Grace - fresh vital worship since 1993

September 2009: The Table

september 2009 grace flyer

the table

Set up:

Long table banqueting style down centre of church. Table with white cloth/roll is bare. Light shining on table - grace logo

People arrive in Polygon through church, tunes playing, warm atmosphere

1. Aperitif

drink and menu given out to read.

Small drinks table set up with wine bottles labels and instructions for people to create wine labels to attach to bottles – what do you bring to the table?

Invite people to go to the table and to take the bottles with labels (and their glass), collect cutlery and plate on way

2. Welcome to the table

intro and prayer

3. Amuse Bouche

5 different types of dip and bread. Dips to be different flavours – reflect/examen type thing using flavours – spicy, sweet, bitter, sour, hot.

4. Entrée – salad.

Ingredients brought to table. Each group/person makes a salad. An item on its own is not so great but together make something better – picture of grace. Thanks for community and all ingredients.

5. Plat Principal

Add crackers to table. Cards in crackers with ethos words on - exchange cards to select one which you have done in the last year and one challenge for the year ahead. Talk over the meal.

6. Pause

a pause after the tables are cleared to listen to a couple of readings and pray.

reading 1 Gal 5:22 Fruit of the Spirit plus poem from Listings

reading 2 from book Sanctuary on community

Prayer - we hang our lives on your mercy and then invite people to write or draw prayers on the table cloth

7. Dessert

make cookies adding decoration – then taken to be baked. Be a gift for someone else in the community.

8. Toast and blessing

refill glasses, toast others round table. Hot towels brought round and a prayer of blessing

9. Coffee and cookies

back in Polygon with more tunes.

Photos

<< swipe left

The Table was a banquet, with courses punctuated by liturgies. Many of the courses were partly made by the congregation, from ingredients provided.

Making our own labels - who are you and what do you bring to the table? Put on the bottles of wine that will be brought to the table.

The setup - a single long table. The balloons were a delightful surprise - left over from a wedding earlier in the day!

Amuse bouche, with an examen.

The entrée - salad ingredients brought to the table, for us to make the salads in groups. An item on its own is not so great but together make something better – a picture of Grace. We give thanks for community and all its ingredients.

 

 

Plat Principal - we add crackers to the table. There are cards in the crackers with the Grace 'ethos' words on - exchange cards to select one which you have done in the last year and one challenge for the year ahead.

Discuss your choices over the meal.

 

After the main course, we listen to readings from the Bible and pray, writing our prayers on the tablecloth.

For dessert, we make our own cookies using the decorations on the table.

 

The cookies are taken to be baked.

We drink toasts while we are waiting. Hot towels are brought round and we say a prayer of blessing.

The return of the baked cookies!

We left the church at 11.45pm, having begun the food preparation in mid-afternoon. The service itself had run for perhaps two hours.

<< August: Greenbelt - The Long Monday | top | October: Bread >>