The Parable of the Sower: Hearts Like Dirt

I recently spoke with a young man from Chicago, who was living in Chattanooga, TN. He told me that prior to living in Chattanooga, he was allergic to dirt. Now, he spends most of life outside climbing, mountain biking, and camping; and is happier than ever.

The spiritual life is a bit like dirt. Counterintuitively, the dirtier we get, the healthier we may actually be.

The Parable of the Sower compares the heart to different kinds of soil, and the in this parable, the dirtier the dirt, the better the receptiveness the heart has to the Word of God. The soils are described as "by the wayside" (the hard-packed section along the road), "stony", "thorny", and "good soil". Good soil is well tilled, soft, and rich. After a day in the garden one comes back with deep rich soil under the fingernails and all over the clothing. The other soil types typically represent elements that separate the seed from the actual dirt.

This represents how we try to protect ourselves from a variety of elements related to the Word of God itself. The Way-side heart is unconcerned and ambivalent to either the voice of God or the concerns of humanity. Stony, hard hearts have become reactionary and hardened to the struggles and hard truths of life. The Thorny hearts are those whose greeds and personal desires have inoculated them against caring for the deeper values of life. In some bizarre inversion, we who are made from the dirt of the ground, or as others have recently described it, "star stuff", try to avoid contact with soil. We similarly attempt to protect ourselves from other people, hard truths, or the suffering in our world. In doing so, we separate ourselves from a healthy spiritual life. Just like an overly clean child may be a setup for a weak immune system, an overly defensive heart may be a set up for spiritual sickness.

Have a soft heart, be willing to get dirty in this life, and allow for the fact that you just may be wrong about life and are in need of correction from God's Word. These simple principles are evidences of a person ready to receive the Word, and grow in fruitfulness.

“Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

The Great Inversion of Good Friday and Easter

A Burning Religion requires burning thoughts of revolutionary impact.  Follow this link to the article about Easter.

#Easter #GoodFriday #BurningReligion

Pastor Phil Wyman looks back at 2015 at The Gathering

2015 joins the previous couple years as part of our crazy years of transition. We have taken an epic wilderness journey into becoming a gathering of house (and pub) churches. This year (perhaps) has been even more of a wandering than any previous year of our existence. Then again, having mapped territory no one before us had ever mapped in our work in the city of Salem, maybe it was just another crazy year, but we keep following the Shepherd who leads us on.

2015 started off with a surprise. At the end of January, I (Pastor Phil) ended up with a sudden attack of back pains, which could have been measured on the Richter Scale. By February, this turned into an extended hospital stay and the discovery that the pains had nothing to do with pulled muscles or slipped discs. Rather, a strep infection was found in my blood stream, and pockets of that infection had settled inside my spinal column, and scarier yet, inside my heart. I was effectively down and out from late January until May, and although I was home for much of that time, I was connected to antibiotic drip systems six hours a day, which looked like a medical version of the “Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch.” And, fortunately, like the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch it worked and wiped out the infection.

The church, and our local friends were wonderful during this time. They brought me food, lots of probiotics, and reminders of love. Boxes of nerds arrived from our geek friends, balloons from bartenders, and meals that made a hospital visit seem less of a drudgery. One of our home-groups even held a service in the hospital room one Saturday morning. I did not feel as badly, as my critical condition, and so I became a bit squirrely, and wandered the hallways playing my guitar and singing to people. This turned out to be enough of a hit, that some of the night crew cheered when I returned for a second visit, and then apologized for being excited to see me back in the hospital again.

Somewhere in this time, our now weekly home and pub groups gathered together for a grand meeting of eating and sharing and I was hooked to my Holy Hand Grenade, and they made it all happen, while I sat like a happy papa and looked on.

