Thanksgiving Updates, 2021

Happy November! It’s hard to believe another holiday season is upon us. But Thanksgiving is, as always, an excellent time to be extra attentive to the spiritual practice of gratitude – naming and offering thanks to God for his good gifts.
First, we’re thankful that our little congregation has raised $900 – three times our original goal! –  to support our friend Atty Maynard’s “Love of God Ministries.” These funds will go towards sending barrels of food and other necessities to Haiti and Belize in time for Christmas.
Our 2021 sermon series, “Finding Peace in Tumultuous Times” is winding down with a short series on the Beatitudes, where we talk about the “upside-down Kingdom” – how Jesus values and blesses precisely those who are not valued and rewarded by the world: the poor, the meek, the mourning, those who seek what’s right. We have one more Sunday in this series and then we’ll launch right into Thanksgiving and then the Advent season. We’ve been thankful for the year of seeking peace through loving, serving, and praising God together and for reminders that we can be graced with inner peace regardless of external circumstances.
We’re hoping to resume hybrid in-person/online  meetings in December, and we’re grateful to Mary Lynn Errigo and Steven Rosen for opening their home in Staten Island for Sunday morning services.
Our family is also hoping to relocate to Staten Island at the beginning of 2022, in order to help our small community there grow. We’re thankful for the support of the leadership team in making this move possible and for those who have been praying and planning for this to happen for many years now.
Over at Soul Space Center (recently renamed The Stillness Collective), which I founded with two spiritual director friends of mine, there is a new, free guided meditation for Thanksgiving based on Colossians 3:12-17.  To have it delivered to your inbox, sign up here. You can also find a free sample meditation on Romans 8, “Inseparable from God’s Love,” plus options to sign up for four themed meditations a month, spiritual direction sessions, and more. I personally am grateful for the chance to share guided meditations both in church and to our email subscribers. Contemplative prayer practices have been so transformative for me that I want everyone to be able to experience them.
As always, we are thankful for everyone who is part of our community, whether you join us every Sunday or just drop in when you’re in town. We welcome you to join us online Sunday mornings at 10:30, with children’s church following. We’re still an eclectic assortment of people from all five boroughs of the city and a few international cities as well. We would love to meet you!
Carrie Myers
Spiritual Director
Vineyard One NYC
Sunday service
10:30am -12:00pm
Photo credit: Marta Wave from Pexels
Stillness Collective Logo: Tony Colon at Starlight Studio 

Pray With Us Tonight at 7pm

 

Dear friends,

We will meet again tonight via Zoom for what has become our regular weekly prayer night. We will intercede for our city and all those over the world affected by covid-19.

In these dark times in our city, our best weapon against fear and anxiety – in addition to social distancing! – is to come together as the body of Christ in prayer, under the covering and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. As we pray, the Holy Spirit will remind us who God is, who we are, and in whom our hope and trust lies – in the risen Christ. We will be empowered to love and care for ourselves and our neighbors.

Let’s all cry out together for the Lord’s healing, protection, and redemption.

Zoom link:  https://us04web.zoom.us/j/9983878948

Time: 7 pm

 

In Christ,

 

Carrie Myers

Spiritual Director, Vineyard One NYC

Story of God Sermon Series Continues

This past Sunday, we returned to our regular Sunday time and place after spending the previous weekend at Keswick Retreat Center for a quiet, slow-paced retreat that focused on God’s command to take a Sabbath rest. When we take a day – or even a few hours off – we are demonstrating our trust in God’s provision, relinquishing control, and resisting our culture’s message that when you are busier, you are better and more important. As our retreat leader Bill Elander pointed out, “It is always God’s will to take a nap.” In addition to honoring God with our snoozing, we spent a lot of time together in contemplative prayer: Lectio Divina, imaginative prayer, and other forms of guided prayer.

In the spirit of our retreat, here’s a link to a guided contemplative prayer I worked on with Janine Rohrer and David Buchs from our fellow NYC Vineyard, The 166. You’ll need just over 15 minutes of quiet to listen to this prayer and reflect, with Jesus, on what it means to be rooted and growing in God’s love.

www.sleepwithmusic.com/contemplativeprayer

I hope you find some time this week for resting in God! And we look forward to seeing you this Sunday as we explore the books of Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah, and ask what it means to be faithful while living in exile.

 

Carrie Myers

Spiritual Director, Vineyard One NYC