Friends,

We have been talking for a while about letting the entire neighborhood know that the Coffeeshop is under new ownership.  Lots of folks do know, but we think lots of neighbors don;t even know we are here.

So we have printed off over 1,000 flyers and are looking for your help to get the word out.  Here is a link to a map of the neighborhood from University to Pierce Butler and Snelling to Lexington with assigned zones for each member of the community.  We are hoping that before November is over you all could flyer your assigned zone.

We are asking for folks to knock on doors and let people know :”There is a new locally owned coffeeshop in their neighborhood that would love their business.  If they bring in the flyer to the coffeeshop it is good for a free cup of brewed coffee.”  If no-one is home, then leave the flyer in an appropriate place , not in the mailbox!! The flyers are at the coffeeshop for you to pick up.  Please initial the flyers that you hand out so we can track what blocks we got good response from.  Please email, or text me when your section is done.  We wanted to get this done before it got really cold out.  Thanks for your help with this.

Peace, Seth

Hey friends,

This weekend will be an important opportunity for us to build community all together. Here’s whats happening!!

Our community thanksgiving dinner is Saturday night.  Don’t forget to RSVP on facebook so the common life team can be prepared.

Our brothers and sisters from West Union Mennonite Church in Iowa will be with us for the weekend, and we are hosting an open house with soups and breads at my house immediately following the Sunday Meeting so all of you can have a chance to meet them.

Ryan Brayley, a friend of mine and some of his student leaders from his ministry will be with us at our Sunday meeting, as well as a member from Emmanuel Mennonite  in Minneapolis Steve Nussbaum, along with our West Union Guests.  So it will be crowded.  Try and be there early so we have time to say hello and welcome folks before the Sunday Meeting starts, and so you have a place to sit.

I am looking forward to this weekend.  Blessings.  Seth

Leadership Team Meeting Notes
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

We began the meeting with each person stating how they felt! This is something that Seth picked up from his involvement with the Hamline-Midway Board meetings. The responses ranged from “neutral” to “content” to “rushed.”

Next, we listened while Seth read a few pages from Stanley Hauerwas’ book Resident Aliens.  We talked about how the mission of the church is to be a community that reflects God’s character. This is more important than any kind of effectiveness when it comes to “saving the world,” or even helping those in need. The most important thing is not that we are meeting everyone’s needs or caring for every single person on the margins—the most important thing is that the church itself is a place of safety, a haven where the brokenness we see in the world is being bound up and healed. A place where poverty and racism don’t exist—so that those seeking to escape the world’s broken system have a place to come for refuge!

We picked up on our conversation from the covenant member gathering: about small groups and what community life really is. We spent the majority of the time talking about what community life looks like for those already within the community, and for new folks who are seeking to get involved. The leadership team thinks that the committees we formed on the retreat will be very instrumental to binding our community together. In a sense, participation and caring for the responsibilities of those teams is what community life is.

We talked about the common life team caring for the responsibility of helping new folks get involved in Thirdway common life. And that the spiritual life team will be responsible for discerning with folks who want to exit the community. So far, we haven’t had a healthy process for this, and we want to handle it in such a way that folks aren’t getting hurt and conflict is worked through peacefully.

We decided that the next covenant community meeting will be on Sunday, November 21^st.

We decided that a good date for the Thirdway Thanksgiving celebration will be on Saturday, November 13^th.

I am re-reading one of the first books that rattled my cage and let me know something about church and ministry is wrong.  I would suggest that everyone grab a copy of this since I agree with everything the author says, and the ideas have been deeply influential in forming thirdway.  At our leadership team we read a section of it together and I thought I would share some of my thoughts about it.

Often we hear that the Sermon on the Mount was given as a set of guides that are good to live by.  We should tell the truth, because it’s a good thing.  We should turn the other cheek, because it is a good way for the person hitting you to feel bad and apologize. We should seek reconciliation because it is a good thing when everyone gets along.  We should live in commuity because it’s better than being lonely.  We should work for peace and justice because poverty stinks. Everyone would agree that these are good ideas.

