The Shape of Our Services

## A Familiar Bone Structure A CNE service has roughly the shape of a traditional Christian liturgy, with the doors opened a little wider.

We begin with a **gathering**, a moment of stillness, the lighting of a candle, sometimes a verse of song.

We move into **scripture and teaching**: a reading, a sermon, occasionally a passage from the Hermetic, mystical, or contemplative literature held alongside it.

We pause for **prayer and intention**: spoken aloud, written on the prayer wall, or simply held in silence.

We celebrate the **Eucharist**, in the historic shape inherited from the early church and held by the historic Christian sacramental tradition.

We close with a **blessing** and a sending out. ## Why That Order The order is not accidental.

It moves the heart from arrival, through hearing, through asking, through receiving, into return.

Most contemplative traditions have settled on something close to this shape over the centuries because the shape works.

It teaches the soul a rhythm it then carries into the rest of the week. ## What You Do Not Have to Do You do not have to sing if you do not sing.

You do not have to recite anything you cannot in good conscience say.

You do not have to come forward for the Eucharist; you may come forward simply for a blessing.

You do not have to be a member of the CNE, or of any church, to be welcome.

We mean that.

Come as you are.

Sit through one whole service.

See how it lands.