High Point Friends Meeting

05/31/2026

High Point Friends Meeting

05/30/2026

SUNDAY - HIGH POINT FRIENDS MEETING

Greetings Friends!Here is what's happening tomorrow at High Point Friends Meeting...

9:00AM - UNPROGRAMMED MEETING FOR WORSHIP will be offered in the Meeting Library for anyone that would welcome and benefit from a silent space for worship. Often our soul needs more silence and less words or at least a space and place to get more spaciousness for our souls. This is open to anyone and no experience in silent worship is necessary :)

9:30AM - COFFEE & FELLOWSHIP will be offered in Ragan Fellowship Hall along with pastries. Much thanks to our regulars who graciously donate the pastries on a regular basis - Gary and Anita Turner and Clark and Carol Pierce. If you would like to donate pastries some Sunday, just let me (Scott) know and we'll get you signed up!

10:00AM - PROGRAMMED MEETING FOR WORSHIP - We're moving into the summer season and I'll be starting tomorrow a Sermon Sermon Series titled "The Story Of Our Lives" as we allow the Revised Common Lectionary to guide us in encountering the Genesis story. Each Sunday we'll explore how the Genesis story and its variety of personalities, persons, experiences, and encounters connect with our own personal story. As one author put it, "...our lives repeat the Scripture narrative...We live all the chapters at some point in our lives..." Tomorrow's message is titled "Our Original Goodness" and the scripture text is Genesis 1:1-4. We'll take time for our "Joys & Concerns" and we'll have our "Getting To Know You" segment as we will meet and get to know one of our regular livestream participants!

11:00AM - FORMATION CONVERSATION- As we often do, we'll dive a bit deeper into the scripture text and message and make space for your questions, wonderings, and insights. We'll also get an overview of the book of Genesis and how it may be much different than we've actually ever viewed it. We'll also look at what it means for us to view our lives as a living story and how our souls long to be part of a larger Story. As Leighton Ford describes it, "Each of us is part of a Greater Story, and behind our stories is a Storyteller calling us home. The deepest longing I have is to come home to my own heart...for I believe all our stories are of longing and looking."
If you can't join us in person, you can join us via our livestream on our High Point Friends page at 10AM. Our worship bulletin is attached.

Grace and Peace!
Scott

05/26/2026

The Blessed Community
High Point Friends Meeting
May 26, 2026

"The Quaker Meeting is meant to be a Blessed Community - a living testimony to a social order that embodies God's peace, justice, love, compassion, and joy; an example and invitation to a better way of life...Community can be a prophetic call to the rest of society."

"Blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven."
(Ephesians 1:3, CEB)

I don't often read a book through twice in two weeks but I'm about to do that for the first time. I'm on my second read through "Unseen Existences" by pastor and author, Brian Zahnd. It's his most recent book and the basic premise is that we have grown so accustomed to the material that we have lost a vision for the transcendent. In other words, we are so consumed by the technological and the practical that we have lost our vision for a sense of wonder and the sacred.

Like many of you, I was formed on an understanding that "heaven" is a place "up there" or "out there" rather than an experience and existence right where we live. In the Lord's prayer we utter the words "on earth as it is in heaven" and in those words we are affirming (whether we realize it or not) that heaven is all around us. Brian Zahnd describes it this way, "Heaven is not a distant place, heaven is a different dimension...heaven is right here - right here in the realm of unseen, nonmaterial existences. Heaven is all around us...heaven can be understood as the realm where all is as it should be." In other words, heaven is the existence of what is the Good, True, and Beautiful, so when we experience moments of goodness, beauty, and wonder during our day, we have caught a glimpse of heaven, and we may even say to ourselves, "This is heaven on earth."

We are a blessed community and in that way we have the possibility of experiencing wonder, beauty, and goodness within our own midst. My encouragement is for us to be open to those moments when we interact with one another and when we worship together and when we play together and when we serve together. We are a culture that is hungry for something transcendent and full of mystery and without it we easily become cynical and jaded. As we journey together, let us be open to the coming of wonders, and maybe in that openness we may see something wonder-full in one another and ourselves and in our world.