But the authors ask a great question.  Why would Jesus get crucifued for teaching things that everyone already agrees with.  The sermon is not a strategy for getting what we want, it is the only manner of life available to us, now that, in Jesus, we have seen what God wants.  We are not called to make the world a little less greedy, a little less lonely, a little less poor, a little less violent.  We believe that in Jesus the Kingdom of God has come and the kingdom of the world is on it’s last breath, like a old king dying, but still trying to hold on.  We must live the Sermon because the life called out of us in the Sermon is the only way of life that is possible when the sky comes crashing down.  The the poor will be blessed, the meek will inherit the earth, the lost and forgotten will be home.  This way of life is not designed to be fulfilling, or effective.  This way of life is the only way to live that is true.  The community of Jesus is different than community in the world.  Peace and Justice of the Kingdom is different than the peace and justice of the world.

The church exists to set up in the world a new sign which is radically different to the world’s own way which contradicts the world in a way that is peculiarly strange and full of promise.

Of the very few times I watch Oprah, my favorites are when people get help discovering their ancestry.  The folks doing the discovery often come to deeper realizations about who they are and how their roots to people and communities of the past makes them feel more grounded.  This is true more in America than maybe any other place, where we don;t pay much attention to our ancestors.  We are often on a quest to re-invent ourselves and distance ourselves from our roots.  We spread out and move all over the country, slowly disconnecting us from our family tree.  I am adopted and do not know anything about my blood ancestors.   I know a bit about my adopted family’s history, but for mnay reasons do not feel connected to it.

I am back from a trip Natalie and I took to Southern Iowa to visit West Union Mennonite Church.  Even though we are officially a Mennonite church, part of the reason for these trips is to help thirdway be connected with Mennonite people, not only the conference.  One of the places we first visited was the Church owned cemetary.  I saw the same names over and over again, heard the same stories about the way West Union was started and how many connections there were between families.

I realized that their ancestry and their faith run together.  To a certain point I grieve that in my own life.  Part of the difficulty for me is that my ancestry and my faith story have been splintered.  The faith that I grew up in is now distant to me, and the story of the Mennonites, which began as the story of the amish is my story.  I am realizing that I have been adopted into, grafted into, ancesters I have never met.  As I spent time with these people, I realized they were welcoming me into their family.  They began to change in my mind from people I was meeting to realtives I was meeting.  The church is, after all the family of God.  Their stories of the struggle to remain faithful to the way of Jesus, in a culture drunken with violence, capitalism, slavery, and greed, is my story.  These are my brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, of the faith I am embracing.

My hope is that this mennonite community around us in the central plains conference, will be a group of people we see as family. For hundreds of years they have been making decisions that shape the life of community.  We share their theology at thirdway. We are being invited into their ancestry, grafted onto the tree of their faith and faithfulness.  As we schedule these visits, it is my hope that everyone from thirdway gets to meet their relatives of the faith in the mennonite communities that we are a part of.

Centering Prayer retreat

Hamline Church will host a Centering Prayer retreat Saturday November 6, 9 am – 1 pm. Centering Prayer is a method of silent prayer that helps us develop a deeper relationship with God. Centering Prayer emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God and as a movement beyond conversation with Christ to communion with Him.

Everyone interested in starting or deepening their Centering Prayer practice is invited to attend this retreat. We will share light refreshments, learn about Centering Prayer and sit together silently in God’s Presence.

The event is free and open to the public. Hamline Church is located at 1514 Englewood in St. Paul, MN. Parking is available at the corner of Minnehaha Ave. and Simpson St. Attendees should enter through the glass doors at the back of the church.

Everybody! we are very excited to invite you to Thirdway’s 1st annual Oktoberfest!

We are going to have a pumpkin carving contest, eat hot dogs, cider and doughnuts!

This is a BYOP!  Bring Your Own Pumpkin!  We will be having a pumpkin carving contest!  You will need to bring your own pumpkin, tools, and candle.  (May we suggest you purchase your pumpkin at our neighborhood pumpkin seller on Thomas ave!)  Be the best and you may even win a ribbon!!

When: Saturday october 23rd @ 5pm

Where: The Thomas House backyard

Cost: $3 per person, which includes hotdogs, cider and doughnuts!

Make sure to bring your favorite yard games.

And leave your booze at home since this is a booze free event 

Please RSVP on the Thirdway FB invite, and bring a friend!  See you there!