Community & Fellowship
We make a heaven or Hell of our lives… Come be with us for Swedenborgian community, and fellowship. Come learn what constitutes living a heavenly life.
In the Swedenborgian Church, you will not find two people alike. This is true everywhere, yet the difference is that here it that differences are honored. You are not expected to BE like the next person. We are an eclectic, imperfect group of intentionally regenerating individuals. Yet everyone created is an angel-becoming. Heaven is made up of a great variety and becomes more perfect and comes into fullness with each individual entering in.
The Divine created the universe for no other end than that the human race may arise, and a heaven therefrom – for the human race is the nursery of heaven… In Swedenborg’s theology, angels are people who lived in the natural world first and then entered heaven after death. He rejects angels as a separate class of creation.
As angels becoming, we are called to speak words of Life to one another and called to love one another, as the Lord loves us. We are taught that the spiritual practice of the angels is to turn everything to good. …
The LORD teaches us in His WORD to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is hard to do sometimes! We are not perfect. And you are still welcome here. The walls will not fall down if you have not been to church in a while. Or if you have never been to church. The walls will not fall if you struggle with faith, with life, with addiction, or with yourself or others.
“So what else do you think you are Champ?” Harry answers to himself: A God-made one of a kind with an immortal soul built in, a vehicle of grace a battle field of good and evil…an apprentice angel ~ Harry in Rabbit, Rabbit by John Updike
We are not asked by the LORD to love everything about the neighbor who is to be loved, especially the hurtful wrongs they are committing, nor the evil which is clearly demonstrated at times… Instead, we are asked only asked to love “the good” in the neighbor. We are asked to… Relate to that good… Speak to that. Recognize that…. Call that out… and Respond only to that good…
This has its basis in that the Lord is the closest neighbor to be loved and we are to model all other neighborly love on this first. Sometimes we meet people who challenge the best we have to offer. “EGRs” – “extra grace required.” Sometimes WE are that person; that EGR. Here is a prayer to etch on your heart: This “angel prayer” was written by Swedenborgian scholar and minister, Rev George Dole.
“The Angel Within”
Lord, With all the people I meet, all the people I read about,
help me to remember that you have been with them all their lives,
loving them, guiding them, making the best of their circumstances and their decisions.
Each individual is a history of your providence, of your care,
and within each is the angel you have designed and created.
Grant me the grace always to try to address that angel,”
the good within the neighbor. “
That is the neighbor to be loved.
So may I never be the enemy of any of any individual,
but only of those evils which close off the deeper levels of being,
which wall the angel in.
For the kingdom of heaven for which we pray
is made up of people like ourselves
who have discovered they are loved by you,
and who see each other in the light of that love. Amen.
We make a heaven or Hell of our lives… Come join us for Swedenborgian community and fellowship, Come learn what constitutes living a heavenly life.