Temenos Red Lily

 

Our Offering to All

We Share
Our Love
Our Sacred Space
Our Hearts

We Welcome
All who thirst
All who hunger
For a deeper Relationship with the Divine

We Practice
Radical Kindness

Come as you are,
Just Come
For one service
or a lifetime.
We offer a Home
For Your Heart

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Temenos Spiritual Center

Temenos welcomes all who seek spiritual nourishment. We honor the unique path of each person. We encourage people to explore and we encourage inquiry.

 

Spiritual Offerings at Temenos

We have various forms of contemplation and meditation throughout each month. These include: yoga, silent meditation, drumming, nature awareness, and sound meditations.

Our regular Sunday Service incorporates engaging song, prayer, meditation, and contemplation. We seek to bring the ancient sacred wisdom forward into contemporary tools for daily living.

Join us where the traditional mingles with the non-traditional in the ageless mysticism of love unfolding. We come together in gratitude, celebration, prayer and song. Gather in a community which embraces a global evolving consciousness and spirituality. Services are diverse, incorporating hymns, song, meditation, and prayers from various traditions.

Sunday Services are at 10:00 am, usually in the Farm House, although we meet at the Retreat Center for special services during the year. Join us for a coffee and tea afterwards. First and third Sunday services are followed by a community potluck. All are welcome.

The Farm House is locate at 685 Broad Run Road and the Retreat is at 1564 Telegraph Road West Chester, Pa. 19382 (they are around the corner from each other).

 

Upcoming Sunday Services

Temenos Sunday Services

All services are offered virtually, plus sometimes at services we have room for 10 people (not including helpers) during the service.

If we have room for guests at a service, we will state so on our Facebook page and use EVITE as a way to register and keep track.

Sunday Services begin at 10:00 am.
If we do have room, people will be admitted between 9:45 and 9:55 only if they have registered.

Evensong Services begin at 5:00 pm.
People will be admitted between 4:45 and 4:55 only if they have registered.

Everyone must have a mask.

We would like to keep people whole and healthy,
as you are all indeed holy and beloved.

Sunday Service
Sunday, September 27th at 10:00 to 11:00 am | Morning Service
Rev. Christine Campbell

Join Us for a Virtual Sunday Service on the Temenos Retreat and Sanctuary Facebook page LIVE STREAMED at 10:00 am  (you can watch anytime)
Temenos Retreat and Sanctuary – Home | Facebook

sailboat at sunset"Catch the Wind"
A service of poetry, prayer, song, drumming, and meditation, with a Contemplation on "Catch the Wind" – Blending the traditional and the nontraditional. Join us in the Mystery of Love Unfolding.

You do not need to register. This is a virtual event and an in-person event – We will live stream on our Facebook page at 10:00 am. We have room for a few people to attend in person on a first-come basis. You will have to wear a mask and you must arrive at 9:45. Doors close at 9:55. 

Click here for this week's Service PDF.

Services will be recorded as an audio file and will be available shortly after at SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/897737082

 

Prayers for a Peaceful Night's Sleep 

starry skyShort evening prayers for a peaceful sleep set to music, and are posted each Tuesday Evening.
You can find them on:

https://soundcloud.com/897737082/prayers-for-deep-peaceful

Peace Be With You


prayer over lake

“The Lord’s mercy endures forever.” Psalm 136

Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." Matthew 9:13

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful ...” Luke 6:36



Dear Ones,

As we prepare to enter Holy Week, I would never have thought how closely our present world would be mirroring this ancient journey through Darkness to Light. In Holy Week we are called to go deep within and search out the darkness in our hearts, as we seek mercy for ourselves and extend this in the ways of compassion and forgiveness to others.

Below I am sharing part of a letter I received from my Spiritual Mentor. It reflects so clearly on Mercy and includes a practice for this Holy Week – should you care to deepen your path. I am sharing with love for your holy well being.

“Mercy is powerful, transformative, hopeful, life-giving, and foundational to both the Old and New Testaments. Mercy is knowing that we are forgiven. Mercy speaks of God’s inexhaustible love for each one of us.  Mercy is demonstrated daily through our acts of compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, and love. Mercy that Jesus Christ is risen and present.

The world is being defined by retribution, division, lack of accountability, and a “winner takes all” attitude (now, we have the opportunity to change it). Despite its loving power, mercy is often forgotten or ignored. We cannot be held hostage by the ways of the world. We must demonstrate in each thought, word, and action that we are liberated by the mercy and love of God.