The Holy Hand Grenade worked just in the nick of time, and while the church had been meeting and doing its weekly activities without me, there had also been a UK Festival Outreach, which had been in the planning for 6 months. Two days before I was to fly to the UK, and meet Dennis there, I received the doctor’s clearance. So, off I flew to Wales with oral antibiotics in hand. There we built an art project at BurningNest; we worked the doors and debates at a philosophy festival; and we ministered to the 23,000 hippies, hipsters and all around seekers at Stonehenge during the Summer Solstice.

Of course, as October rolled around, we were back on the streets of Salem during our one million visitor month with live music every weekend, and hundreds of friends from around the country joining us for ministry. We bought pizza for some of the homeless youth and elders who like to hang around our stage, we interpreted dreams, we shared the love of our Lord Jesus with locals and visitors alike, and we simply created a presence of acceptance and love during a weird and wild holiday season in our unique city.

Between the time in the hospital and the frenetic pace of Festival outreach from Summer through Fall, this year has seemed like a blur, and does even now as I look back in the rearview mirror.

The hospital stay and prolonged downtime was perhaps a forced sabbatical of sorts. I was able to complete a book I had been working on for a few years, and Burning Religion is now self-published and online at Amazon.com.

Despite all this, we bought ice cream for the kids at the park on the Point in Salem during the summer, and we joined the World’s Largest Eye Contact Experiment in October.

Please keep us in your prayers. Getting back into a regular pattern of spiritual life as a body of people has not been easy, but we continue our ride into Bethlehem and appreciate every person who remembers our labors.

If you would like to help support the mission of the The Gathering, which has moved from a local expression of innovative mission, to something beyond the boundaries of our own country, you can do so at our website --> salemgathering.org. May your Christmas, your Solstiee, your Hannukah, and your New Year be blessed.

Thanksgiving and Communal Feasting: a way of life

Follow the link to a post by Pastor Phil on the subject of Thanksgiving. There is more to the story than just being thankful. Although, don't forget that lesson, because it is a big one.

Thanksgiving and Communal Feasting

Halloween 2014, another wild ride with God

It's been another wild Halloween in Salem, MA

It’s Friday, November 7th. On  Tuesday morning, Dennis Huxley and I cleaned up the last of the October outreach items, when we took this year’s new performance staging panels, and stored them with the Salem Department of Public Works.

Once again, people from outside Salem joined us in outreach, and offered prayers of healing, and words of counseling to locals and visitors. A team from the Bridge Church from Ipswich led by John Harding, and a faithful group from Syracuse, New York led by Barry Kierstein. Kelly Williams joined us from North Carolina, and was here for the 3rd straight year. This time she brought Robin Johnson with her. Linda Quadros brought fellow students/former student from Global Awakening School with her on two separate occasions, and on Halloween Day a YWAM team of about 50 people, comprised of students from Somerville, MA, and Maine joined us in outreach, and some of our favorite Streams Ministries peeps Brandon Crummer and Matt Keating showed up to help lead those teams.

This was the first year working directly with the YWAM group, and I led a morning workshop with the students describing the nature of ministry in Salem, MA, which always includes teachings describing the nature of Neo-Paganism so that young Christian students don;t get freaked out when they meet Witches, Pagans, Druids and the like. This year marked the 16th Halloween we have openly taught visiting people that “Witches are Real People Too” and deserve to be treated with respect. This is our assumption about everybody. We don’t care who you are, where you come from, what you believe and how different it may be from our own worldview, or what your choice of lifestyle is, we believe that Jesus loves you just as much as he loves everybody else. Yeah, we are pretty heavily Jesus-centric, but we try to be as loving as possible about it.

This year was highlighted a ban the City of Salem placed on amplified music. This ban would have stopped all the live music we had planned for October, but along with about 30 musicians, we showed up at City Hall, and were able with the help of an amendment placed on the Mayor’s order by Councilman David Eppley, and the work of Police Chief Paul Tucker to have most of the hours of amplified music restored. This was the beginning of a new relationship with the musicians in town, who have been busking (performing on the streets for tips) without the help of amplification. This, of course, has made it impossible for some musicians to busk. This year, we are planning on fighting with them for their right to use amplification tastefully on the streets of Salem. That's the back of David Eppley's head in the photo, and yes, that is a unicorn at city hall advocating for the artists and musicians. I have no idea who's under that mask - really - no idea. (Special thanks to councilman Josh Turiel for the mask)

This year, Dennis Huxley, who has been visiting for the last 8 years moved to Salem, and without him, most of what we did this year would never have happened. April Alario, and Hilary Davis joined Dennis on the weekends, and Halloween Day for outreach, and the number of people who were directly blessed with spiritual counsel, between all the people involved is impossible to number.

