January 2011: Blessing

Opening liturgy

welcoming people into God’s presence. We used a version of these Epiphany prayers from Christine Sine

Conversations

people talked about the thresholds they crossed in 2010,the new things they did, using one of these words as a prompt: planned, unexpected, welcome, ambivalent

Introduction to blessing

This service was inspired by John O'Donohue's book, Benedictus. We played a recording of him saying New Year blessing at the start of one of his Greenbelt talks.

Writing blessings for others

We invited people to write a blessing for someone not at the service, then to put it in an envelope and send it to them.

Blessings in surprising places

Several people shared stories of finding blessing in surprising places.

Blessing the world

We invited people to write on a large sheet of paper a topic/issue/place that needed blessing and then one word that describes the blessing they want to see there. Two people used these words, blended with a blessing from Benedictus, to create a prayer/liturgy

Receive a blessing

People were invited to come forward and to be blessed – anointed with oil, laying on of hands using blessing from Benedictus

Final blessing

We said the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6 to each other.

Final final blessing

As people leave to go into the café they were showered with confetti