Third Annual Beach Worship

Beach Worship
Sunday, August 15th -- starting at 4:00pm
Pine Point Beach in Scarborough

Bring a frisbee, kite, beach ball, pail and shovel, or other favorite beach toys, along with a main dish, side dish, salad or dessert to share, and join others for an afternoon of fun.

4:00 pm -- Beach Fun!
5:00 pm -- Potluck Picnic, bring food to share, we'll bring plates, cups and silverware
6:00 pm -- Informal worship, including music, time to reflect on Scripture, and the celebration of Communion.

Join us for our 3rd annual beach worship, a favorite among New Lighters young and old! Bring a friend, family member or neighbor along for the fun!

Community Worship Gathering

Sunday, February 14th - 6:00 pm
Coffee & snacks starting at 5:30 pm
at Hope.Gate.Way.

What's love got to do with it? Pretty much everything if you pay attention to what Jesus had to say: love God, love your neighbor, and if you do one without the other, you pretty much missed the point...

Join us for worship on the evening of Valentine's Day for our monthly Second Sunday worship celebration. Good music. Good conversation. Prayer in various forms. A chance to reflect on the deepest things in life. It'll be a good time, guaranteed. We'll have coffee and snacks ready at 5:30 pm, and worship will start at 6. Bring a friend.

Mardi Gras Party

Mardi Gras Party
Tuesday, February 16th -- 5:30pm
at Hope.Gate.Way.



Join us for our annual Mardi Gras Party. We will make pancakes, play fun games, and make our own Mardi Gras masks. There will be plenty of beads to go around, so feel free to bring your friends along. Bring your favorite pancake topping to share.

Check out pictures from last years Mardi Gras Party here.

Covenanting Potluck

New Light Community Potluck
and Conversation about Covenanting

Sunday, January 24th at 5:00pm
at Hope.Gate.Way.

What is Covenanting, you ask? Well, it's something new that we're introducing this January as an opportunity to grow deeper -- sort of our New Light alternative approach to membership...

In most churches, once you've been attending for a while, the pastor will encourage you to become a member. Usually there is a membership class, or a series of classes, to learn about the history and beliefs of the church, as well as to explore what it means to make the commitment of membership. Usually membership is a once-and-for-all deal -- you become a member of the church and stay a member until you withdraw your membership or transfer it to a different church.

We'd like to rethink membership, and look at the commitments we make quite differently -- less like membership in a club and more like commitments to community and spiritual practices that help us grow in our faith. That's where Covenanting comes in. Covenanting is an invitation to make commitments to practices that deepen our relationship with God, the New Light community, each other, and the world. If you feel like you are ready to make some deeper commitments, we want to invite you to learn more about Covenanting, which will not be a once-and-for-all deal, but rather something we reconsider yearly. The commitments you make are your own -- commitments to areas in which you want to be growing as a disciple of Christ in community with others who are part of New Light. Then, over the next year, there will be opportunities for us, as a community, to check in with one another to discuss and support each other in our commitments.

Not sure if you are ready or interested in covenanting? Coming to the dinner does NOT mean that you have to covenant. You can come, enjoy food, listen to conversation, and decide covenanting is not for you at this time. You do not have to come to the dinner, or covenant in order to continue being a part of New Light. This is merely an opportunity for people who want to make a deeper commitment to do so.

Arts Sunday

Many Gifts, One Spirit: Creating in Community
Sunday, September 20 ~ 9:30-3:00
at Hope.Gate.Way.

Rev. Priscilla Dreyman of SPIRAL Arts will be leading a Sunday event offering multiple opportunities for spiritual exploration, creative expression, and deepening of relationships through art. Don't be intimidated: we're defining art broadly and coordinating accessible activities for beginners -- things like printmaking, origami, beginning drawing & watercolors, cooking, music, and more. The time will also include worship, sharing, and lunch, as well as opportunities to form and deepen relationships with Chestnut & New Light friends. We hope you'll participate in this exciting community-building event. If you have questions or suggestions, talk with Allen or Sara.

Picnic and Baptism at Pine Point

Despite the weather we had tons of fun at our beach worship on August 2. Fun on the beach, good food, worship, and Daren and Katrina's baptisms in the ocean!!

2nd Annual Cinco de Mayo Party

Did you miss this scene from last years Cinco de Mayo party? Don't be sad, we are giving everyone a chance for a little Mexican inspired fun!

Tuesday, May 5th- 5:30pm at Hope.Gate.Way. (185 High St. Portland)

All LIFE groups will meet on Tuesday next week for a full community gathering including, music, games, great food, and of course, FUN!!

Bring your favorite Mexican dish to share! This is sure to be a great time, so invite all of your friends and relatives to come along!