As usual, street preachers from out of town were yelling through bull horns and upsetting the city, and that was in fact what the order from the mayor to ban amplification was about.

So inspire of a ban, music happened once again, and Aaron Katz, Mamadou Diop and Adam Zampino were such a great part of making it come to life this year. Without them them Pastor Phil would have been a sound man for the entirety of the month. This year others jumped in a helped pull the music together. That is something that has been needed for a number of years.

The Plummer Home for Boys, and Align Credit Union, the Bridge Church from Ipswich were some of our sponsors for the Fountain Stage, and this helped offset our typically high cost for serving Salem with live music during the month of October. Thanks all.

Keep us in your prayers. We are still a nomadic little church, moving from place to place, since we left our location at the Vault last year, and it has been a bit tough on us. We are hoping to reset ourselves in downtown Salem again by the beginning of the year.

Photo credits: Adam Lentine, and Dan Kupka

Our little church in Salem, MA has developed one of the most unique Christian Outreach projects in the world over the last 14 years. The video describes a few of the things we do, and needs we have. You can contact me for further information at philwyman (at) salemgathering.com or visit our donation page.

The Gathering, Salem | Fundraising video from Phil Wyman on Vimeo.

The Waiting Game and the women at the tomb

"It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed like idle tales, and they did not believe them." (Luke 24:10-11)

The seasons of our waiting come are often the result of waiting for other people. Like the women who came to the tomb, and first discovered that their witness to the miracle was treated skeptically, we find ourselves with seasons of waiting, because we are waiting to be taken seriously.

It may be that others are turning our waiting into a game. We are treated like fools. Our experience is disrespected. Sometimes the game is closed because the players have created a closed circle of bias and prejudice.

What are we doing while the Waiting Game is forced upon us by others? Are we patient? Are we unfaltering in our pressing forward with our dreams and goals? Those two questions appear to be opposites to one another, but they are not. Patience and conviction should exist together if we want to make our Waiting Game  a positive experience.

At the Gathering we are playing the Waiting Game between Easter and Pentecost. What this means is that we are considering the subject of waiting: what we are waiting for in life, how effectively we wait, whether we are waiting for the proper things, and perhaps even if we have given up and stopped waiting. Jesus told his disciples to wait for "the promise of the Father" in those 10 days between His ascension and Pentecost. We have extended this time from Easter to Pentecost with the desire to learn about waiting. We all do it. We might as well play the game together.

Faces of the Smear Campaign

The Smear Campaign - week 1

The Smear Campaign Begins

Closing out Lenten - 2 weeks to go: Thoughts on false poverty

"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."

I can not help but wondering if we are perhaps even more twisted than those who were the focus of Jesus' critique in the above passage in Revelation 3. The Laodicean church saw themselves as rich and without need. Christ saw them as spiritually destitute and at the edge of an eternal rejection: to be spewed out of His mouth. (Revelation 3:16)

In the United States, most of us live in relative riches compared to much of the world. Even those of us in poverty are doing better than a majority of the world. Yet, as a common crunch comes upon the middle class of America, driving it downwards, even those of us who are doing well are feeling the downward spiral, and are panicking. Still we remain the rich of this world. Could it be that we who are rich in comparison to the rest of the world are beginning to see ourselves as poor, and through our sense of poverty claiming ourselves to be spiritually rich?

