City Walks for Church Groups

City Walk Part 1: Journey to the Margins: The Call to Discipleship

On our ‘Journey to the Margins’ we explore stories of our city of Melbourne, combining them with stories from the first half of the Gospel of Mark. The key theme which we explore is the notion of ‘centres’ and ‘margins’. Where are the central spaces? Where are the marginal spaces? And where is God? We encourage participants to think about how they see themselves in our culture, and where God calls us to be. As we walk around the city, we undertake some exercises in discernment, and encourage participants to take this challenge back to their own locality.

City Walk Part 2: Journey to the Centre: Confronting the Powers

After Jesus took his disciples to the margins and showed them a new way of exploring the world around them, he took them to Jerusalem - the centre of social, economic and political life - to confront the powers. Again, we read stories from the Gospel of Mark in the context of our city and in the midst of what our city represents. We explore the powers our nation is built upon, and try to understand how Jesus might have confronted the powers which rule our society and values today. The disciples still struggle to understand the Way of Jesus! The Way of Jesus ends at the cross. As travellers on a discipleship journey today, we end our walk by sharing together the bread and the wine.

Laneway Labyrinth

A labyrinth is a winding path (like a maze) that can be found in many old cathedrals. People used to walk the path of the labyrinth as a form of pilgrimage. Many experienced it as a journey toward the divine at the centre of the labyrinth.

The laneways of Melbourne's CBD make an interesting labyrinth - a public labyrinth, travelled by many people every day, from many different walks of life. This is a contemplative evening prayer walk through Melbourne’s Laneway Labyrinth which usually go for an hour, and are followed by an opportunity to debrief over supper.

City of Heaven or City from Hell?

This walk starts with a Bible study where we look at how cities are portrayed in the scripture. After this we spend some time exploring our city, and comparing what we find to what we read about cities in the scripture. Afterwards we have some time to debrief what we’ve discovered, and to think about what it means to be a neighbour in the city.

These walks cost $10/head for a group of 10-15 people. The fees for our walks support the work of Urban Seed and are necessary to help cover our costs, however we do not want them to be prohibitive. Please contact us if you would like to discuss this further. For enquiries & bookings information please contact Christop Booth or call (03) 9650 4023.

Christop is also able to offer alt worship station installations which offer opportunities to engage and respond with these and other themes, either in your space or ours. You can check out some of his recent work on sacred space on his blog.