Tribal Identification with The Gathering

This is the first tribal identification with The Gathering. Is this a cool tatoo or what!? Yep, he pulled it right off the wall of The Vault, and the tatooo artist from New Hampshire did a great job of reproducing the photo given him.

Class on Christian Sexuality

Last night we held our basic Christian teaching class once again, and this time the subject was sex. The topic was presented pretty straight forward, and there were some words which you typically don't hear in church being offered as part of the discussion. The basic premise of the class is that there needs to be a new way of teaching the ancient mores passed down from the fathers of our faith, and that for today's people it might be beneficial to view sex as a part of the greater litugy of life in which we live our lives as a ritual expressing the character and works of the God we serve.

You can read up on a continuing series of blogs about Christian Sexuality. It is not as complete as last night's class, but by the time the series is over, it will be far more comprehensive.

May Conference - God for People Who Hate Church

Here's a quick little note on a conference we are going to be doing here in Salem May 4-6.

You got it right the name of the conference is:


No joke! We are crazy enough to really do a conference with that title. Not only are we crazy enough to do that, but check out the line up!

Jay Bakker - Mr. One Punk Under God
Jim Henderson from Off-the-map.org
Listen to Jim
Tony Jones from Emergent Village

We will hold a few interesting sessions such as a dialogue with atheists, and another with some of our Pagan friends to learn what it is we do which offends the people we think we should be reaching.

We will hold an open dialogue about rethinking church, and hopefully find some unique ideas which excite our hearts.

There will be some late night movies on Friday and Saturday: Perhaps we'll check out Jesus Camp, or Frisbee: Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher

Maybe this is too radical for you. Maybe this is just what you are looking for. Anyway - You'll see more info later, and it will pop up on our church website soon too.

Wanna join us for the conference?

Registration materials are coming out any day now, but for now e-mail us, and we will get the information to you by snail, or by ch-ee-tah-mail Pastor Phil Wyman at The Gathering

Josh, Church History, and A Knight's Tale

So, Josh has been with us for a couple weeks now. He has been working with us down at the church during the days, and staying with Carlos in Danvers. He has applied for a job at the hospital, and is preparing already for his first short term missions trip to Wales, and Scotland in the summer.

Tuesdays is basics of the Faith night at The Gathering. We've had a group of about 15 each week so far. Tonight James, and I covered 2,000 years of chruch history in an hour and 45 minutes. Darn! we went 15 minutes over. Oh well - I had a blast team teaching with James.

On Sunday Night, If you missed it, Mike Crockett taught on the Kingdom of God using a portion of the movie A Knight's Tale as his reference point. Cool - very cool.

Any thoughts on all this stuff? Leave a comment.