The Sanctus1 blog. An emerging church in Manchester engaged in a journey of creative exploration into spirituality, culture and faith. This blog is a work in progress and by no means the finished article...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tonight, and Greenbelt
Tonight's service starts at 7.30 in Nexus and features a saggy old cloth cat. Come along and find out what the heck I'm talking about...!
(photo from last year's Sanctus1 main stage communion)
Then over the weekend, lots of the community are going to Greenbelt. Sanctus1 (Sun 10pm) and Sanctus2nds (Sat 10am) are both doing services in New Forms. It'd be good to see you there.
Yep you read it right - next Wednesday is a service involving the most important... the most beautiful... the most magical... saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world!
Nexus, Wed 20 Aug, 7.30pm. Feel free to bring memorabilia.
Advance notice that tomorrow night is a service-style event at Nexus from 7.30pm, run by a small group of members from the community.
The main point of exploration for the service is the creation-destruction-recreation idea that we came out of the scratch service a few weeks back, and was blogged here.
We all contributed to making a service from scratch in a night. It was on the theme of creation/ Genesis 1 and we used any/ all resources and materials to hand. And having planned a section of the worship in small groups, we then worshipped together using all of that at the end of the evening. A great example of what can be made out of next-to-nothingness when working together.
Here's the bones of what we did:
Candle lighting
I light this light in the name of the Maker, who made the sun and the moon, the day and the night. I light this light in the name of the Redeemer, who is the Light of the World and shows us the way. I light this light in the name of the Sustainer, the living flame, who burns within us and throughout the world. We light these lights for the Trinity of love and light. Amen.
Introduction/ reflection on the theme
An edited retelling of the opening sections of Genesis, whilst hanging a map of the world on a washing line, and then other postcard images of people, animals, plants, landscapes. We were then invited to go forward and add something to this line in response to "creation".
There was a reflection and duscussion on the themes of creation/ destruction and some concepts emerged: - the cycle of creation-destruction-recreation - the image of the bread broken to share in newness of life - cells dividing to multiply - tiles being smashed to make a mosaic - God destroying nothingness to create somethingness
Finally, we were invited to consider the images of God's "second start" through the flood, and Noah sending out the bird in hope of finding land... We were then able to make an origami bird to symbolise our own flight of hope for finding creation out of destruction.
Confession and absolution
We explored this through the image of brokenness (personal, social, environmental) that is given later in Genesis - taking and eating the fruit. We wrote confessions of brokenness on the back of paper apples, and then remembering that the seed has to die to grow anew, we tore our apples in half (and cut a real apple and planted its seed) as a symbol of God's promise of newness and hope. We finished with a reading of Matthew's telling of the story about the mustard seed that eventually grows to be a home to the birds.
Bread and wine
A simple help-yourself station with two sheets of paper to allow people to write a response as they took bread and wine.
Prayers
A set of prayers themed around the Genesis paragraphs about the sun, moon and stars: - remembering people who've died - listening to Moby's We're all made of stars - considering humanity's divine intention to prosper - thinking of those "stars" who govern our country and world, praying for people, situations, places by writing on paper stars
Blessing An adaptation of a Northumbria blessing
Candles... ...and an invitation to take on the service at the end of the month having seen how easy it is to create something out of next-to-nothingness. Be in touch about that.
Tomorrow night (Wed 2 July, from 7.30pm at Nexus), we're sharing in a meal and exploring faith journeys through a short service, especially in relation to Ben's recent ordination.
Last night, we did the last event of the Dirty Mother series, a service exploring the links between the environment and talking the talk/walking the walk, and guilt, shame, anger/choice, class, convenience.
Below are a few things that we did: thanks to Lizzie, Kevin and Rachel for their ideas and hard work.
A new candle lighting setting
We light this light in the name of the Creator, The one who breathed the breath of life, The one who made the heavens and the earth, The one who looked at everything in the beginning and it was good.
We light this light in the name of the Redeemer, The one who came to show us a kingdom way, The one who spoke in riddles about seeds and birds and lilies of the field, The one who turned The Word into action.
We light this light in the name of the Sustainer, The one who hovered over the waters at the very start of everything, The one who inspires and challenges us to change, The one whose fire renews us still.
A reflective liturgical piece
Where to start, what to do? So much to do and so little time...
Choices, choices everywhere and not an action to take. Life is a mass of choices - from the frivolous to the life-changing. Which Tshirt? What newspaper? That job? This house? Sometimes it feels like there are too many choices - simply too much to choose from - an indistinguishable mass of clamoring stuff.
