ICYMI: Come Alive 1 // Alive to the Divine
If you missed Sunday's service or could use a refresher, here's a quick recap featuring sharables and takeaways from our gathering. Scroll to the bottom for the full sermon recording.
📖 Focal Scripture
🎯 Reflection
The sacred pause isn't just a luxury—it's the heartbeat of transformation, the place where we remember who and whose we are. By entering our inner room, even for a few minutes each day, we're freed from anxiety's grip and empowered to show up with revolutionary love for a world in need.
🗣️ Key Quotation
“How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one's self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences, while something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull. With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living; a direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion and bring meaning in our chaos. We look at ourselves in this waiting moment—the kinds of people we are. The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives?—what are the motives that order our days? What is the end of our doings? Where are we trying to go? Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused? For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life? What do I hate most in life and to what am I true? Over and over the questions beat in upon the waiting moment. As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind—A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear. It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered, our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round with the peace of the Eternal in our step. How good it is to center down!” — Howard Thurman
🙏 Prayer
Holy One who meets us in the silence, who beckons us to pause and breathe deep: Draw us into your quiet center where wisdom dwells, that we might emerge renewed and fully alive to join in your healing work in the world. We pray this in the name of the One who showed us how to retreat and return, Jesus Christ. Amen.
💡 Journaling Prompts
Where is my "oak tree"—the place where I feel most connected to the divine? How might I incorporate more moments there into my daily life?
What voices or narratives in my life need to be quieted so I can hear the "deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear"?
Beneath the “shoulds” and “supposed-tos,” what is it that I know to be true?
➡️ Next Step
This week, we’re helping you write what Howard Thurman would call a Working Paper—a living document to help you find what makes you come alive. Over the next four weeks, we'll help you create your own working paper. This week, we start with the practice of "centering down," a way to ground yourself in stillness and listen for the Holy. Find your guide to this week's practice here.
