Ever wonder what a Trinity’s Place gathering looks like? Because we’re open and participatory, we have different people take lead and shape the particularities of each get together. All the same, we seem to have developed a basic ‘shape’ and ‘feel.’ Below is one of our recent worship guides, the sort of thing you’d have handed to you as you join us in our ‘extended living room’ at Love Wins in downtown Raleigh. This one in particular outlines our current (and perhaps somewhat strange-sounding) emphasis of eating God. While it’s no substitute for actually joining up with us, we hope that this whets your appetite for sharing life together with us this Fall!

“…the Spirit once again has a new story to tell…”

A Spirituality of Consumption: What is the Spirit Saying

About Food, Water & Nourishment Today?

 

we open ourselves to God

meditation through song                            a capella

As I Went Down to the River to Pray

What prayers do we carry down to the river?

 

we engage a sacred practice

-       Meditation on the animals                                                Bern

 

we engage in holy reading

-       Genesis 2:8-17 (Common English Bible)            everyone

The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and put there the human he had formed. In the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit, and also he grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flows from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides into four headwaters. The name of the first river is the Pishon. It flows around the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. That land’s gold is pure, and the land also has sweet-smelling resins and gemstones. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It flows around the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris, flowing east of Assyria; and the name of the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it. The Lord God commanded the human, “Eat your fill from all of the garden’s trees; but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will die!”

 

we share in God’s sacred stories                     

            Dis-integration & Re-Union: Two Trees in the Garden  Mike

 

 

we tune our hearts: a chant from Psalm 34:8             Everyone

Taste and see that the Lord is good

Taste and see that the Lord is

Taste and see the Lo-ord

Taste and see

Taste

we engage a sacred practice

-       Group awareness body-meditation                  special guest Adrial Dale

we share a sacred meal                                       

                                                                                                                       

            The Cupboard’s Full                                                TP musicians/everyone               

(This is the original song by Tim Coons. To hear Trinity’s Place musicians playing it, click here!)   

we close and bless the city

Rise                                                                TP musicians/everyone

Today’s storytelling completes Act I of our Fall series on a Spirituality of Consumption: What is the Spirit Saying About Food and Water Today with Mike Morrell, Bern Mutia, and Adrial Dale. Please sign up for conversations you’d like to lead!

Eat God – two Trees in the primordial garden, Life and Wisdom, being nourished by God: detoxing, and digesting

Feed God (When I was hungry…) – about Jesus’ subversive meal-sharing practices, how they were the hallmark of his practice of the sprouting new creation ecology of God, and how this got him killed. How we can go and do likewise.

Seed God – about our global food crises, and how people of faith can change the system, both at grassroots and policy levels. “What is the Spirit saying about food today?”

Drink God (I Thirst…) – the same, looking at our global water crises, as well as the ways in which God is depicted as streams of water, intoxicating wine, et al – the path of spiritual ecstasy.