In fact, so much choice that we become worried that we make will the wrong one, we become paralysed by the choosing. And then comes the guilt and shame and anger. Because we are wealthy and free enough to even have choices in the first place. Because we try to pick between convenience and ethics, the environment and other people, the best use of our resources and the best use of our time...
Where to start, what to do? So much to do and so little time... Wine from France's relatively near vineyards or a fair price for vintners in Chile? The cost of that long train trip or the convenience of flying? Fairtrade bananas or organic ones? Free range or food miles? Biofuel or world food shortages? Spend at People tree or invest at the Co-op? And in the end, the middle class guilts about the very act of choosing the "right" option...
Can we make the earth a little lighter? Can we hold it as a common treasury for all? The inconvenient truth is we must still live and work and lead our lives in this 21st century world, but maybe those of us who *can* choose must realise (as the saying goes) that with great power comes great responsibility... So when the scale of the task overwhelms us, we need to go back to basics and redo the maths - small changes x lots of people = BIG change.
This is not about whether we should act alone, but how we can act together – both acting locally and thinking globally. We are a new movement, one that talks the talk and walks the walk; we must imagine, believe and begin.
Other
Also we dug out an old Vaux liturgy for use during sharing bread and wine. And there were four stations around the space for people to visit:
Today, we did a major tidy of the Sanctus1 tip, ahem storage room. And it was like an archaeological dig through our past, our remains, our memories of what was and had been...
This remnant old technology was at the bottom of one box of detritus. Thanks for the memories.
This week's Pause service is on Wed is at 7.30 at Nexus. And here’s a taster (pun intended!)…
The People's Republic of Heaven - a menu: The starter - a dinner invitation The mains - a difficult conversation The just desserts - a rebuke to change
We've just started a series in our sessions called "Tribe" - I think we'll be looking at topics and themes for the rest of this month around it.
We're covering belonging and indentity, rites and rituals, contemporary gang culture, the 12 tribes of Israel, and of course Bruce Parry's excellent BBC series.
I've found it a stimulating and challenging theme to reflect on. As one of my anthropology mates commented the other day, the people who benefit least from any research are the researched tribe or people themselves - of course they already know everything about their own rituals, rites, behaviours, culture... (or do we?)
Tomorrow, we're sharing food and having a service at Nexus from 7pm, covering some of these ideas - you'd be welcome to join our tribe for it...
The service on Sunday went well - a lot of people commented on it afterwards... So I thought I'd post some of the ideas/ liturgy here.
We looked at four functions of angels during the service - Voice, Protector, Agent for Change, Messenger. Confession was about not being able to hear the voice of God - with that clip from Dogma of the Metatron appearing to Bethany, followed by If God Would Send His Angels/ U2. Agent for Change was two clips from It's A Wonderful Life - and prayers. Messenger was the women at the tomb, and sharing bread and wine. Plus we had a wonderfully cheesey slide/ music combo of angel images to - yep you guessed it - Robbie Williams!
And I wrote this spoken introduction:
Angels - they were created first, but we humans became the most revered. At one time God had spoken directly with Adam and Eve in the garden, but that was before the trouble… and after they were thrown out, God put a cherubim at the gate to guard the way back to the Tree of Life. As Adam and Eve’s generations of descendants wandered the earth, angels came from God to bring messages, inhabit dreams, give protection, show God’s judgment, care for those in need, and provide divine guidance. They were not The Lord, and yet they were The Lord’s earthly presence.
Hagar – Abram and Sarai’s Egyptian maid servant – first saw the angel of the Lord. She was pregnant with Ishmael, Abram’s first son, but ran away because of Sara’s mistreatment of her. The angel of the Lord met her at a spring in the desert, told her to return home, and that her son’s numerous descendants would become a great nation.
From that runaway pregnant maid servant, to the protection of Daniel in the lions’ den, From the guidance of the nation of Israel through the wilderness, to the feeding of Elijah, From Gabriel’s visitation to Mary, to the announcement to shepherd’s of the birth of a baby, From Abraham’s three visitors, to the end times of Revelation, Angels are among us.
A few days ago Michael posted about the plants that he's got growing in his garden. They were "left overs" from a piece of worship that he and Dan lead us in as part of an emerging get-together.
(On a slight aside, surely plants are for life and not just for alt.worship?)
Anyway am pleased to report that despite not being outdoors, mine is thriving too. Of course it's only a symbol but it's great to see it flourishing as a reminder of our time together, our connectedness through that act, and a reminder of God's promise to and hope for us.
As part of last night’s excellent shared service, we got curry to eat from a small stall in the Arndale Market. Cris apparently went to pick it up and the guy gave him four free samosas as a thank you for buying quite a large order.
Ben apparently ate two of them. Cris ate one, and then gave one to me. And I gave mine away to a bunch of us at my end of the table.
