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To the Village in Tucson,
pilgrim Groups
This spring the Village is offering an opportunity to practice the spiritual disciplines in community. Starting in Feburary you will have the chance to join two other individuals in a small community that will meet twice a month to read scripture, talk about your sexuality, and practice praying for one another. You have two more sundays to sign-up.
drumming circle
Feburary . . . date yet to be decided.
elders prayer(reprinted from AD VITAM) by rod hugen
One of the duties of elders in the church is to pray. To pray for you.
Prayer does a strange thing to us individually and collectively. It makes us deeply conscious of the people God puts in our path. I always have loved the idea that
God calls us to pray for our enemies. That is because he knows what we eventually find out, which is that when you pray for people you get to know them, and to know them is to find common ground, and to find common ground is to begin to heal the rift that is between you and your enemy.
When I was a kid and going to Sunday School we were required to memorize verses of Scripture and we got prizes and rewards for doing so. One of the prizes I got was a brightly colored ruler that said, “Prayer Changes Things” in bold letters. I remember wondering if that was a good thing. I was comfortable with how life was and changing things didn’t have that much appeal to me. Prayer doesn’t always change things for the better as we define better. When we open ourselves to prayer we are opening ourselves to trust and dependence on God irrespective of what we think is best. So prayer is scary. Some of you have called on the elders to pray over you and you have been miraculously healed. Others have come and continued to struggle and maybe even wondered what had happened or if it mattered. Some have come for prayer for an illness you thought you had defined only to discover that the prayers went a completely different way than you had anticipated. Some of you have come confidently to be prayed for and some of you have come trembling and afraid.
If there is anything the elders love to do it is to anoint you with oil and pray for you. Because when we pray we are deeply connected and when we pray we know that things will change. We have seen sin forgiven, broken people made whole, lost people find direction, and sick people made well. We have also seen people walk away sad, confused, and confronted again by their deepest longings. Mostly what we have seen is change. And I think that change is good. So we invite you to feel free to call the elders. God asks us to ask for help, to make the call. God will take it from there.
Eric | 
