the lower room

This Sunday is Easter, and the lowerroom will be open from 5-8 PM for all to come and go. There will be no set plan, nor will there be a formal meal, but the space will be open, the candles lit, and some music playing. Feel free to come and worship, talk, or sit and read if you like. We’ll plan to have a more formal meeting next month.

The theme for April 16 will be _____.  We'll save the war discussion for May, when we have a bigger group, as April's group might be a little small.

As Rose read in our meeting Sunday night, we received the following email from Leonard Sweet this week.

Eli and Colleagues

I am so excited to hear about your newest initiative . . . “The Lower Room.” I love its play on words with “The Upper Room,” and hope you will continue that creative thrust in all you do. As you begin this new worship walk, I’d like to anoint you with a poem. It’s one that has guided and guarded me this past year, and seems to mean more to me the older the get. It’s called “Anyway,” which is the Christian counterpoint to the cultural mantra “Whatever.” Kent Keith is the poet who wrote this

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives, Be kind anyway . . .

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight, Build anyway . . .

The good you do today, people will Often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough, Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway. Kent Keith, “Anyway”

What you are doing is between you and God . . . Anyway. Your “Anyway” friend who believes that Jesus is the Only Way, Anyway Leonard Sweet

Much thanks to Len for the kind words.  You can learn more about him at his website: Leonard Sweet.com 

Our theme for the lower room in March is Mercy. Our worship time and our discussion will be focused on the theme of Mercy, and how Jesus’ example of love for sinners can be summed up by the story of the woman caught in adultery. This story can be found in chapter 8 of the book of John. Please read and meditate on this story and think about the following questions:

• How does this story make you feel?
• Did Jesus respond differently than you would have?
• Do you identify with any of the players in this story (Jesus, the woman, the Pharisees)? If so, in what way?
• What can we do to show mercy today?
• To whom can we show mercy today?

If you have any additional resources to bring to the meeting that might help us learn about mercy, please bring it, whether it be other Bible stories, poems or other literature, drawings or other visual arts, songs, etc.

Feel free also to use the comments on this post to start the discussion, and we’ll see you March 19. Dinner (potluck) will start around 5.

Last night (March 5), we had our first meeting in the lower room.  It was a small beginning, but it was valuable for getting the core team together to talk, plan, and pray.  One important decision we made was around our meeting time.  As of now, we will meet in the lower room on the 3rd Sunday of each month at 5 PM, beginning March 19.  Each meeting will begin with a potluck meal, with Morning Star Church providing table service and coffee.  Everything else will be up to us.

Our worship time and discussion/teaching time will be based around a different theme each month.  The theme for the March meeting has not yet been determined – stay tuned here for updates.  We have printed up cards which can be used to let folks know about the lower room website.  If you would like some of these cards to hand out to people, let us know here in the comments.

This Sunday, March 5, the lower room will graduate from an idea to a real thing.  We’re not sure what kind of thing it will be yet, but it will be a thing.  Work on the room itself is progressing, in spite of all the recent setbacks and schedule-drama.  Furniture is trickling in as we speak.  This week will be a grand experiment.  We will more than likely not have a meal, as the space just won’t be ready for it, but we intend to have communion, some open worship time, and a short teaching and discussion time.  Please come Sunday at 5:00 PM and be prepared for anything.

-eli

You can find out the latest on Ray Renner’s condition at the Morning Star website.  Please pray.

Some have asked about the idea behind the name “the lower room”. Apart from the obvious fact that our meeting place is a basement, I think that there is deeper symbolism we can all get behind.

First, we have the contrast with “the Upper Room”, a location where Jesus and his disciples met in Jerusalem, and where the disicples essentially hid after his crucifixion. I think that it is significant that after Jesus left the scene and sent the Holy Spirit, the upper room fades from the story. To me, it’s as if the upper room had served its purpose, and now the disciples were dispersed to the ends of the known world to spread the good news of Jesus. Compare that to where the church is today. In many ways, the church has retreated back into an upper room of its own. Not confident enough in their faith to do anything but avoid the world. Waiting and hoping that Jesus will come to them once again and show them his nail holes before they venture out. Content to send out a little money here and there and to sponsor the occasional brave soul who will go.
Second, the metaphor of Heaven comes to mind. I don’t know what your concept of Heaven is, and I don’t intend to give you one, but I like the idea that the earth is truly “the lower room” when compared to Heaven. Its an area full of people searching, wishing, sitting, waiting for something better. It’s the room I think we are called to live in.

What are your thoughts?

T minus 28 days…

-eli

Over on my personal blog today, Mark Rouse left an exciting comment.  You can read it here.  The upshot of it is that Mark is considering/planning to do a series of paintings on the Stations of the Cross.  He has suggested that he would like for us to display the paintings in series (when he gets them completed) on one of the walls of our meeting space.  I took him up on the offer (now you’re on the hook, Mark).  I have also asked an artist in our midst to consider doing a painting of John 8:1-11 on one of our walls.

In related news, we now have 2 couches, 2 chairs, and 2 end tables committed to the space.  Please consider what else you might be able to donate.

T minus 29 days and counting…

-eli

Where are we coming from? Some have asked. With about a month to go until our first meeting, I thought I would offer some resources to whet your appetite. I am including amazon.com links only for your convenience. We don’t make any money from amazon. You may well find some of these at your local library. I am being careful here not to inlude anything too academic, although if you are into that kind of depth, I can suggest some things there as well. Anyway, here goes…

• The Lost Message of Jesus – Steven Chalke
• A Generous Orthodoxy – Brian McLaren
• A New Kind of Christian – Brian McLaren
• Emerging Worship – Dan Kimball
• Searching for God Knows What – Donald Miller

These books are like nothing you have read before (unless you have already read them). They will challenge you at times, and at other times, they may resonate with you. Either way, I suggest you read them one at a time, and with an open mind, being careful to pray about what you are reading.

T-minus 30 days and counting…

-eli