the grace 2006 season got off to a fine start. a chilled service reflecting on summer gone and the year ahead.
1. chill
quiet down in god's presence - use the video image of the jar settling from the CD ROM with 'tune in chill out' | sing this is the house of god from one of the late late service albums | play lovebleeps by laura b from the mini album 'midi a minuit' which i got at the big chill this summer with the lyric 'i am calling to you' (could become a grace classic tune i think), and give space to call out to god for the new year... also light three candles to pray for the presence of the father, son and spirit. use the prayer we are hungry from alternative worship | sing heal me from another of the late late service albums (!)
2. examen
look back over the summer using an examen type thing - talk in twos and then reflect on your own on your consolations and desolations... these were the questions jen put together
Consolation – for what moment of this summer am I most grateful? Desolation – for what moment of this summer am I least grateful?
When did I give and receive the most love? When did I give and receive the least love?
When did I feel most alive? When did I most feel life draining out of me?
When have I had the greatest sense of belonging to God? When did I have the least sense of belonging?
What was this summer’s high point? What was this summer’s low point?
For what moment of this summer am I most grateful? For what moment of this summer am I least grateful?
played the tune before from panamerican's quiet city which was perfect with the line let those memories come.
3. looking forward part 1
revisiting the grace ethos - create, particpate, engage and risk. mike had a wonderful meditation/reflection and piece of liturgy reworking the doors liturgy from the book Alternative Worship. This was the meditation...
About 18 months ago in Grace we started a process of exploring who we were, what we had achieved, where we were going. We summed up several weeks of reflection, thought and prayer into three words. We described the three words as our ethos.
• Create
• Participate
• Engage
And as we learned more about Jesus and our community we found that there were new possibilities in an old, a 10 year old, situation. And where we might previously have made an easy, obvious choice, following the rules of our tradition, we became aware of new options in old situations.
And we found that our new option had the word "truth" written all over it.
But the word "truth" is hard to take. The truth might be uncomfortable. The truth might mean changes we hadn’t anticipated which would shake us out of complacency. We added a fourth word to our ethos:
• Risk
And as we went on facing daily decisions we became aware that any given situation has a choice of doors to go through. The obvious, familiar one, and the new one you're vaguely aware of.
That second door is smaller and harder to find than the familiar big door of comfort and self-satisfaction.
The second door is not directly in front of us - it is in semi-darkness and may be covered in cobwebs until we turn around and find it.
But as we reach out for the second door we find that the word "truth" is suddenly a lot more attractive. We find that the decision to reach for the other door has somehow given us a sense of being "bigger".
If we go through that door, and take the hard option, we find that we were wrong about the fear of the small, restricting room of the truth ... we find the biggest surprise that our hearts can contain ... because on the other side of the small, dimly lit door is a wide open space. And that wide open space is freedom ... it is the Realm of God.
And once we've been through that door we get used to its feeling, and in more and more situations we begin to see the second, smaller door, and we realise that the big door that we're used to going through actually led to a small room ... a kind of prison.
But now that we're learning to find the small door. We are starting to know the price of putting our ethos centrally into the life of Grace.
As a way of re-committing ourselves to our ethos at this, our ‘start of year’ service, a series of responses: Doors (ethos version)
4. looking forward part 2
personal dreams put to flight - this idea was lifted from laura of sanctus1 who led worship on the emerging churches tour and got everyone writing dreams on paper and making origami birds. she kindly sent me the origami template afterwards. steve has posted his reflection that introduced it summer is over on his blog and in the liturgy section. this looked fabulous and we projected images of moving skies and so on behind it which was fun.
5. prayers and blessing
some simple prayers/blessing led by ben...
Sometimes we can have dreams and goals that were founded on grand ideas. But like the seed on rocky soil, they sprout up quickly and then wither; it seems right for them to die
- And then there are those that are those dreams, visions, aspirations, that are planted so deeply in us that they can feel like part of God's dreams for us.
No matter how low the flame is burning, no matter how little the shoot has sprouted since the seed first took root in our being, our heart still sings out somewhere when we bring it back to mind.
These are the dreams that we want to take flight. To re-engage with the great migration.
Dear God
Just as you don't break a bruised reed or snuff out a smouldering wick, graciously let our plans and dreams take flight.
- Give us a sense of how we can coax it back to life
- Incubate it
- Let us see a next step & the manageable close at hand & And the glorious dream maybe far off.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ
Amen
Photos
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