A Divisive Prince of Peace

News and Updates

July 28, 2023

Respite Meal Train

Every night of the week, we're in need of dinner for our friends staying in Respite. If you would like to sign up, you can do so on our Meal Train.

Reminder about the Card Ministry

Pastor Jody's card ministry is now on Wednesdays at 8:30 am in the Sanctuary!

As always, everyone is invited to join!

Saturday Meal Prep

Prep for Sunday Downtown Welcome Table breakfast will be this Saturday, July 29th - 9:00-12:00.

We hope to make meal prep accessible for folks who aren't able to come during the week, so once a month we'll be having Saturday prep instead of Thursdays. Be on the lookout for those dates!

Haywood Street Merchandise

We have t-shirts and hats for sale! Beyond production expenses, all proceeds go to supporting the Haywood Street ministries and programs.

See what we have available HERE or stop by Rebecca's office in Room 8 on the second floor, Monday thru Thursday between 8 and 2.

On-going opportunities to participate at the Welcome Table:

Have a meal! - Join us on Sunday or Wednesday to enjoy a meal with our community!

Dining Room Clean Up - As always, clean up is one of the places that we need companion support. We promise to make it fun! On Sundays, we need companions from 10:00-12:00, and on Wednesdays from 12:00-2:00

Kitchen Clean-Up - On Sundays from 10:00-12:00 and Wednesdays from 12:00-2:00, we would love for a couple of companions to help us clean up the kitchen and help serve the folks who come in during that time for a meal. You can sign up for this role on the sign-up sheet below!

Haywood Street in Photos

Pastoral Intern, Annalise, offered the sermon this week. We've been gifted by her presence with us this summer!

The ground is holy because of all of you!

Dave has been busy this week getting flowers planted. Next time you're at Haywood Street, make sure to see the new roses outside the sanctuary!

Weekly Ministry Opportunities:

Worship:

Sundays at 11:00 and Wednesdays at 12:30 in the sanctuary

Tuesday Prayer Group: 12:00 in Room 6. Gather for a time of communal prayer.

Wednesday Card Making: 8:30 am in the Sanctuary. Gather together to make cards for our community and friends in prison or in the hospital.

Grief Support Group: Tuesdays from 11 am-12 pm in the community room. We’ll strive towards healing together through relationship with each other.

Weekly Sermons

Read each week's sermon and previous sermons on the stories and sermons page of the website.

Community Resources

Click below to see a list of places in the community to donate and find clothes, and when recovery meetings are held.

Click Here

Fresco Viewing Hours:

Sundays 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Monday-Thursday 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.

By appointment, contact April at april@haywoodstreet.org.

SERMON

A Divisive Prince of Peace

By Pastor Seth

The author of the Gospel of Luke sure picked a strange place to put our scripture for today. Our text is situated between Jesus giving a teaching on the importance of integrity and taking responsibility for our actions and a teaching on restoration for those we have wronged. It’s placed between a lesson on accountability and one on reconciliation — things associated with coming together, unity, peacemaking, mending relationship. Such teachings seem pretty on par with the Prince of Peace, who holds love as the greatest commandment. It’s curious, then, that Jesus would give a lesson in favor of divisiveness in the middle of it all. It’s curious that Jesus would make the claim that he has not come to bring peace, but division — even between those closest to us.

It’s a peculiar passage and a shocking assertion that the Prince of Peace comes to divide. So what’s so divisive about the Prince of Peace?

Congregational Response

Christ came to transform the world, disrupt status quo
Jesus wakes us from our complacency
The divisiveness of an unexpected incarnation
The abundance of the Holy Spirit as controversial for those who want to limit God’s accessibility.

It’s 1860 in the American Midwest, and Elizabeth Packard will spend the next 3 years confined behind the locked doors of the Illinois Hospital for the Insane. Involuntarily committed at the behest of her husband, Theophilus — a Calvinist minister and close associate of her Calvinist minister father — Elizabeth’s forced psychiatric stay was not due to being out of her mind but, rather, due to having a mind of her own. Born in Massachusetts in 1816, Elizabeth Packard received an education at the Amherst Female Seminary and was exposed to thinkers and theologians of various bends and backgrounds — igniting a thirst for knowledge and independence that she would carry with her for the remainder of her life.

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A witness to include the most excluded, Haywood Street not only welcomes every child of God–especially sisters and brothers of every mental illness and physical disability, addiction and diagnosis, living condition and employment status, gender identity and sexual orientation, class, color, and creed–but we celebrate your presence, certain that the kingdom of God is coming closer because you are here.