The Laodiceans knew they were rich and attached that richness to their spirituality. Could it be that we think we are poor, when we are really rich, and that we are attaching our false sense of poverty to the belief that our poverty makes us spiritually rich? Are we actually one more step removed from spiritual richness than even the Laodiceans were?

Let us finish the days of Lent with a proper sense of our place in the world: Most of us in America and Western Europe are economically rich compared to much of the world, and most of history. Yet, we see ourselves as poor, because commercialism has sold us a silly picture of success based upon the greed of a 2 year old who hasn't grown out of the "mine" season of life.

Do we know that we are rich? Or do we pretend we are not? Do we assume that God has a special place in His heart for us because we have falsely assumed that we are "poor?"

As we all know, God does have a place in His heart for the poor. Let us evaluate ourselves properly. Let us not press close to the gates of the poor if we do not belong there, but make a place for those who really do belong there.

Perhaps our true place is that we are liars, who like Ananias and Sapphira pretend we are poor. Perhaps our true place is that we are Laodicaens who are rich in pocket, and poor in spirit. Perhaps we are like Solomon whose wisdom in this world brought him a most disastrous idolatrous condition.

This is Lent. It is the season of our introspection. We are found in our enemies, and in the greatest failures of the faith.

Jesus without strings: a look back at 2011

Having a church in Salem, Massachusetts is considered by some to be adventurous enough by itself. Having that church downtown along the historic walk which all the visitors follow, and in the midst of the plethora of witchcraft shops, haunted houses and Halloween knick knack shops, is even more adventurous. Making friends with the Witches, the musicians, the artists, and the homeless in Salem is downright dangerous - or some believe it is. But, Jesus lived dangerously, and we expect that following His example might occasionally have the same adventurous results.

This year there have been some new and adventurous things happening at the church.

There is a a Open Mic every Thursday evening, and a group of local musicians have made the event a regular experience, and it has become a place some have found a home away from home.

Our creative style of outreach reached out as far as northern Nevada this year. With a team from around the US, we led an art installation at the Burning Man Festival. Like Salem, Burning Man is a strange and crazy place. A video of our project, with interviews from the people who came to experience it can be found on Youtube.

Like each of the last 13 years, October was a wonderful time of outreach and stories of redemption. People came from far and wide to minister with us once again - from Texas, California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the UK were just some of the places represented. The Vineyard, the Association of Bridge Churches, the Assemblies of God, Youth with a Mission, and people from Baptist and Episcopal churches were just a few of the groups represented. Our desire to become a place for people of all Christian traditions to minister in a unique post-modern, post-Christian environment is becoming more and more of a reality each year.

We believe in Jesus without strings.

The Gathering has also experienced a little growth. New faces, new people, and a sense of excitement with it.

Melissa and Jodi are re-starting the Women's Bible Study on Tuesday evenings. Ian has been recording the services and posting them on our Facebook page. The worship team is an amazing group of musicians, and help make the Sunday services both comfortable and fun. (The song link is Pastor Phil leading worship and Ian says this song sounded like an Irish Pub Song, because we were laughing at the fact that Jonathan stumbled on his way to the piano.)

Thousands have been touched in a variety of ways this last year through our outreach projects here in Salem, and now as far away as Nevada.

Many of you have been part of the support of our unique missional community over the years, and our thanks and appreciation go out to you. May the Lord bless you abundantly this Christmas Season, and in the New Year.

If you would like to help our small church with an enormous mission continue reaching the world with the message of God's abounding love in this coming year you can give securely online on our website.

Salem Outreach 2011

This was a fast paced month with every weekend busy with outreach, visitors from distant places who joined us for ministry, and some wonderful results in the busyness of it all.

The month started off with Mark and Anthea Searle joining us from Cheltenham, UK. They walked with some of the people of our church through "More Light" ministry sessions, and taught a short workshop on the basics of the ministry.

Dennis Huxley was here on that second weekend as well, and would return every weekend - even staying for a full eleven straight days at one point. In the end Dennis was with us in Salem for more days than he was home in Rome, NY.

