Tag: community

On Saturday Spokane Faith & Values held its fourth Coffee Talk, this time at Revel 77 Coffee.

A big thanks to those who showed up — 32 people — including the four panelists, the Rev. Jim CastroLang, Skyler Oberst, Dr. Pearce Fujiura and Annie May Brown.

On Saturday Spokane Faith & Values panelists will join our readers in a discussion about spiritual community.

What is spiritual community?

Although community is a crucial aspect of any religious experience, it can be taken too seriously and put the personal relationship with the divine at risk. I can only speak of my own Roman Catholic experience in this matter and share with you two areas in which Catholics need to exercise caution in balancing community and the personal.

Community. It’s a buzz word churches throw around and strive to manifest. Here are some examples:
‘We’re a community church!’
‘Have you been to one of our community groups?’
‘We have community outreach programs!’
‘Community prayer is open to everyone, join in!’
‘Community service projects, we do them!’

We want to have it all together and try to fool God — whatever form God takes in our lives — into believing that we have it all together. The truth, though, is that God recognizes that we are in need of healing, whether we make that clear or not.