Easter Potluck and Worship Pictures

Easter Potluck and Worship

Easter Potluck Dinner & Worship Celebration

Sunday, April 12

5:30 pm at Hope.Gate.Way.

Grab your friends and neighbors and your favorite food item, and join us for a rockin' good time on Easter evening! We'll get together at Hope.Gate.Way. at 5:30, share food and laughter around the tables, and then head right into worship, with good music and a great message of life and hope and love. Rumor has it we may repeat last year's popular feature: The Great Easter Egg Challenge!

This year's Easter Potluck Dinner & Worship Celebration is not to be missed!

Holy Thursday - Potluck Soup & Bread and Movie

Thursday April 9th @ 5:30pm
at Hope.Gate.Way. -- 185 High St. Portland

We will meet on Holy Thursday with our friends from Chestnut UMC. Bring a pot of soup, a loaf of bread to share, or just yourself to enjoy dinner and a movie.

After dinner we'll watch the movie The Gospel of John -- an opportunity to experience the life of Christ by seeing the entire Gospel of John dramatized.

Mardi Gras Party

We will be having a Mardi Gras party on Tuesday, February 24, at 5:30pm at Allen and Sara's house. This celebration will take place in lieu of our regularly scheduled LIFE groups, so come one come all!

We will be having a pancake dinner, including a variety of juices and delicious toppings. Evening activities will include fun games, mask making, and of course, beads.

This will be an event you won't want to miss!! Bring a friend to join the fun.

Community Gathering on Sunday

Join us this Sunday, October 26, at 5:00 pm.

We will gather for our Monthly Potluck and Worship Gathering. After meetings in homes, at the beach, in the apple orchard.... this time we will meet at our new base for ministry, 185 High Street, Portland.

Bring your picnic (something to share) and blanket, or just plan to sit on the floor -- we don't have enough tables and chairs yet. We'll eat and then share some time of reflection, singing, and worship.

It is sure to be a good time for new and established New Light folks. We hope to see you there!

Praying for Peace

Today is the International Day of Prayer for Peace, coordinated annually on September 21 by the World Council of Churches, in conjunction with the United Nations International Day of Peace. The objective of the International Day of Prayer for Peace:

"to encourage worldwide, 24-hour spiritual observations for peace and nonviolence on the International Day of Peace, 21 September, in every house of worship and place of spiritual practice, by all religious and spiritually based groups and individuals, and by all men, women, and children who seek peace in the world."

During our New Light Community Gathering tonight, we spent some time praying for peace in God's world. As we lifted up prayers for specific places of conflict and suffering, we placed stickers depicting doves on a globe. It was distressing, to say the least, to see a globe covered in stickers by the time we finished -- tangible reminders of the great suffering, much of it caused by sisters and brothers inflicting violence on each other, all over this earth God created. I can only imagine how God grieves to see God's children at war with one another.

And so, we pray for peace, and we pray that God will use us as instruments of peace.

Here's a prayer that we shared during our time of worship tonight:

Their plowshares are beat into swords

And now their plowshares are beat into swords – as are ours.
Now their pruning hooks are beat into spears – as are ours.
Not only swords and spears,
but bullets, and bombs, and missiles,
of steel on flesh,
of power against bodies….

And you, in your indignation sound your mantra,
“Blessed are the peacemakers.”
We dare to believe they are the aggressor,
and we are the peacemaker.
Yet in sober night dream, we glance otherwise
and think we may be aggressor,
as we vision rubbled homes,
murdered civilians,
and charred babies.

And you, in our sadness, sound your mantra,
“Blessed are the peacemakers.”
We do not love war,
we yearn for peace,
but we have lost much will for peace
even while we dream of order.

And you, in your hope, sound your mantra,
“Blessed are the peacemakers."
Deliver us from excessive certitude about ourselves.
Hold us in the deep ambiguity where we find ourselves,
Show us yet again the gaping space
between your will and our feeble imagination.
Sound your mantra with more authority,
with more indignation,
through sadness,
in hope… “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Only peacemakers are blessed.
We find ourselves well short of blessed.
Give us freedom for your deep otherwise,
finally to be blessed,
in the name of the Peacemaker
who gave and did not take. Amen.

— Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003)

Monthly Community Gathering

Last month we had a great Community Gathering at Pine Point Beach. This coming Sunday, September 21, we will have another one. First we're going apple picking, meeting up around 2:00. Then we'll return to Allen & Sara's house to make apple crisp, followed by bring-your-favorite-topping pizza making, and concluding with a time of worship, celebration and meditation.

Doesn't it look fun?!?

Join us Sunday at 2:00 leaving from 31 Sheffield Street. Bring a pizza pan if you have one, as well as your favorite pizza topping! Bring a friend, too!