Gathering with Christ, Experiencing the New Creation

An In-Person and Online Retreat at Friends Center

Facilitated by Diane Reynolds and Constance Bair-Thompson

How do we offer hospitality and welcome to those who are finding us and our Meetings across the miles in this age of Zoom?  How do we grow together as a worshiping community? In this in-person and online gathering, Ohio Yearly Meeting Friends will join with others in Quaker circles and beyond to explore what unites us, as seekers and sharers of the new creation that Christ has promised us.

Here is the story so far: (Read it that way.)

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making everything new.”¹ So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.² For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation is everything.³ In other words, neither following nor disregarding law-based practices is anything, but living in a new creation is everything. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us, and entrusting to us the message of our reconciliation to God through Christ.⁴

We each have our story – perhaps a story both of encounters with the new creation and of our longing for it.  What are we experiencing now that feels like this new creation?

 How does our past help us live in Christ’s new creation, individually and as a community?  How does our past hinder us? How do we share our experience of the new creation with each other, in person and at a distance (online and otherwise)?  How do we care for each other?  How do we welcome fellow seekers into the fabric of our community?

Through worship, journaling, and our own experiences, past and present, we will explore Christ’s promise to us, individually and as communities of faith:  “Behold, I make all things new.”

1. Revelation 21:5 2. 2^nd Corinthians 5:17 3. Galations 6:15     4. 2^nd Corinthians 5: 18-19