John Harding joined us from the Bridge Church in Ipswich and led a couple local teams through Dream Interpretation and prophetic outreaches at The Gathering.

Andy Gamble joined us from Pennsylvania on four different weekends, and brought people with him - lots of people with him - and different people each week.

Brandon and Grace Crummer helped lead teams in Dream Interpretation, prophetic ministry, and healing prayers. Matt Keating joined us from Ohio and brought a team with him on the fourth weekend. We were also joined by Jamie Dickson from Crave Ministries, a YWAM missions team, and a variety of people who flew in specifically to join us: April Alario, Alan Drake, Christopher Gaston, Allen Henninger, Peter Parkas, Debora Spotted Eagle, the Matthews family from British Columbia and Enrique who is from Honduras even joined us during his travels across the US.

Here are a few highlights, and strange events from the month:

Enrique tells the story of his interaction with a man with a severe case of arthritis who was prayed for by one of the prophetic ministry teams. He started off with constant pain which he described as "10" in severity, and in a few short minutes of prayer was experiencing painless freedom.

A man from Philadelphia sat in to receive ministry from one of our teams, and told them that he returns every year to Salem specifically for this experience. His wife was not quite as zealous as he was about the experience and wondered at her husband's zeal.

A number of people made solid steps toward walking with Jesus. They made confessions of faith for the first time, and asked for more information on how to get involved with the kind of outreach we are doing. Deliverance prayers were offered at length for people struggling with depression, or temptation to fall into old habits or lifestyles, and by the end of the month a whole crew of friends was part of our little circle at The Gathering.

To make such festival evangelism work properly it requires hard work, creativity and sensitivity.

I can not thank the members of our small church enough: Joyce, Jeff and Diane, Rennie and myself put people up in our homes throughout the month. Carlos organized the crazy schedule of visiting friends. Paul and Carrie handled organizing the massive task of serving free hot cocoa next to our outdoor stage. Jane was there just about every day, making food and filling in wherever she was needed. David helped run the sound on the stage, and performed a couple gigs as well. Jodi helped arrange a concert with the worship band Aradhna, and it was a smashing success. These are just a few examples of the hard work necessary to put on such a large number of events in the month of October.

The creativity this year seemed to be flow beautifully and naturally. Christopher Gaston brought dozens of his pictures to give away to people who came to us, and personally signed them. The music from our outdoor stage was exciting and the number of local bands who show unbelievable talent was striking. Ian Bennet worked hard on video taping responses from some of the people who came to minister alongside us, and soon we will putting together a video of some of our work here in Salem. April joined the festivities by dressing the part, and came in costume as "the fire of God." These are only a few of the creative expressions found this month at The Gathering.

Of course, there is always a necessity for sensitivity. In a small tourist city with over a dozen Witchcraft shops, and a tourist season dedicated to Halloween, one must be sensitive to many things. The Gospel is in its own right offensive enough at times, but there is no reason for us to add to the offensiveness by either rudeness, or a lack of understanding the cultural dynamics we are facing. During the last week we were faced with blaring bull horns and preachers standing outside the church shouting to the crowds about their sins, and telling that they were going to Hell. As every other year, we try to help them see that there might be a better way to reach people, and often we do so in vain, but occasionally some of them understand our concern. This year was as crazy as usual on the final few days of October, and some of our new friends who had just decided to follow the Jesus Way were themselves quite offended by the antics of the noisy street preachers.

Such are the challenges and the joys of ministering at the Haunted Happenings festival in Salem, Massachusetts in October. Please keep us in prayer as we seek to help those who are now recently following Christ to grow in their new faith.

Too many stories to tell. More coming soon, and videos as well.

Coming Up: Last Weekend of Halloween Outreach in Salem, MA

Update on happenings at The Gathering
October 26th, Two-Thousand Eleven in the year of our Lord.

