Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Opening our Minds & Hearts to the LGBTQ Community

2 Comments
by Rev. Annie Kopko, Associate Minister
Snapshot of Associate Minister Annie Kopko of the Interfaith Center in Ann Arbor.
Associate Minister Annie Kopko

We want to be a community that will “Welcome the strange, not just the stranger.”

The ministers at our beloved Center have been discussing this ever since Rev. Delyth and I attended a workshop last September. This workshop was organized to help faith communities come together and learn how we can become more inclusive and welcoming of LGBTQ individuals.

LGBTQIA = LESBIAN, BI-SEXUAL, GAY, TRANSGENDER, INTERSEX, OR ASEXUAL

As a follow-up to what we learned at the September workshop, our Center will welcome Rev. Dr. Julie Nemecek to speak at the Sunday service on January 15.  Reverend Julie is both an ordained Baptist minister and one of Michigan’s leading voices on transgender issues. She has worked with many churches on becoming an open and affirming church (inclusive of LGBTQIA people).  Continue reading Opening our Minds & Hearts to the LGBTQ Community →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development, Spiritual Readings, Sunday Talks

This is the Time

Leave a comment

Here is challenge as well as some words of encouragement for everyone in the turbulence following the presidential election. May the challenges facing us all serve our collective awakening.

There are three parts to this post:

1) A video of the Sunday service with guest speaker Rev. Holly Makimaa.

2) A copy of the text Rev. Holly quoted at the end of her talk, “Now is Your Time” by L’Erin Alta.

3) A spiritual reading given by member Carol Bardenstein, “We Were Made for These Times” by Dr.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

Sunday Service with Interfaith Minister Holly Makimaa

“Now is Your Time,” by L’Erin Alta

If you ever felt called to be a healer, a teacher, a salve for the people, now is your time to come forward.

If you are a word weaver, or a light worker, or a lender of ears, now is your time to come forward.

If you have been hiding medicine in your pockets, behind your eyes, beneath your tongue, waiting for the ‘right’ time to share it, now is your time to come forward. Continue reading This is the Time →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Embodying Higher Consciousness in Turbulent Times

Leave a comment

post-election-spirituality resourcesHow do people on a conscious spiritual path embrace our spiritual power in a time of great fear and divisiveness?

What is the middle way, between falling victim to fear on the one hand, and spiritual bypassing on the other?

Here are two perspectives from wise American teachers:

  1.  Marianne Williamson, author of Return to Love and Healing the Soul of America  (1998), speaks on wise engagement as citizens in a democracy, from the point of view of A Course in Miracles, here. This talk includes a challenge for New Thought people to take a hard look at the temptation to avoid difficult topics by judging them as “negative.” She says now is an opportunity for “girls to become women and boys to become men” in our spiritual lives. (video)
  2.  Tara Brach, spiritual director at the Insight Meditation Center in Washington, DC, suggests how we can “Play a Greater Part,” in a post-retreat talk here. (audio)

Continue reading Embodying Higher Consciousness in Turbulent Times →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Letting Joy Lead

Leave a comment

by Scott Kalechstein Grace

scott-grace_free-hugsI do what I love. For a living. Full time. Have done so for twenty six years.

Lately I’ve had a few months in a row of practically no income, and Mr. Fix It (my mind) has stepped up to the plate with a very familiar solution involving two steps:

1) Freak out.

2) Use the adrenaline gained from freaking out to make things happen.

Mr. Fix It has given me this advice my entire adult life. He has glimpsed the future, and assures me that it will suck unless I let a sense of urgency push me to do things that have generated income for me in the past : Continue reading Letting Joy Lead →

Ministerial Miscellany, Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Our Senior Minister Job Announcement Has Taken Flight!

1 Comment

Candles honoring our search for a part-time interfaith minister with interspiritual and New Thought leanings.How does a minister find the perfect community in which to unfold their gifts? How does a spiritual community connect to the right and perfect minister to lead them in their next stage of growth?

These are some of the questions the Search Committee has entertained in recent months. And now, after eight months of self-study, visioning, and refinement, we are posting the Job Announcement inviting applications for the role of part-time Senior Minister, starting when David Bell retires in June of 2017.

Help Us Give Wings to our Announcement

Now, it’s your turn again. We are asking that each of you pause now, close your eyes, and feel exactly how you want to feel when our new minister is among us.  With the right and perfect person leading us in our next stage of collective and individual spiritual growth, how do you feel?

