10 Years of Service in Salem, MA

As of June this year we began celebrating our 10th year living and ministering in Salem, Massachusetts. It has been a wild adventure at times, and we are thankful to the people who have blessed us during this season. The following is a press release which has been sent out, and we would love to have you join us as we do celebration 2.0 on Sunday, July 26th. (We will be doing a celebration in honor of some various aspect of our community life once a month for a number of months.)


The Gathering: Celebrating 10 Years of Service in Salem

On July 26th at 10am The Gathering will be celebrating 10 years of service in the community of Salem. The celebration will occur at the church's 10am Sunday service at The Vault - 217 Essex Street in Salem.

The Gathering began in the summer of 1999 with two families from Southern California. From the first year this new church had established itself as an organization dedicated to serving the city of Salem.

In their first October, they provided free live music on the streets of Salem, began to give away free hot cocoa, and offered free spiritual counsel to visitors and locals alike.

From this simple beginning the outreach of The Gathering has grown to include 40 to 50 hours of live music at The Fountain stage on Essex Street each October, organizing and sponsoring the Annual Salem Halloween Children's Day on the Common, serving up to 10,000 cups of free hot cocoa each October, offering free dream interpretation and spiritual counsel to thousands each year, painting children's faces during the city's 4th of July celebration, serving the crowds during the Christmas Tree Burning each January, supplying sound for community events, and collecting and distributing warm clothing to those in need each winter.

The story of this service has appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News, on syndicated radio programs, and across the nation and in the Caribbean in local newspapers.

Pastor Phil Wyman has estimated that The Gathering has contributed $750,000 to the city of Salem and its visitors in the last 10 years in donations, and volunteer labor. "I have been a pastor for 24 years, and I am constantly amazed by the dedication of our church members and the constant hospitality we have extended through them and through our extended Gathering family far and near in service to our community." says Pastor Phil.

The celebration will relive the stories of this service to the community. For more information, you can call The Gathering at 978-744-8444, or e-mail at pastorphil@salemgathering.com.

Pete Rollins - Sunday, December 7th

We're just a week and half away from our Sunday evening visit with author, pastor of the Ikon community in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Doctor of Postmodern Philosophy Pete Rollins.

So here's the deal. He will be with us at 6pm on Sunday evening at The Vault - 217 Essex Street in downtown Salem. This is our standard Sunday evening service time. We will have a smidgeon of music (that means a little bit, smidgeon is not a relative of the pidgeon), and then Pete will do the Pete thing and speak to us. Then following the service it will become a food and drink event. We call it the "Pete Rollins End of the Book Tour Party!"

We'd love to see you. It will be a great time to hang with friends, maybe meet Pete (if you're interested in that kind of thing), maybe hobnob with some seminary professors, or just learn some good stuff about the Christian faith.

Left at the Cross

People brought items to place before the cross this week. These items were symbolic of a area of life which would be a point of surrender through this coming year. The picture shows some of the things which were placed at the cross. In the morning service there were shoes, and a dust pan as well.




Such things as matches, coins, a stick, and a pencil, as well as papers with something written on them are here. We will leave this as it is in the middle of the room for the month to remind ourselves each week of our point of surrender.

Bring Something Symbolic This Sunday

Tomorrow's service is the first of the New Year. We will be focusing on stewardship and sacrifice for part of this month, and as an point of surrender to our Lord Jesus I would like you to bring something which represents a new level of sacrifice which you feel you need to give to to God this year.

So, be ready to bring an item which represents something you want to give to God this year. i.e. If you felt like your heart was becoming hard, you might bring a small stone to represent how you want to give God your hardening heart, and allow Him to soften it this year. You might bring dollar bill or a coin to represent surrendering trusting Him for your finances this year, or you might bring blank piece of paper to represent allowing God to begin to use you artistically. You've got the idea I think - bring something which represents a new area of surrender/sacrifice to God. We will be placing these things in an altar pile leaving them in that pile symbolically, and giving them to God.