Blessings!
Scott

05/25/2026

A Prayer for Memorial Day, 2026
by United Methodist Bishop, Ken Carter...

God of life and peace,

Today we remember the faithfully departed veterans who loved the cause of freedom and sacrificed their lives for this purpose; through Jesus Christ our risen Savior, may they know the peace and joy of your eternal kingdom.

We pray for families who have lost loved ones in military service, who share in this sacrifice, who continue to grieve. We thank military chaplains, who extend the ministry of the church with these families.

And as we remember, may we have the courage to discern the justice and necessity of war, for only then will we honor the sacred worth of those who serve, and indeed the image of God that is in every person across this world that you have created.

On this day, you do not leave us comfortless; you have given us your Holy Spirit. May we know the peace that surpasses understanding, and may we advocate for the increase of peace, and the end of violence.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

05/23/2026

SUNDAY - HIGH POINT FRIENDS MEETING

Greetings Friends,
Here is what's happening tomorrow at High Point Friends Meeting...

9:00 AM - UNPROGRAMMED MEETING FOR WORSHIP will be offered in our Meeting Library for Friends seeking a space for silent reflection and a silent space for reflection and deep listening. This is open to anyone.

9:30 AM - Coffee & Fellowship will be offered in Ragan Fellowship Hall with coffee, tea, and pastries.

10:00 AM - PROGRAMMED MEETING FOR WORSHIP - Tomorrow's message is titled "Gotta Serve Somebody" and the scripture text is Galatians 5:13-18. The message is the last one in the short series titled "Pathways to Wholeness" as we've explored Formation, Community, and now Service as pathways to wholeness for us as a faith community. This wholeness that we live into can then be the wholeness we offer back to the world. What does service in action look like to you? How have you and I been on the receiving end of someone's act of service? We will livestream on our High Point Friends Meeting page.

11:00 AM - FORMATION CONVERSATION - We'll take time to explore the three pathways (Formation, Community, Service) and what it looks like putting these into practice. We'll also invite further wonderings, questions, and insights around the Galatians 5:13-18 passage.

If you have a prayer need you would like to have us share in worship, you can reach out to me (Scott) at [email protected]

Grace and Peace,
Scott

05/22/2026

The Celebration of Life for Ann Cotter-Kelley will be tomorrow (Saturday, May 23) beginning at 11AM at High Point Friends Meeting. Ann taught at High Point Friends School and her husband, Rob Kelley, is the Head of School. The family will receive friends and family in Ragan Fellowship Hall following the Celebration of Life. Please hold the family in God's Love and Light.

View Ann Cotter-Kelley's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.

05/22/2026

High Point Friends Meeting recognizes and celebrates today the 8th graders that will be recognized and honored as they graduate from Middle School at High Point Friends School and take that next step into their next chapter of life and educatonal journey. The program will begin at 10AM in the Worship Room of High Point Friends Meeting. A big thanks to the Faculty and Staff at High Point Friends School and their dedication and a big thanks to the parent community and all the supporters of High Point Friends School as well as the schools governing Board.

05/20/2026

WEDNESDAY "PAUSE & PRAY"

My simple acrostic (PAUSE) offered today to High Point Friends folks for what it might look like to "pause" during our day today and offer prayers, Light, and Love for our world and those we love...

PRESENT- slow down for a moment and be present to what you are experiencing, feeling, thinking. Reconnect with yourself.
AWARENESS - become aware of what is weighing on you, what you might be grateful for, what is agitating you, what rises up within you as a concern.
UNHOOK - unhook or detach from anything that might be "hooking" you into the person you don't want to become. Unhook a bit from social media or unhook from a contentious conversation or unhook from trying to have the final word.
STILLNESS - practice simply being still and doing nothing and realizing that life isn't always about being productive every moment. Allow the stillness to restore your soul.
EMBRACE- embrace the present moment and embrace the reality that is your life in the present moment, for it's in that reality that we discover the presence of the Divine and God's Light and Love.