Brothers And Sisters In Christ (BASIC)
Faith Community
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for all the information you need while exploring New Buffalo, on Michigan's Gold Coast
Silent Meditation and Worship
in the Manner of Friends (Quakers)
14970 Lakeside Road
at Red Arrow Highway
Lakeside, MI 49116
2nd Sunday Evenings 7:00 PM
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InformationMany of our lives are so busy or so overcome with circumstances that we lose our ability to simply rest and listen to God's voice.
If you spend most of your time serving others at your church or are no longer interested in attending church for whatever reason, our BASIC service may be just for you.
We meet at Lakeside Church, a quiet chapel located in a peaceful corner of Southwest Michigan.
It's as BASIC as worship comes.
We rest, pray, and listen.
Come join us!
Making Good Use of a Sweet Hour of Prayer
Be patient with yourself and with God, particularly if active silence is new for you.
Visualize your worries, and place them in God's hands.
Begin with a verse of scripture or a line of a hymn, and use those words as a "door" to thoughts about God's identity and the ways you do or don't trust that identity.
Mentally revisit personal or global events of the past week, asking God to show you how to respond to those events, how to change your way of thinking about those events, how to take action in regard to those events.
Listen to your body, and rejoice that you are wonderfully made - and ask for healing in those places that function less than well.
Lift up others in prayer, taking time to try to see them as God sees them, celebrating their gifts and their strengths, and asking God to heal their afflictions.
Ponder a scriptural story or concept or turn of phrase, pursuing an idea or a train of thought (or mentally "chasing a rabbit") wherever it leads you.
If your heart beats a little faster, if you sense a "lightening" of your spirit, share aloud what you have discovered in the silence, being mindful that you are "breaking" that silence - and be quick to restore the gift of that silence, for your own sake and for the sake of others.
A Quietly Different Worship Experience
Brett Watson, lay preacher (and Instructional Technologist at AEP), and Donna Latus, music minister (and self-employed piano/guitar instructor), have worked together in leading worship services for 15 years. But in the spring of 2011, they found themselves called to facilitate "a quietly different worship experience" - a silent Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends (Quakers).
Brett and Donna continue to lead "programmed" (planned) worship services on Saturday mornings, "speaking to the weary a word that will rouse them" (Is 50:4) and "singing to the Lord a new song" (Ps 98:1) - along with many old hymns. But they rejoice in the precious treasure to be found within a silence that seeks a greater understanding of the path of life described in the Old and New Testaments.
Brett and Donna, as two "members" of the informal Brothers And Sisters In Christ (BASIC) Faith Community, host Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends (Quakers) on second Sundays at 7:00 p.m. (MI), at Lakeside Church, Lakeside Road at Red Arrow Highway, in Lakeside, MI. Their usual pattern is 45 minutes of silence, followed by 15 minutes of sharing by individuals regarding how they "used the time" and what they gained from the silence.
People of all walks of life and all faiths are welcome to join in the silence - and in the vocal sharing of experiences, after the silence.
Brett and Donna offer in-home and in-residence prayer visits Tuesday evenings and a Bible Study (at Lakeland Continuing Care Center in St. Joseph, MI) Wednesday evenings. They minister in various roles and various locations Sunday mornings.