The last four weekends we have held outreach events at The Gathering. Hundreds of people have experienced gracious words of blessing, and received interpretations to dreams. Teams of "prophets" have spoken words over them. This is Halloween in Salem. Our small church has become a major player in setting the tone of Halloween events in the city because of our location, and because of the fact that the city has graciously allowed us to use the fountain on Essex Street to help set a tone of fun and blessing.

Free Hot Cocoa has been active and serving up cups by the thousands on the weekend. Fair Trade Cocoa has been served as a message about the necessity of breaking away from slave dependent sources. We were able to serve out of biodegradable cups for the first few days, but the cost has been prohibitive for doing this throughout the whole of the season. The costs for serving free hot cocoa have increased almost four-fold since choosing the fair trade method, but we are committed to the purpose and its important message. Deep, deep thanks to Carrie Erwin and Paul Drake for making this cocoa service run smoothly. You rock like organic beans.

The Fountain Stage is now moving into its fourth week of music on the streets of Salem. Christine Cooper the Welsh Celtic Fiddle Champion, and storyteller was on the stage and performed from The Vault. She is now a favorite of some locals. Aradhna was here for a weekend concert and brought Christina worship music in Hindi, and some of the best musicianship we've seen here. Paul Duffy, Sarah Van Wyk and others brought us good music over the last few weekends on the Fountain Stage.

Dream Interpretation and Spiritual Readings were happening over the last three weekends. We saw some physical healings when people were prayed for. Gracious words of encouragement brought tears of joy to many people. Many were encouraged in their search for God and truth. This is what the heart of our investment into the Halloween season of Salem is about. It is our desire to impact as many of the 500,000 people who visit Salem in October as we can. The only way to do such a thing year after year is to make sure that Christians are embedded into the fabric of events like this, and that we learn to work with leaders of the events in ways which are beneficial to the event itself, and sensitive to the culture around us. John Harding from the Northshore Bridge Church and Carlos Zeisel from The Gathering will continue to help lead these outreach projects.

This last weekend friends will be joining us from around the US. Allen Henninger is here now from LA. Dennis Huxley is returning. More friends from Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, California, and Texas are coming as well.



College groups from Boston are joining us for outreach, and will walk the streets dressed as monks offering free blessings. The last two years, these events have greatly blessed hundreds of people. A Youth With a Mission Team has asked to work with us this year, and Pastor Phil will be training them in how to minister in unique environments like Salem, MA with large numbers of Witches and other types of Neo-Pagans.

April Alario has been attending a school of ministry at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and will be coming home to lead all night prayer as well. If you are interested in joining the all night prayer contact us and let us know.

Please join us in prayer for this last week of outreach as we seek to serve people from Friday through Halloween Day (Monday).

Jeff shares his experiences in Salem with us

Our new friend Jeff spoke on Sunday last week, and blessed us. This week he shares a bit of his story of the experience in Salem during Haunted Happenings and all the outreach activities of The Gathering.

"Our front door - Half a million, that’s 500,000 if you are counting – people that is, that walk by the front door of the “Vault” – a former bank that was here for 200 years and is now occupied by the “Gathering,” a local church. I say “our” because the pastor assimilates people easily into the local body of believers and extended culture of Salem – so for two weeks, it’s been home.

Home includes extended normal conversations with a gnostic quoting random literature, a local witch who comes into use our wifi and loves just hanging out, a nationally known warlock who rides into the building on a Segway, some really smart intellectuals (Boston area has highest concentration of colleges and universities in the world), and a really diverse collections of people who believe a lot of different things or nothing at all – some come for internet, some for lecto divana a form of meditation on our Scriptures – the Bible – some come for Thursday open mic night, or movie night …

… and as I mentioned 500,000 tourists walk by the door and hundreds have sat for Spiritual Readings – simply asking the Spirit of Truth from the Creator to speak to us on their behalf so we can comfort, encourage, and build them up – and hopefully they catch a glimpse of a loving God who really really Loves the people He created. By the end of the month, the Gathering will have touched the lives of several thousand people thru Spiritual Encounters and dream interpretations, hosting kids day at the park, hosting a stage with eclectic choices of artists from opera to country to a Beatles cover band, hosting an Christian band doing Indian fusion and singing about Jesus in Hindi.

