Happenings in Madison

It's been a few months since I've given an update about my church away from church, so I would like to share a few happenings at Pres House!

Two weeks ago, our sanctuary was transformed with a crazy idea from my Pastor Erica. For a long time she has wanted to make our worship space look less like a conventional classroom and more like a space where students can worship interactively. Instead of lining up rows of chairs in neat lines, we moved the chairs into "clusters" or "pods" so people can sit in groups. In the center of each cluster is a small table where Pastors Mark and Erica place paper, pens, group discussion questions, and tangible objects to facilitate dialogue during periods in the sermon, make worship more accessible to non-auditory learners and engage us all. It's a neat concept and we are still trying to figure out some of the hurdles involved, like keeping the space wheel-chair friendly and figuring out how to approach communion, but the new setup holds promise.

This week we are having our first fireside chat, a Pres House tradition from the 1940s that we are bringing back. We are collaborating with a mental health student org to discuss the issue of mental health on campus (of course, while sitting around the fireplace). A theme we have set for our church this year is to "continue the conversation"; hopefully the fireside chat will do just that.

About a month ago, we went on Fall Retreat at the Green Lake Conference Center! The weekend was focused around the topic of "vocation: what am I called to do with my life?" A quaker artist from New Mexico led seminars filled with poetry and exploration of her artwork. A highlight for us all was spending Saturday morning creating collages about what we envisioned our lives being about. It was wonderful to be back at home in Green Lake too!

I feel so fortunate to be a part of this community in Madison and appreciate everyone (or anyone) who took time to read about it in the Ripon area. Thank you!

Andrea