October 2008

Worship Service Schedule!
All Worship Services are Sunday nights @ 6pm.
FREE PARKING is available along the south side of Pine Street! b/t Broad and 13th St. Pick up a parking permit from the church and throw on dashboard!!--or download it from the BSM website by clicking here!! Please come and be encouraged, challenged, inspired, comforted!!!! We also eat dinner together following each service!

Sunday, October 5th
Meditation offered by Bill Golderer
Music offered by BSM Choir
TEXT: Philippians 3:4-14
THEME: Was Paul a Zealot?

Sunday, October 12th
Meditation offered by Bill Golderer
Music offered by Nate Gonzalez and Julie Woodard
Text: Isaiah 25:1-10
Theme: A Vision Worth Realizing

Sunday October 19th
Meditation offered by Bill Golderer
Music offered by BSM Choir
Text: Exodus 33:12-23
Theme: Finding God’s Favor

Sunday, October 26th
Meditation offered by David vanHouten
Music offered by Classical Ensemble led by Jim Straw
Text: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Theme: sharing of self

A LIVING ROOM CONVERSATION ON THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH
Tuesday October 21st @ 7pm
Dinner (Free) @ 6pm
Conversation @ 7pm
Bring your feelings, thoughts, and past experiences with the church to the table as we engage in dialogue about the future of the church. Bruce Reyes-Chow (Moderator of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church U.S.A.), Byron Wade, (Vice Moderator of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church U.S.A.) Convening Minister Bill Golderer, and others from BSM are excited to join you in this important discussion about the challenges and hopes facing the church today. To download a flyer—and share with friends…click here!

Collision....at Breaking Bread
Every Thursday 11:30am to 1:30pm
Many of the worlds that make up Philadelphia collide in the space that Broad Street Ministry occupies. Often these collisions are quite unexpected. One such recent surprise came to a community artist, Ky, who was co-facilitating an experiential art project during Breaking Bread last week. After arriving at BSM, Ky spotted her roommate, a second year student with the Council for Relationships and Jefferson, Marcie. Ky knew that her roommate had been talking about an opportunity she was really looking forward to that involved connecting with women and men who are suffering from homelessness, inviting them to share their stories. What Ky and Marcie did not realize when they left the home they share that morning - they were headed for the same address last Thursday- 315 South Broad Street (BSM)! Ky’s passion for the therapeutic potential of artistic creation and Marcie’s dedication to the healing power of intentional listening led them both to Broad Street during Breaking Bread.

The complex web of relationships that led these roommates to the same room illustrates the way in which a diverse array of gifts and talents are invited to Breaking Bread, to create moments that offer mutual dignity and hope, and confront injustice in our community. The invitation within this story is that you, too, would follow your own unique gifts into Breaking Bread, to join us in living into a more just city.
Each Thursday, over 150 women and men from the community who are homeless, come to Breaking Bread for a nutritious meal served at 11:30 in an atmosphere of hospitality and respect, followed by an array of transformational services in the fields of legal and benefits, therapeutic arts, medical, and salon to name a few. We invite you to come in and add your unique strand to the tapestry of the community on Thursdays.

If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, please contact Laura Markle Downton, Mobilizer of Transformation for Breaking Bread at laura@broadstreetministry.org.

Celebrating Survivors:
A Concert To Honor Survivors
of Domestic Violence
Friday, October 17, 2008 at 7:30pm
Join Women In Transition and Broad Street Ministry for a concert to celebrate survivors of domestic violence. A powerful night of celebration and survival, this concert features some of the nation's top touring folk artists, all of which have inspirational missions.

Buy Tickets
Doors open an hour prior and seats are general admission. Broad Street Ministry is located at 315 S. Broad St., just across from the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are only $20. Proceeds from the concert help to fund Women In Transition's ongoing mission of ridding our communities of domestic violence and substance abuse through empowering women. BSM is proud to partner with fine organizations like “WIT” to help bring about ‘kingdom values’ to our city.

Meet the Seminarians!!
BSM is ecstatic to welcome 5 seminarians from Princeton Theological Seminary for the academic year of 2008-09. They are Rebecca Blake, Noah Carlson, Edwin Estevez, Laura Powell, and Miriam Todd. They will be working and serving and learning some things here—not the least of which they will learn about each other’s gifts for ministry. We asked them to interview each other and there is good news—in addition to being talented and bright, they also have a sense of humor!! To meet them by reading these interviews, click here!

SAVE THE DATE
Special Author Event:
A People’s History of Poverty in America
Thursday November 13th @ 7pm (FREE!)
"When you live in a shelter, other people control your life. They tell you when you may come in and when you must go out. They tell you when you can take your shower and when you can wash your clothing."
—from A People's History of Poverty and Welfare in America

In this compulsively readable social history, political scientist Stephen Pimpare vividly describes poverty from the perspective of poor and welfare-reliant Americans from the big city to the rural countryside. He focuses on how the poor have created community, secured shelter, and found food and illuminates their battles for dignity and respect.

Through prodigious archival research and lucid analysis, Pimpare details the ways in which charity and aid for the poor have been inseparable, more often than not, from the scorn and disapproval of those who would help them. In the rich and often surprising historical testimonies he has collected from the poor in America, Pimpare overturns any simple conclusions about how the poor see themselves or what it feels like to be poor—and he shows clearly that the poor are all too often aware that charity comes with a price. It is that price that Pimpare eloquently questions in this book, reminding us through powerful anecdotes, some heart-wrenching and some surprisingly humorous, that poverty is not simply a moral failure.

About the Author
Stephen Pimpare is the author of The New Victorians: Poverty, Politics, and Propaganda in Two Gilded Ages. He teaches American politics and social welfare policy at Yeshiva College and the Wurzweiler School of Social Work.

SONiA of disappear fear

John Flynn

LisaBeth Weber
& Maggie Marshall

Cheryl Prasker