Just a question, but how can you find a way to interact with the lives around you? I am not content to go into a building, sing a few praises, to simply do it again in a local house mid-week. A friend of mine bought a house in the inner city of Durham, is rehabbing it as simply a space to have a presence in the community and interact with those who live there – no other agenda but to provide love encounters – and those go both ways. She gets it. I don’t always get it, but I am growing in walking in God’s grace, practicing mercy, and loving people. God’s truths about eternal live, need for redemption from sin, live in the Spirit now, and even the consequences of avoiding God’s love are real – how we as Christians or the “Church” haven’t always been.

500,000 might not pass by your door this month, but who are the 50 or so you pass by and maybe might touch with new love this week?"


Thanks Jeff. We really appreciate you and all you've done. May God bless you in your coming travels. You are always welcome to make your home here for a few days, a few weeks, or however long.

Update on The Gathering

The Gathering: an update on activities, outreach, finances and life.

Hi Friends!

As is the case for many of us in these wild times, The Gathering is going through wild times. Changes, challenges and gloriously wonderful experiences.

The Gathering has never been, since our inception, church as usual. Our friends are unique, our way of doing things is open and invites questions and responses, our outreach is innovative in this unique and world-famous small city, and our location is even weird and wild. We have had a great group of people involved in our lives over these first 12 years of our existence, and are thankful for every one of them. We would not be here without you. Each, and every one of you who have made this home - even for a season.

Here is the latest in brief:

• new faces are appearing almost every day at The Gathering
• an outreach to Burning Man is coming up in less than a month
• we have a new member - born today
• finances are as tight as they have ever been

Okay, that's the short of it. Here's the longer version:

New Faces from The Vault Alarm! Open Mic Night each Thursday

Thank you Chris Reiss, Dan Kupka, Will Spreadbury, and David Gerard. These four guys have been instrumental in starting an Open Mic night at The Vault. It was the brainchild of Chris Reiss, and Dan Kupka added his skills and influence and the first night 50 people showed up. It is quite fun to see the community arrive at The Vault and experience some fun, music and friendships. It's not a church service. It's not  a evangelistic outreach. It's just a community event, and our friends are enjoying it. After three weeks some of them like it enough to check us out on Sundays or at the Lectio Divina early Thursday PM service, and of course everyone is welcome to everything we do - but never pressured!

Burning Man Outreach

Matt the Pirate and Pastor Phil are headed to Burning Man deep in the Nevada desert. They are part of an art installation team which was Pastor Phil's crazy idea. They (along with other team members from around the U.S.) raised $5,000 on kickstarter.com, and will be erecting pillars in the desert which will be used to allow people to meditate and listen for "the voice of the Spirit." Please keep this project in prayer. They are hoping to film it and turn it into a short film documenting the voices people hear today.

New Member - Aria Marie Bennett

She was born to Ian and Brittany Bennett at 2:48 this afternoon. Yeah!

Finances

Many people have been asking how we are doing, and if we are still surviving. The answer is we are still here, and believing that we shall be able to increase to a place of stable financial support. So far, so good, but like many people in our country today the belt is tighter than usual.

Our space has allowed us to do things most churches only dream about in regards to reaching a community. In fact, many churches have joined us over the years to help us serve the city of Salem and it's 500,000 visitors. We have been able to hold this spot in a strategically beneficial location on behalf of many others over the years. Yet, it has not been without great cost, and just as it has been at some other points in the past our finances are crucially tight.

Our location and our unique and creative ministry have become a model for thousands of people over the years, and we are dependent on the prayerfulness and support of others often, because our church is so small; but our dream, our mission, and our work has been so large.

If you have been blessed by The Gathering over the years - please keep us in your prayers, and if you are able, we are most indebted and thankful for your financial support.


Blessings in most abundance upon you, and the God of Grace give you rest for your soul,
Pastor Phil