Our youngest friends are invited to join us in Room 207 at 11:15am Sundays for lessons and activities exploring the parables Jesus told.

Parables invite us to think, to imagine life differently. They ask us to look at our own lives, to think about how we are living in the way that Jesus teaches. They help us to think about the choices we can make. Parables are not very tidy! Hearing them, we are invited to play with them, ask questions, and “mess around” with the story so as to understand what it meant to Jesus’ original audience and what it might mean for us today.

Join this study of John Goldingay's Genesis for Everyone beginning June 4. Led by Pastor Gordon Mapes, this class meets on Wednesdays from 10-11am in the 1st Floor Conference Room.

In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus’ narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these “problems with parables,” taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables’ connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for the contemporary reader, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us—and when read rightly, still challenge and provoke us two thousand years later.

Led by Director of Christian Formation, Charlotte Elia. For youth and adults. Sunday morning at 11:15am in the Pastors’ Gallery. Copies of the study are available by contacting celia@chesterpres.org.

Wear comfortable clothes for this time of guided contemplation and centering prayer for spiritual rest and renewal. Utilizing breath work and simple affirmations, this session should leave participants feeling more spiritually aware and physically relaxed.

Our session will last approximately 45 minutes. Free and open to the public.

A Taizé prayer service is a meditative form of worship characterized by simple, repetitive chants, scripture readings, prayerful silence, and candlelight. Originating from the ecumenical community at Taizé in France, this prayer experience is designed to foster a sense of peace, spiritual connection, and reconciliation. Led by Roshan Chakane, Director of Music, and Charlotte Elia, Director of Christian Formation in historic Wyatt Chapel.

A playlist of songs planned for June’s service is available on Spotify.

In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Cole Arthur Riley invites us to descend into our own stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and find that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.

This discussion groups meets in the 1st Floor Conference Room and is open to all. Led by Director of Christian Formation, Charlotte Elia.

Wear comfortable clothes for this time of guided contemplation and centering prayer for spiritual rest and renewal. Utilizing breath work and simple affirmations, this session should leave participants feeling more spiritually aware and physically relaxed.

Our session will last approximately 45 minutes. Free and open to the public.

In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Cole Arthur Riley invites us to descend into our own stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and find that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.

This discussion groups meets in the 1st Floor Conference Room and is open to all. Led by Director of Christian Formation, Charlotte Elia.

A Taizé prayer service is a meditative form of worship characterized by simple, repetitive chants, scripture readings, prayerful silence, and candlelight. Originating from the ecumenical community at Taizé in France, this prayer experience is designed to foster a sense of peace, spiritual connection, and reconciliation. Led by Roshan Chakane, Director of Music, and Charlotte Elia, Director of Christian Formation in historic Wyatt Chapel.

In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Cole Arthur Riley invites us to descend into our own stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and find that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.

This discussion groups meets in the 1st Floor Conference Room and is open to all. Led by Director of Christian Formation, Charlotte Elia.

Wear comfortable clothes for this time of guided contemplation and centering prayer for spiritual rest and renewal. Utilizing breath work and simple affirmations, this session should leave participants feeling more spiritually aware and physically relaxed.

Our session will last approximately 45 minutes. Free and open to the public.

A Taizé prayer service is a meditative form of worship characterized by simple, repetitive chants, scripture readings, prayerful silence, and candlelight. Originating from the ecumenical community at Taizé in France, this prayer experience is designed to foster a sense of peace, spiritual connection, and reconciliation. Led by Roshan Chakane, Director of Music, and Charlotte Elia, Director of Christian Formation in historic Wyatt Chapel.

In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Cole Arthur Riley invites us to descend into our own stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and find that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.

This discussion groups meets in the 1st Floor Conference Room and is open to all. Led by Director of Christian Formation, Charlotte Elia.