I ask those of faith in our community  to join me in a prayerful time of mercy. A time where we open ourselves to the knowledge of God’s mercy and then demonstrate that mercy in how we treat others.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus shows mercy in embracing the outcast, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, raising the dead, forgiving the sinner, and welcoming the stranger. The root of the word “mercy” derives from misericordis, which means opening one’s heart to wretchedness. Jesus enters into our lives and reflects the loving face of God to the world. The profound love of God for each of us means that Jesus always responds to our pain and suffering.

Mercy precedes all the great miracles. I often imagine how those who were hurting, lost, and lonely humbly approached Jesus. The moment Jesus looked into their eyes and every fiber of their being was filled with God’s mercy. How their hearts were filled with God’s love and the awakening of the goodness within. It has been said by a great theologian, “God forgives not with a decree but with a caress. Jesus goes beyond the law and forgives by caressing the wounds of our sins.”
As followers of Jesus, we are called to share that same mercy we are given with everyone we meet.

Our lives thus become the holy interplay of opening ourselves to the presence of God through prayer, knowing Jesus because of our yearning for oneness with God. Understanding we need God’s mercy living in gratitude that we are blessed with that mercy. Thus, we live as transformed, awakened, and compassionate followers of Christ.
Thus, I invite you to participate in the following practice centering on mercy:

1.  Select a minimum of five people, and write their names on a piece of paper. It could be more than five but start with five. Pray for these people during Holy Week and add a prayer for the world.

2.  Now the hard part. Of the five that you have chosen to pray for, make sure that two of them are people you are in conflict with, separated from, have difficultly forgiving or truly dislike. In your prayers, ask that God blesses them throughout the day, pray for only good to occur in their lives, pray for love and hope.

3.  Pray for these people first thing in the morning, throughout the day, and make your prayers the last thing you do at night. Pray for them holding that piece of paper in your hands during Holy Week. 

4. On Good Friday, I ask that you take the piece of paper and reverently dispose of it, perhaps you pin it to a cross in your home or find a way to safely burn it.   

5. Invite one of those people that you have prayed for during this wilderness to join you from their own homes for a virtual service either during Holy Week and/or Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday, reflect on this Lenten Season of praying and journeying.   Offer the names of those you have held in prayer in joyful gratitude and then shout “He is Risen.”

– B.D.G.

May You All Be Blessed in All Ways,
Rev. Christine


A New Era in the Spiritual Life of Humanity

We recognize that we are in the dawn of a new period in the Spiritual Evolution of humanity in which people from around the world are awakening to the inner spiritual depths of their own traditions to come together in peace and harmony. We are part of the Swedenborgian Churches of North America (a liberal, progressive Protestant denomination), The Peace 21 Initiative, and the International Council of Community Churches. We practice an inclusive Spirituality based on the teachings of Jesus along with the wisdom of other traditions. We learn and incorporate the insights of all spiritual paths.

 

Who We Are

Temenos welcomes you as you are and affirms your journey. We welcome people of all backgrounds who seek personal and spiritual growth in an extended family atmosphere.

We support the full participation of everyone, and families of all kinds – interfaith, single parent, LGBT, and seekers exploring their spiritual heritage.

We are a community dedicated to nurturing the dignity and uniqueness of all people and paths. Our community nestles in this “Place of Heart” surrounded by inspired landscape. We give thanks and listen as the God of Divine Wisdom and Love unfolds in our lives. We carry out this wisdom and love in acts of service and kindness. 



Temenos Pastor

Interfaith Minister Rev. Christine Campbell began her journey at Temenos as the Music Minister in October of 2009, often serving as Minister when needed. She became the permanent Pastor in August of 2011. Christine brings to Temenos a deep love of people, compassionate peace activism, and a long history of service in diverse churches and traditions. Buddhism, various Native American traditions, Yogic traditions, and Taoism have all influenced her life. Christine draws largely from the teachings of Nature which are illuminated in all Faith Traditions. She is a passionate student of the Natural World and has studied at Tom Brown’s Tracker School, Harvest Song Nature School, Hawk Circle, and with the Kamuna training of the Wilderness School.

She blends all these together to foster spiritual inquiry, growth and community. Christine is an Ordained Interfaith Minister and a Licensed Swedenborgian Pastor. She continues studies at the Center for Swedenborgian Studies of Graduate Theological Seminary at Berkeley, California and at Tom Brown’s Tracker School.


Temenos in the spring