:
Since we’re on an expedition together, we looked at the principles of “Expedition Behavior.” EB means being prepared, on time, organized, flexible and humble; seeing the humor in everything; exercising a tolerance for adversity, uncertainty and discomfort; and putting the needs of the group and others on the same level or above one’s own needs. It’s a tall order but while on expedition it has magical results. (more…)
Our gathering Jan. 17 started our conversation about the journey we take together as Christians in community:
12“Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.
13-14“Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention. (Matt:7:12-14)
Here at the end of his “Sermon on the Mount” – or what Brian McLaren calls his Kingdom Manifesto – Jesus calls his disciples to a challenging journey. Following Jesus is not a show, not a switch we flip on and off, but a journey that we take for our entire lives, in our vigorous, attentive moments and in our weaker, more distracted moments as well.
The best part is that Jesus does not call us to prepare for and walk this journey alone. He’s given us each other to both offer our gifts and to help carry each other when we are not able to walk on our own. (more…)
Christmas Eve, Kairos held an informal service in which our kids retold the Christmas story and we sang some favorite carols. After the story, Bob offered this reflection on the message of Christmas for us today:
Christmas is a time of giving and receiving, and we are used to looking at the miraculous story of Christ’s birth as God’s greatest gift to us. Which it is – God has given us everything we need in Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins.
I want to encourage you this night to think of the Christ-event, the birth of the babe who would be Messiah, as an invitation. (more…)
Kairos’ Christmas Eve service will be held at 5:30 pm Dec. 24 at United Friends School, 1018 W. Broad St., Quakertown. Our service will feature lots of singing and a retelling of the Christmas story by our children. For information email Bob at bob@liveservegrow.info.
We’ll gather on the Sunday before Christmas, Dec. 20, at 4 pm at United Friends School, Quakertown, for a contemplative family Taize service.
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