every thursday
       
        6:00 pm
        spiritual practice
        ancient practices like centering prayer, chant & yoga 
  ~ a fresh practice every month
       
        6:30 pm
        alt worship w/ communion
        downtown grooves meet ancient worship traditions		 the crossing; where real church meets real life
      
       
      

reach the crossing

               
              

at the crossing

               

what else is emerging?

               
      
              

what is the crossing?

        the crossing is an emerging church worship community. that's the $10-word for a group of people who gather for authentic worship, for centering, for refreshment, for community, and especially for the love of god and one another and the world around us.      
      
 we're rooted in the episcopal tradition. that means we are in a lively conversation with the historic church. we glory in the beauty of language and the beauty of creation and dig worship that hits all five senses. we're not afraid of questions and we don't panic when different people come up with different answers to the same question (actually, we like it). and we hope to gather all the beloved children of god to feed and be fed around god's table no conditions, no limits and to send everybody back out as christ's hands and feet and arms embracing and transforming the world.
      
 that's what we get from our episcopal forbears. but being emerging means we're taking the early church traditions and translating them for today's journey, refusing to be trapped by old assumptions about the way church "ought" to feel or the way christians "ought" to act. neosoul meets chant. the wrought iron candelabra sits next to an amp and guitar. the ancient order for worship gets fused with yoga and centering prayer. the contradictions aren't contradictions anymore. it all belongs to god.
      
       one more word on emerging: it means we believe the story of god's people is still being written, and it's time for emerging generations to step up and write our chapters.      
      
       so by now we hope you get the idea: the crossing is shaped by the yearnings, energy, spiritual questions and life experiences of everyone who gathers here. we're musicians, film buffs, writers. we're students, parents, professionals, and folks who aren't quite sure what's next. we're gay, straight, bisexual. we love music: chant, house, folk, gospel, r&b, world. we love silence. we love music that embraces and holds the silence. we love to sit (as in don't just do something, sit there). we love to move (as in a little yoga, a little walking meditation, or maybe just lifting our hands as one to celebrate communion).      
      
 some of us were reared in the church. some of us wonder half the time why anybody bothers with organized religion at all. some of us are dedicated churchgoers (including the priest among us). some of us nurture our eastern spiritual practices. most of us come because we sense there's more to "church" than what's out there, and we're excited about jesus, god, community and the dream of love without limits.      
      
       what brings us together at the crossing? it started with a question: what would happen if you could take a few steps back, hold up the most compelling parts of what we do as church and still honor the truly holy experiences so many of us have far from the walls of church? what if we returned to the good news jesus walked around preaching and living, and then proclaimed it in words and sounds and images that touch our lives - and probably the lives of a lot more people.      
      
 here's what we came up with:      
             
  • let's pause, breathe deep and bring peace to a hectic world.         
  • let's come alive - truly alive, bodies and souls alive.         
  • let's nurture a space where sisters and brothers can have a profound encounter with the living god. and even if that encounter shakes us up and shakes the world up, let's trust that it will also leave everything a little sweeter, a little brighter, a little more like the dream that still rests in the lively mind of god.         
  • let's grab hold of the meaning and worship and community and spiritual practices of the christian tradition, unplug them from sunday morning, plug them into our own real lives, crank the music and throw the doors open and see who else is hoping the way we're hoping and yearning the way we're yearning.       
  sound good to you? then email us now or just show up any thursday at 6 p.m. for spiritual practices and 6:30 p.m. for fresh worship.