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ABOUT US | What To Expect

If you come to a CityLights worship gathering, you will be coming to the Friends Seminary (a Quaker day school; it's not a seminary in the sense of "minister training"), located at 222 E. 16th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. The door attendant will help you find us. Basically, you go through the lobby, turn left, and go up 1 ½ flights of stairs until you get to the school library. That's where we meet. You'll want to get there around 11am. [Note: Through September 2006 we are meeting in a temporary space around the corner at 15 Rutherford Place, the offices of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).]

People often refer to the library as a "cozy" space. There are books all around us, and posters of celebrities advising that you READ. Big windows let in a lot of light, and let us look out at Stuyvesant Park. We usually push the kids' study tables to the sides and make a circle of chairs. Sometimes we push all the tables together in the middle to form one giant table, and everyone sits around it. Generally we start by singing a few songs that encourage us to be in an attitude of praise toward God. The songs are a mix: old Christian hymns, Negro spirituals, African songs, folk tunes, contemporary praise songs… Then someone will offer a prayer.

There's an announcement time. At this point we discuss events that have happened and remind each other about those that are coming up. We also take an offering to keep CityLights going and fund its activities. Then someone gives a talk or leads a discussion.

The talk/discussion is one component of our ongoing spiritual education, the focus of which is to learn to love well. We try to provide content that's meaningful to that pursuit. You won't just hear one viewpoint at CityLights, though, because there is always some discussion of the talk, either while it's in progress or immediately after. We like for a number of voices to be heard. Everybody has a different perspective, and when we share our perspectives we're a lot more likely to arrive at something approaching truth.

To close the gathering we have another prayer. Often we have a time of prayer in which anybody can speak directly to God. Sometimes we'll end with another song. And that's about it. We end around 1pm and stand around chatting for 20 minutes. Afterwards, a bunch of people will eat together somewhere, and you will be welcome if you'd like to go.

There is some planned variation in what happens from week to week: once a month the gathering is focused on prayer, and once a month we don't meet at all. The prayer gatherings are often characterized by more experimental forms of spirituality. For example, once the coordinators brought clay and we all sculpted a prayer. Another time everyone went outside and practiced solitude for an hour; then we all came in and debriefed about the experience. For Easter we meditated at the "stations of the cross," which many had never experienced before. When we don't meet at all, it's to give people a chance to relax, spend time with family and friends, visit another faith community, or work on a service project.

We believe there's a lot more to life than worship gatherings, so we make room in the schedule for that.

As I hope you can tell from our website, CityLights believes that a healthy faith community strikes a balance between spirituality, socializing, and serving. You're quite welcome to join us in any of our events and activities.

"I've experienced CityLights to be a community where burdens-my burdens-have been halved and my joys doubled."

--Russell

DOING THE WORD

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right."

--Nelson Mandela