West Park is thrilled announce a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Freedom Summer and Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, Freedom Summer: The Next Generation, on June 9th at 7 pm. The evening, presented in partnership with The Center at West Park and in cooperation with the Andrew Goodman Foundation, will focus on what we can learn from the summer of 1964 and the communities that nurtured Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner to guide our struggles for a more inclusive society today. The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. will deliver the keynote address, and Linda Sarsour, Simran Jeet Singh, and Stosh Cotler, will offer responses and reflections. Our friend and local singer-songwriter Jeremy Mage will be curating a series of songs from the Freedom Summer as well.

For more information, please see the poster (above) or get in touch with us at 212.362.4890 or 86amsterdam@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you on June 9th at 7 pm!

We’ve had a busy and beautiful April so far at West Park, including a beautiful Easter service with music from our friends Ralph Farris, Elizabeth DiFelice and Andre Solomon-Glover. Good Friday and Palm Sunday brought our friends from Theatre Group Dzieci back for their performance, A Passion According to Matthew. 

Now, as we move into May, we are excited to welcome back Carman Moore and Lotte Arnsbjerg for their dramatic song cycle, Girl of Diamond Mountain. The song cycle deals with important but difficult subject matter–child abuse and how one individual finds her way to “true survival”.

May 2nd and 3rd, 7:30 pm, $15 suggested donation

For more information, you can call Carman Moore (212.580.0825) or West Park (212.362.4890).

Due to the upcoming snow/ice predicted for Feb. 13, Carman Moore and Lotte Arnsbjerg have decided to move their concert, Girl of Diamond Mountain, to Friday, Feb. 14 a 7:30 pm. See the poster below for details, just remember that the date is now Feb. 14!

We have many exciting events at West Park this month, particularly over the next two weeks.

On Feb. 1, 2 & 7 we will have concerts from our friends at the Open Program. You can find details on the Open Program’s website, here, or on their Facebook page, or on our events flier.

We are also excited to host a dialogue with representatives from the Sikh Coalition and the National Interfaith Office of the PC(USA) next Sunday, Feb. 2, during worship. You can find more details about the dialogue here: Sikh Presbyterians West Park Event.

See you at an event soon!

Bread & Puppet just finished a great run at West Park (and we were so happy to have them). Now, we move into December concerts, an advent Bible study, and special Christmas services and events. Check out the details below.

For more information about outside events, see the following links:

December 7: Dzieci’s Fool’s Mass at 7 pm, suggested donation $10; Composers Concordance’s concert Legends at 8 pm, $20
December 14: Spectrum Symphony’s concert The King’s Symphony at 7:30 pm, $20-25

Don’t miss Bread & Puppet’s The Shatterer of Worlds, a new 50th anniversary performance of giant puppets and dance, between November 7 and November 24, 2013 at West Park. Click through to find more information about the show and to purchase tickets.

Bread&Puppet Shatterer Trailer Dannenhauer from Mark Dannenhauer on Vimeo.

From Bread & Puppet: “At the moment when the first atomic bomb was dropped, Oppenheimer, the chief architect of that bomb, recalled words from the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu prayer book:  “Life, the splendor of 1000 suns blazing all at once, resembling the exulted soul, is become Death, the shatterer of worlds.”  The overt extrajudicial capabilities of the society system allow the shatterer of worlds to function legally to cultivate destructions so minute and gigantic, the eye cannot perceive and the mind cannot behold them. No politician, no hazardous substance, but a well-established tradition and demon strengthened by endless practices of devastation, the shatterer continues to plot the assasination of existence-as-it-is, while disguising his activities as benevolent maneuvers meant to cure the two ailing adversaries: the planet and humanity. By imitating the miraculous blossoming of the evening primrose, the chapel manages to reverse the original statement: Death, the shatterer of worlds, becomes Life, the splender of 1000 suns blazing all at once, resembling the exulted soul.

The Shatterer of Worlds photo taken by Mark Dannenhauer.

West Park will screen two free documentaries in August concerning Palestine as a part of the Palestinian Film Festival 2013. The festival is co-hosted by Advent Lutheran Church, Broadway United Church of Christ, West Park Presbyterian Church and The Riverside Church Israel/Palestine Task Force. Admission is free to all films.

8.8.13 at 7 pm: Join us for the film 5 Broken Cameras (2012), which follows a Palestinian farmer whose village engages in nonvolient resistance against encroaching Israeli military and settlers.

8.22.13 at 7 pm: Join us again for the film The Gatekeepers (2012). This documentary intoduces the viewer to six leaders of Israel’s secret service and the challenging truths of their counterterrorism mission.

Please excuse our site while we work on some updates!

In the meantime, you can keep in touch with us in other ways:

West Park Presbyterian Church
165 W 86th ST NY, NY 10024
212-362-4890
86amsterdam@gmail.com

Our Facebook
The Pastor’s blog