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3 min read

Surprised By A Sacred Place

One of the coolest things I ever participated in happened about 15 years ago at a going away party. A friend was moving across the country, and it was my last opportunity to see him for what turned out to be several years.  So, I did what I rarely do; I took my socially anxious self out of my comfort zone, and went to a social gathering full of people I didn’t know.

There was lots of small talk that night, some good food, and a celebration of my friend. However, the best part of the night came at the end. He asked people to pray for him. Specifically, he asked people to “lift him up in prayer”.

I’ve been in Christian churches and religious gatherings of one form or another since I was eight years old. I expected people to gather around him, maybe put their hands on him, and pray the standard “Christian sounding” words that I’d grown so used to hearing from all my years in church. Imagine my confusion when the entire group got up and went outside onto the back patio.  

There, in that very confined space in the dark, 15 of us lifted him off the ground, held him over our heads, and prayed. 

My friend totally relaxed, closed his eyes, and let us hold him up. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced, but it took me a long time to understand it. It had nothing to do with the words we prayed. In fact, the words didn’t matter and I don’t remember any of them. The prayer actually happened when we picked him up, when he let us take his weight, when he relaxed because he KNEW we had him and that we weren’t going to let him fall. 

That was the prayer. That was a Sacred Place, created for my friend as he was leaving everything he had known to face challenges that none of us could see. 

We want to create Sacred Places - places where our words and our actions build relationships, where people that come together feel seen, heard, and supported through the challenges of life, where we can support each other and make a positive impact in our community, and just maybe in the larger world around us.

Are you willing to help?

The words we use don’t matter as much as that we are just willing to be there. Most people aren’t strong enough to lift someone else over their head, but when we come together and everybody holds a little bit of weight, amazing things happen.  We don’t always get to see the results, but can we help someone relax in a moment of acute stress? Can we help them understand that we’re going to be there for them, and that we’re not going to let them fall?  We do what we can and leave the deeply spiritual stuff to God, where it belongs.

That’s creating Sacred Places.

This Sunday

Join us this Mission Sunday, August 25, 2024 as we talk about Creation Justice and caring for our world. We gather at 10:30 AM for refreshments, and conversation at 11 AM. We hope you will join us!

Coming Soon

Published by:

Bryan Jones