Searching for more?

We're a newly forming community of faith here in Portland, called New Light.

If you're searching for answers, or maybe searching for the right questions...
if you're searching for meaningful relationships where you can be who you are and be loved and accepted not in spite of that but because of that...
if you're searching for authentic community where conversation explores the deepest things in life...
if you ever wonder how you can make a difference in the world...
if you're a mixture of doubt and faith, hope and hopelessness, love and fear...
if you consider yourself to be spiritual but not religious...
if you think maybe there's something to the whole "God thing" but you're not sure church-as-usual is the place to encounter it...
if you want more out of life...
then join us for dinner this Thursday night at 6:00 pm.

Contact Allen or Sara
31 Sheffield Street
Portland, Maine

Sharing with our Neighbors

This week we're collecting food items to be distributed to neighbors in need this Thanksgiving. If you're going to join us on Thursday evening (and we hope you will!), bring along a few items that would enhance someone's Thanksgiving dinner:

• bags or boxes of stuffing
• jars or cans of gravy
• pie crust mixes

We'll pass on these items to the Preble Street Resource Center to help with their food distribution the day before Thanksgiving.

Now Meeting Thursday Evenings

We're meeting weekly on Thursday evenings at 6:00 pm at 31 Sheffield Street, Portland, for dinner and conversation. Newcomers are always welcome!

Gathering for Dinner & Conversation

Interested in what's happening at New Light? Join us for this upcoming gathering:

Potluck Dinner & Conversation
Wednesday, November 7
6:00 pm
31 Sheffield Street, Portland

A mouth-watering heads-up: We're making our famous apple crisp!!

Everyone's welcome!

Approaching faith

Forming a new community of faith is an amazing adventure. We are gifted with opportunities to define ourselves from the very beginning.

Our approach to faith:

• Faith is a journey. We don’t have it all figured out, and we don’t expect anyone else to either. We each bring our own questions and doubts about issues of faith. We are continually striving to love God more deeply and love our neighbor more fully.
  
  
• We are seeking to be more like Jesus and trying to help each other do that as a community, through all the messiness of life. We can all be better people than we are: more loving, less selfish, more caring… more like Jesus.
  
  
• Each one of us is a beautiful, unique creation of God – warts and all. There is no cookie cutter mold into which followers of Christ must fit.
  
  
• God loves us infinitely just as we are, but loves us enough that God wants each of us to be more than we currently are.
  
  
• There are many ways to deepen the spiritual life: prayer (in a thousand different forms), reading and study (of the Bible and other books), meditation, dance, listening to or creating music, conversation, hospitality, service, practicing gratitude, tithing, going on retreats, living in community, celebrating Communion… We encourage everyone to explore those practices most compatible with their unique way of being.
  
  
• We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, written by human authors, and meant to be read as the story of God’s self-revelation to God’s people. The Bible contains many kinds of literature, some meant to be understood literally, others allegorically, and still others symbolically. The Bible contains history, but it’s not a history book. Just as Jesus taught in parables, some Biblical literature contains stories meant to teach deep lessons about God and the world. The true power of Scripture is in its ability to convey truth and meaning to human hearts, and we believe every time we come to the text it says something new to us.
  
  
• We want to integrate faith, life, and politics: our faith informs the way we see the world and calls us to action on behalf of the poor, the neglected, and those held hostage to life’s situations.
  
  
• The earth, with its abundance of resources, is a gift from God. We are responsible for honoring the gift by practicing careful stewardship through recycling, purchasing environmentally friendly products, and considering our carbon footprint in all that we do. This is a spiritual practice.
  
  
• As people of faith, we cannot be satisfied with a world filled with violence, poverty, hunger, and racism. Peace and justice are not just ideals, but passions to be pursued.

Just because...

Looks like we have major rain and winds about to descend on the City of Portland, and we have plans to practice random acts of kindness tomorrow...

We've purchased 400 certificates for a cup of coffee at Coffee By Design coffee shops, and we're going to be hitting the streets of Portland, just to pass them out with a little card that says this:

YES! It really is free!
We hope this small gift brightens your day. It's a simple way of saying that God loves you.

Then on the back, a little introduction to new light, along with the address for this blog.

I'm praying that these little cards -- soggy from the rain or not! -- find their way into the hands of the people who need them most, and that they'll be like seeds planted in fertile soil.

God, bless these little acts of kindness, that they might be symbols of your grace -- even in the midst of the storms of life... Amen.