Sunday Service

ABOUT SUNDAY SERVICE

Sunday Service is a monthly curated service that facilitates healing through artistry, song, meditation, and movement. This service, happening every First Sunday at 11am at 220 W Geer St in Durham NC, is an alternative to traditional religious church services for those who value spirituality and art over organized religion.

While acknowledging the harm inflicted by the church, especially upon marginalized communities like queer people and people of color, it's essential to recognize that these spaces have also served as historical hubs for community organizing. Declining church attendance diminishes a once-vital platform for fellowship, healing, and collective action. NorthStar’s Sunday Service responds to the need for a communal healing space, fostering collaboration and solidarity through art.

2024 schedule & Descriptions

April 7 Transforming Our Wounds Into Celebratory Self-Knowledge: Writing & Dance-Movement
Dr. Zelda Lockhart and Dancer/Choreographer Dr. Andrea Woods-Valdés

Interactive Congregational Conversation on stories and dance to embody our wounds and transform our wounds. Interactive prompt on what are the words of the story that needs to be loosened in the body and what are the words and movements to lose it. Sharing from the group. Meditation and Affirmations collected from sharings and reshared for closure.

May 5 Living & Loving After Loss: Journaling & Mixed Media Collage
Dr. Zelda Lockhart and Artist Marla Dobbs Hawkins

Interactive Congregational Conversation on grief and love as emotions before we had words. Interactive Journaling and Collage Making. Sharing of Discovered Strategies for living and loving after loss. Meditation and Affirmations collected from sharings and reshared for closure.

June 2 Relax and Release: Celebrating Pride through Dance
Ifasina Clear of get.embodied and Durham massage therapists

Embrace all of who you are and experience the joy of movement with a seated and accessible dance class. Following the dance session, revel in the nurturing atmosphere with a complimentary chair massage, creating a space for joy, pride, and love for our diverse bodies.

July 7 The Relationship Museum: Story Sharing & Diorama
Dr. Zelda Lockhart and Artist William Paul Thomas

Interactive Congregational Conversation on our wounds, wants and how cherished objects can help us memorialize divine relationships and find gifts in difficult relationships. Interactive story sharing and artmaking of dioramas. Sharing from the group. Meditation and Affirmations collected from sharings and reshared for closure.

August 4 Our Story Told Through Sound
Dr. Zelda Lockhart and Music Therapist Reggina Thompson

Interactive Congregational Conversation on song/sound as mode for telling the difficult to tell stories, and as a mode to create harmony out of dissonance. Interactive song/sound prompts to connect us. Sharing/Meditation of the group in raised song/sound vibration that connects us to the vibration of others in the world.

September 1 Joyful Healing: Nourishing Your Inner Child through Play
NorthStar Staff & Board

Immerse yourself in a holistic healing experience. Begin with a trauma-informed mindfulness meditation focused on hearing and healing your inner child. Following the meditation, engage in a brief facilitated discussion, then explore various breakout stations, including coloring, puzzles, beading/jewelry making, and a sensory sandbox outdoors. Enjoy a nurturing space for self-discovery and play.

October 6 Sacred Soulcraft: Co-creating New Spiritual Traditions
NorthStar Staff & Board

Reimagine spirituality, delve into alternative religions, and reflect on core beliefs and values through interactive stations, fostering a collective space for spiritual growth. Join us in expanding and fortifying our religious practices, including DIY vision boards, astrology, tarot reading, and engaging with representatives from different religious traditions.

November 3 A Collective Grief Ritual
NorthStar Board, Staff, and Community

December 1 The Sharing Stage & Studio – Story, Art, Song & Movement Sharing excerpted from our year of engagement.
Dr. Zelda Lockhart

Program closes with The Story Gourd which offers story play to exhibit how we are all connected through our stories.

About 2024 celebrant Dr. zelda Lockhart

ZELDA LOCKHART holds a PhD in Expressive Art Therapies, an MA in Literature, and a certificate in writing, directing and editing from the New York Film Academy. Her latest books include HarperCollins 2023 release Trinity (a novel) by Zelda Lockhart, HarperCollins 2021 release Mama Bear: One Black Mother’s Fight for Her Child’s Life and Her Own by Shirley Smith with Zelda Lockhart, Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne with Zelda Lockhart, and The Soul of the Full-Length Manuscript which takes readers on the emotional, psychological and spiritual journey of utilizing personal stories to transform their lives while completing a work of fiction, memoir or poetry. Lockhart is author of novels Fifth Born, a Barnes & Noble Discovery selection and a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award finalist, Cold Running Creek a Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Fiction Awardee, and Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle, 2011 Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her fiction, poetry, and essays appear in several anthologies as well as in periodicals like Chautauqua, Obsidian II, and USAToday.com.

Lockhart is Director at Her Story Garden Studios: Inspiring Black Women to Self-Define, Heal, and Liberate Through Our Stories & Nature. She continues her work as a writer and speaker, facilitating workshops across the US and globally on issues specific to the human struggle and on ways that connecting through story and nature is good for personal and intergenerational healing.

She welcomes visits to her websites: www.ZeldaLockhart.com and www.HerStoryGardenStudios.com

Sunday service History

Sunday Service began when NorthStar opened its doors with celebrants Sangodare Wallace and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. After a beautiful year of sermons, events, and music, COVID-19 shuttered our doors and our focus went to managing the Durham Artist Relief Fund. In 2023, Sunday Service was back in full force, in partnership with Radical Healing, an intentional, radically inclusive, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC centered multicultural and multiracial campus for healing and wellness in Durham. Over 10 services, we laughed, cried, and healed together through therapeutic art making, music and dance, and collective conversations. Support for this programming was sponsored in part by the Durham Arts Council.