Community Supper

Next Community Supper

Friday, September 5, 2025

Topic: Rise Above It Kickoff Community Supper Picnic

Speakers: Rev. Ray & Star Silverman

Please join us for this year’s first Community Supper and Rise Above It Kick-Off! We will be having a picnic-style Community Supper, all ages welcome, in the beautiful new Heilman Hall. Bring your own picnic, as well as a dessert to share if inspired. Tables will be set up, and there will also be room for picnic blankets on the floor or outside on the patio and grass.

The program will include welcoming remarks from Pastor Derek Elphick, an invitation and explanation from the Silvermans about Rise Above It, audience participation, and lots of time with community friends new and old. You will have a chance to register for Rise Above It and pick up your materials.

You are welcome to join this Community Supper, regardless of whether you will participate in Rise Above It.

Contact Nina (nina.dewees@brynathynchurch.org) with questions or to get involved with helping.

About the Speakers

Ray and Star Silverman are authors, teachers, and program developers who lead seminars on spiritual development, creative conflict transformation, and relationship enhancement. Their popular seminar, Rise Above It: Spiritual Development through the Ten Commandments has been taught across America, as well as in Africa, Japan, Korea, France, Brazil, England, Sweden, Australia, and in the Philippines. Portions of their first book have been translated into Czech, Swedish, Japanese, French, Portuguese, and Korean. Their new book, Rise above It: Spiritual Development for College Students, summarizes and synthesizes their experience of teaching this course to college students over the past eighteen years. Additionally, they have completed the first draft of Rise Above It: Spiritual Development for Educators (2025), and are making plans for a fourth book in the series, Rise Above It: Spiritual Development for Couples.

Star has an MA in Education (University of Denver). Ray has a PhD in English and Education (University of Michigan), a MAT in English (Wesleyan University), and an MDiv (Bryn Athyn College). Ray servs as Professor Emeritus of Religion and English at Bryn Athyn College. He has also taught at Lincoln University, Urbana University, Mercer University, and the University of Michigan. He is the editor/reviser of Helen Keller's spiritual autobiography, Light in My Darkness, and has written the introduction to Helen Keller's How I Would Help the World, a USA Book Awards finalist. His book, The Core of Johnny Appleseed, was published in 2012 by the Swedenborg Foundation.

In 1986, Ray and Star became certified Marriage Enrichment Trainers (Association of Couples for Marriage Enrichment), studying with David and Vera Mace, the founders of the marriage enrichment movement. They have also completed training sessions in PREP: Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (with Susan Blumberg, Scott Stanley, and Howard Markman), PAIRS (with Lori Herman Gordon), Imago: Couplehood as a Spiritual Path (with Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt), Life Coaching with Couples (with Patrick Williams and Lisa Kramer), and The Ultimate Relationship Program (with Tony Robbins and Chloe Madanes). They have presented at Smart Marriages in Boulder and San Francisco on The Spiritual Dimensions in Marriage and are planning another book in the Rise Above It series, Rise Above It: Spiritual Development for Couples.

Ray and Star have been married since 1976. They have seven children and thirteen grandchildren. They currently live in Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania.

Food

Supper - Bring Your Own

For supper, bring your own food from home or get takeout from a local restaurant. We will NOT be offering boxed meals at this event.

We Will Provide Some Basics

The church will provide coffee, tea, water, and dry goods.

Potluck Dessert

If you're able to, please bring a dessert to share (it doesn't have to be homemade). The church will provide some cookies and things.

Room Layout

There will be long, rectangular tables running from the back of Heilman Hall up to the stage. This means that everyone can sit with the people they came with and also be together at the same table with a larger group.

Childcare & Playing Outside

The church is not providing childcare for this event. Your kids are your responsibility for the whole evening.

Children of all ages are allowed in Heilman Hall, Heilman Hall lobby, the patio outside Heilman Hall, and on some of the playgrounds outside BACS. We would rather children not play on the playground closest to Tomlinson Rd. because of how far it is from Heilman Hall. Nobody is allowed to be in the gyms during this event.

Please bring frisbees, basketballs, footballs, wiffle balls, etc. for your kids to play with. They may only be played with outside.

We will have a few staff members outside during the freeze pops and Rise Above It logistics time in hopes that more of the adults will be able to stay inside for that portion of the event.

Program for the Evening

Here's the rough schedule of how things will go:

5:00 pm - Doors open

5:30 pm - Welcome, blessing, eating supper

6:00 pm - Kid-friendly, Interactive Presentation on the Ten Commandments

6:20 pm - Freeze Pops for Kids Outside While Adults Hear About Rise Above It logistics

6:30 pm - Time to Register for Rise Above It and/or just hang out

7:00 pm - End of the evening

All of these times are approximate.

RSVP - Not Required

You do not have to RSVP to come to the Community Supper. You can decide at the last minute to come, even if you haven't told anyone that you were planning to come.

Recorded But Not Live-streamed

We will record this Community Supper and put an edited version of it on the Bryn Athyn YouTube channel (youtube.com/BrynAthynChurch) the following week. We do not live-stream these events.

Past Community Suppers

Friday, February 28, 2025
Topic: "Connections Through Conversation: A Community Supper with Interactive Games"
Speakers: Nina Dewees, Amy Glenn, Christine McDonald, Jahnna Henderson
Friday, January 31, 2025
Topic: "Swedenborg as Memento Mori: Using the Seer to See Ourselves"
Speaker: Rev. Christopher Barber
Watch on YouTube
Friday, October 4, 2024
Topic: "The Strange History of Some Hymns"
Speaker: Dr. Graham Bier
Watch on YouTube
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Topic: "Weird Americans (and How to Stop Being One)"
Speaker: Dr. Greg Rose
Watch on YouTube.
Friday, January 26, 2024
Topic: "Is There a Thirst for Swedenborg in the World Today?"
Speaker: Curtis Childs
Watch on YouTube
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Topic: "The Four Gospels: A New Perspective"
Speakers: Rev. Dr. Ray & Star Silverman
Watch on YouTube.
Friday, October 6, 2023
Topic: “Artificial Intelligence from a New Church Perspective”
Speakers: Rev. Stephen Cole & Zach Odhner
Watch on YouTube.
Read a few passages shared by Rev. Stephen Cole in anticipation of the Community Supper discussion.

The Vision for Community Suppers (from when they started in 2023)

We’re wanting to build community—to take a “big tent” approach to congregational life by laying aside our differences so that we may gather together for purposes bigger than our individual wants and needs. As a church community, we need each other more than ever. We’re living in an increasingly fractured, polarized world that too often pits us against each other unnecessarily. The church has a unique role in serving as a safe haven, a sanctuary, to gather people together under the banner of the Lord in His second coming and it is our hope, our prayer, that these new Community Suppers serve that end.

In True Christianity 433 the Lord describes "feasts of charity" that happened in the early days of the Christian Church that "were instituted to lift and unite Christians' hearts and spirits." The passage goes on to say that "While they were at the table, they would have conversations on various subjects—both domestic and civic issues. In particular, they would discuss topics related to the church. .... The spiritual atmosphere that prevailed during these feasts was an atmosphere of love for the Lord and for their neighbor. This atmosphere would lift their individual minds, soften their tones of voice, and allow a celebratory feeling from deep in their hearts to fill their senses." We pray that the Lord will bless our Community Suppers with that same atmosphere of charity.

Upcoming Community Supper Dates

Feedback

If you have thoughts, questions, or suggestions about any of this, please email derek.elphick@brynathynchurch.org.