Praying Through Sound, Three Contemplative Musical Journeys

Join us for the last Perspectives class before summer! Dr. John Prescott returns to lead this three-part series May 10th, 17th, and 24th at 11:30 AM after worship. Each week we will explore how music and sound can enrich our contemplative prayer lives. We will experience group humming and John will offer improvised sound journeys using his voice, harp, and shruti box. In addition, John will lead the group in short repetitive chants based on phrases from scripture or prayer. No previous musical training is necessary, come with open ears and open hearts.

New Member Class: UPDATED DATES

Interested in becoming a member of Seventh Avenue? Reach out to Pastor Meyers by emailing jennameyers@seventhavenuechurch.org. Our next two-part series on new membership will be May 31st and June 14th after worship. Attendance in no way obligates you to join, but may aid your discernment process.

Praying Through Sound, Three Contemplative Musical Journeys

May 10th, 17th, and 24th in the Sanctuary at 11:30AM

Join us for the last Perspectives class before summer! Dr. John Prescott returns to lead this three-part series May 10th, 17th, and 24th at 11:30 AM after worship. Each week we will explore how music and sound can enrich our contemplative prayer lives. We will experience group humming and John will offer improvised sound journeys using his voice, harp, and shruti box. In addition, John will lead the group in short repetitive chants based on phrases from scripture or prayer. No previous musical training is necessary, come with open ears and open hearts.

John Prescott holds a PH.D. in musicology from U.C. Berkeley. He is also a spiritual director, having completed training at the Spiritual Direction Institute at the Mercy Center Burlingame. John is an Episcopalian and a Third Order Franciscan. He has led retreats on music and spirituality since 2002.

• Ways of Knowing - imagination & intuition
  February 8th and 15th, 2026
  Join us for a two-part Perspectives series led by our own Connie Swanson! For decades, the work of some physicians, philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists, proffered a solid claim that beyond the offer of reason and science as ways of knowing, intuition and imagination also exist as ways for us to know reality. In other words, epistemology now opens to include more of who we humans are. Our sense of the Sacred is hard to wrestle into words. Now, in a time when words about the Sacred may be more important than ever, when imagination may be more essential than ever, new understanding of the way our brains work may teach us about these human potentials.

• The Power of Loving Speech
  January 25th, 2026
  Join us at 11:30 AM TODAY for our next Perspectives class! The Rev. Cindi Fong will be doing a workshop on the Ministry of Presence through Radical Listening. This simple practice can offer hope and healing in our sometimes divided, violent, and broken world. The Ministry of Presence through Radical Listening can be a gift particularly in relationships or situations where we do not know how to care for others or ourselves because of difference, mental illness, or grief. We will learn about Radical Listening, practice it, and then hear stories from Cindi’s experience using Radical Listening to care for others through her Chaplaincy Training with San Francisco Night Ministry.

• From Payback to Love Back: Relating Without Retaliating
  January 18th, 2025
  The will to retaliate is in all of us. Spiritual teachers have offered an alternative: “Love your enemies.” This is a challenging practice indeed. It will take effort and an openness to grace if we are ever to fulfill it, or even believe it has value. We discuss the Sermon on the Mount and how to live it today.

  When we notice that we retaliate even against those we love, within a family or in an intimate relationship, we come face to face with a big challenge: we wonder whether love has truly taken hold in us.

  This workshop is an invitation to explore the role of revenge in ourselves and in the world around us. We can look for ways to choose reconciliation over retribution, forgiveness over payback, love over division. We can find spiritually skillful ways to respond when others retaliate against us.

  We support restorative not punitive justice in laws, courts, and prisons.