The Crossing community has been blessed with passionate, gifted members who give a whole lot of themselves for love of God.

It's easy to think of church as an institution, but it's also a movement: a body of people pursuing the radical, world-changing, compassionate

check it out: www.episcopalvillage.org

mission of God. And next Saturday, right here at the Cathedral, you'll see the movement in full bloom.

The Crossing is helping to throw a Spring Learning Event/Episcopal Village Mission Event on Saturday, March 5, from 9am (ouch!) to 4:30pm (ah, that's more like it). Presenters are coming from around the corner and all over the country, with a keynote speaker -- our friend Ian Mobsby, author and priest to our sister church in London, the Moot community -- coming from the UK. The whole point is to explore the many, many, many ways communities around us are sharing the gospel and forming sustainable Christian communities in a changing world.

How can you engage this amazing gathering?

• You can register for Saturday here.
• You can check out and print or share the flyer here.
• You can volunteer + attend free by writing to me here: revsteph@thecrossingboston.org.
• You can attend the Saturday event plus a pre-conference talk with Ian Mobsby in a cozier setting on Friday at Episcopal Divinity School (same registration site).
• You can experience worship Moot-style at EDS' Thursday 12:15pm Eucharist (no registration necessary).

one big community

The gospel for this Sunday (we hear it on Thursday) is the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Read it here, plus some other food for prayer & reflection ... 

Roberta Karstetter's "God's Glory" at www.ecva.org

Matthew 6:24-34

Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith?

"Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

"So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

Collect (or thematic prayer) that accompanies the scripture -- from the Book of Common Prayer:

Most loving God, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us -- preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.