Poem by a participant at the Church Alive Summit

From the deep roots of Soul
Grow beauty and grace–
Sprouts of Life springing
From the eternal Good.
Heaven-felt calm–
A natural blend of
Joy and peace
Perpetual bloom
A church alive!

We’ve been getting lots of reports of fruitage from Summit participants.  Here’s one example:

A sweet little fruit of that summit happened for me the next day — I had been asked to substitute teach a class in the Sunday School that day and I knew ahead of time that the one student wasn’t going to be there, but I prepared for the class anyway. On the way to church, I was thinking about Frankie from Ohio and the woman who was so influential in his life, what a difference her “boldness” made, and how we could all be more open to those opportunities.

There’s a house right next door to our Sunday School entrance, practically up against the building, and as I walked by it there were two girls, about 8 years old, standing on the steps, trying to sell old toys and stuff to passersby. I felt inspired to invite them to our SS, but they didn’t want to leave their little store. So I went into the SS, told the superintendent I was there and that I was going to go back to talk some more with the girls, see if I could persuade them to visit. When I returned, they were both seemed interested (neither of them attended a church), but one of their moms was on her way to pick up her daughter and she couldn’t leave, so I just sat down on the steps and started talking with them about God. One of them said she believed in Mother Earth, not God, so I started explaining how God is Mother as well as Father since she is Love. That got her attention, and we rolled along from there. They both listened intently the whole time as I explained how we are reflections of God’s love and goodness and can only do and be what God does and is, just like our own reflections in the mirror. After about 15 minutes the mom showed up and that was the end of our class, but it was such a lovely moment of opening up their thoughts to who God and who they really are. I’ll try again to invite them to visit.

I don’t think I would have done that if it hadn’t been for hearing about Frankie’s experience.

Share your fruitage and leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

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The Summit Program (PDF download) includes details on all the talks, breakout sessions, activities and more.  We’re looking forward to you joining us next weekend!