EVENTS

The Row House Forum

Join us on Third Saturdays at 7:00 PM at 413 College Avenue in Lancaster. Mingle, hear a stellar talk, mix it up with Q&A and enjoy Square One Coffee and killer snacks. Stay till Whenevs.

Free and open to the public.

What’s the next forum? Clicky here for our  Spring ’13 poster. It’s a PDF, so print one for your very own!

Space is limited to 35 people, so we recommend registration by email (therowhouseinfo@gmail.com) or Facebook. Kids who can keep quiet are more than welcomed.

Miss a forum? No worries. We got you podcasted. Listen online or download our growing catalog of events for free.

 

The Row House Shows

You May Have Missed It: 4/21, 7:30, Sandra McCracken, Elks Club, Lancaster, Duke Street. $8 in advance; $10 at door.

If so, stay tuned, as we’ve got some sweet shows in the works for this summer and Fall!

Our concerts compliment our forums. We try to book what we feel are “Musicians of Substance.” That is, musicians, composers and collaborators who strive for excellence in their genre and have something redemptive to add to reality.

And you’ll notice that we love to push the envelope on “genre.” From Talk Music (Listener) to Hindi instrumentation (Aradhna) to Indie-Gospel (The Welcome Wagon), we use a broad palate of musical languages.

We aim for a rich experience of re-creation through music, one that challenges our cultural comfort zones and elicits the sublime.

IDEAS

TomBecker, our Founder & Director, frequently speaks for local and national groups on community building, the intersection of theology and culture, and interpersonal communication. He blogs regularly here, on his personal site thomasdarttbecker, as well as at FIG Lancaster.

Along with teaching high school classes for his wife’s neighborhood school, Poiema, he also serves the Wheatland Presbyterian Church as Assistant Pastor of Outreach. Click here for his full bio and speaking schedule.

Tom’s passion is to build bridges for people inquiring into the claims of Christianity. He did that with college students for many years and is now continuing the project in the city he loves: Lancaster.

PRESENCE

We offer a six month residential internship for mature college grads and pastoral interns. For more information on this en-eutero work, talk to Tom. Presently, we have one intern. Our goal is to have 6-10 “Rowed Scholars” living near us in the West End of Lancaster, forming “a community within the community” of church and city.

So, What IS The Row House Forum?

Through learning, feasting and enfolding, we are seeking to assist Christians and congregations by providing an embassy for arts, entertainment and discussion that is hospitable to all people.

The kind of people we hope to see come through our doors (and back out with a renewed mind and enlarged heart) are:

• skeptics, inquirers and debaters
• students of any age, but especially those in high school and university
• our neighbors right here in the West End of the city
• thoughtful folk, whether or not they are convinced Christians
• our friends and their friends from across beautiful Lancaster County
• Christian leaders, culture-shapers and activists who care about our community
• new residents, the displaced, the hurting, the lonely, the broken

So, if you are one of those people above, please know you are welcome to join us for our events, to post comments on our site, to drop by and chat.

We are Christians. And we say as modestly as possible that we long to build a bridge to those who are not. Why? Because of our common humanity. Created, fallen, being redeemed is the paradigm we live by and want to commend to everyone.

Our dream in starting this endeavor is that individuals and groups will utilize our events, concerts and communication offerings to fulfill their own sense of call in building God’s kingdom.

If we can demonstrate a speck of God’s reality found in Jesus Christ, then we’ll be happy.

We hope to see you soon!

-Tom Becker, Founder & Director

 

Some of Our Convictions

1. That the development of a theology of place is critical to the furtherance of Christian commitment in our world.
2. That incarnation and personhood are fundamental doctrines of historic, orthodox Christianity – often neglected but offering the key to understanding God’s work in our world.
3. That bridges must be built to our neighbors through modest demonstrations of good works and civil conversations about critical ideas.
4. That the Kingdom of God, as our Lord Jesus taught it and brought it, defines all of reality. God’s Kingdom is more than a mere abstract notion, an institutional religion or a nice moralistic system; Rather, it liberates its followers to be truly and thoroughly human.