Our community meets together in three primary ways. Each gathering is crucial to fully belong to the community. The first, and primary gathering is Sunday morning (Matins) or evening (Vespers). We gather to worship God, hear him speak to us, express ourselves to him, and share a meal. It is a regular weekly rhythm of keeping Sabbath and is the ordinary way of enjoying God and each other. It usually begins with a call to worship followed by singing, reciting the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles’ Creed together, and a teaching from Scripture. After the message, there are opportunities to quietly reflect on what God has said, give offerings to God, confess a longing to be healed, and identify with Jesus by taking bread and juice as a reminder of his body broken for us and his blood poured out for us. This time is followed by more singing songs of worship, lament, and praise, singing Happy Birthday to those who celebrate birthdays by bringing us sweets, and a calling down of God’s blessing. We then eat a meal together and share our stories, our longings, our hopes, our desires, and our lives with each other. Vespers is a weekly expression of our desire to be with God and with each other.