Thrilled?  Grateful?  Relieved?  Excited to support them?  Excited about the support they provide you? What do you most want to feel in the presence of our new minister ? Invoke that feeling now, and let it fill your body for a moment or two. Energize that feeling as a way of helping our Job Announcement fly to the minister who is, at this very moment, seeking us.   Continue reading Our Senior Minister Job Announcement Has Taken Flight! →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Feeling the Presence of Spirit in Times of Loss

Leave a comment

river - change heron_dance

“There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift that there are those

who will be afraid.

They will try to hold on to the shore.

They will feel they are torn apart, and will suffer greatly.”

~An unnamed Hopi elder

into-the-light-maciver
“With all your science can you tell how it is,

and whence it is,

that light comes into the soul?”

~ Henry David Thoreau

At the Interfaith Center we receive many wisdom teachings to help us through the inevitable losses in life. But sometimes, the river of change feels like a torrent. Then, despite all we have known in steadier times, we can be hard pressed to let go and allow the river to carry us. Continue reading Feeling the Presence of Spirit in Times of Loss →

Sunday Talks

A World in Turmoil

2 Comments
Painted by Sara, 10, Zehra, 12, and Ayla, 11, students at Funkor Childart Centre for disadvantaged students in Islamabad, Pakistan. The children there are like a beacon in a troubled word, with their desire for friendship and goodwill among the world’s races and religions.
Painted by Sara, 10, Zehra, 12, and Ayla, 11, students at Funkor Childart Centre for disadvantaged students in Islamabad, Pakistan. The children there are a beacon of light in a troubled world, with their desire for friendship and goodwill among the world’s races and religions.

At the first Sunday service of 2016, senior minister Dave Bell encouraged us all to see the turmoil in the world in a hopeful light. Rather than getting stuck in grief over expressions of violence and hatred — from the Paris shootings to widespread U.S. rejection of Syrian refugees — we can see these events as catalysts that are dissolving unsustainable ways of living on planet Earth.

Fear-based ways of relating to the world must pass away for humanity to make a leap into higher consciousness. The actions of terrorists, or the words of politicians who demonize those who seem “different,” provide fuel that can catapult humanity into embracing a higher path. In our outrage, we can be moved into action and make the world a better place.

As an example, Dave shared his experience at an Open House and Prayer Service two weeks ago at the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor. There, hundreds of people gathered to show support for our local Muslim community. To Dave’s amazement, when addressing the group, one of the imams there actually thanked Donald Trump for suggesting that U.S. mosques be closed. Why would he express gratitude for such a hostile expression of intolerance? Because those very remarks have galvanized so many members from Christian and other faith communities to stand up for their Muslim brothers and sisters. It is providing opportunities for people everywhere to move into a deeper expression of oneness.

Continue reading A World in Turmoil →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Metaphysics Class Tackles “Life’s Persistent Questions”

What is God? This class looks at the science of the invisible to answer life's perennial questions.With both daytime and evening options (1 pm and 7 pm Wednesdays), Senior Minister Dave Bell’s new Metaphysics class is underway. Here are the questions the class explores, plus a Metaphysics Reading List Dave developed from his personal library. The class runs 8 weeks and tuition is $35 for the entire class. Email dave@interfaithspirit.org if you have questions 🙂

THE QUESTIONS
  • What is Metaphysics?
  • The Nature of the Divine
  • The Nature of Creation
  • What is Reality?
  • Does Evil Exist?
  • Are there Unforgivable Sins?
  • What is a Soul?
  • What is Consciousness?
  • What is the Role of Scripture?
  • What is the Role of Compassion and Forgiveness?
  • The Three Phases of Mind
  • Prayer and Meditation
  • Prosperity
  • Does Reincarnation Occur?
  • The Near Death Experience
  • What is Mysticism?
RECOMMENDED READING

Books by Dr. David Hawkins Continue reading Metaphysics Class Tackles “Life’s Persistent Questions” →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development, Spiritual Readings

Whatever Happens Can Be Interpreted for Your Own Good

Image showing how perception is malleable - a key metaphysical principle in A Course in MiraclesHave you ever wondered about the name, “A Course in Miracles,” which is often quoted at Interfaith? The “miracles” refer to tiny shifts in perception which give us the power to transform suffering into blessings. Here is a reading about Perception shared by member Jan Peacock at a recent Sunday service. Continue reading Whatever Happens Can Be Interpreted for Your Own Good →

Personal Growth & Spiritual Development

Believe in Yourself

Video

Yesterday, Dave Bell showed us how our own beliefs about ourselves (often old, subconscious beliefs, ingrained from childhood) create our experience. Isn’t it amazing that our  Divine soul’s expression is empowered, or inhibited, by what we believe? Yet it’s true. As Henry Ford say, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t…. you’re right.

What if you allowed yourself to express your soul’s essence, right here, right now? Here’s a little encouragement from an unexpected source: neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor.