(Each punter read a line/paragraph each around the circle)

Welcome to Urban Seed: church, where everything is IKEA except the cross.

IKEA: Affordable solutions for better living

I have come that you may have life, life in all its fullness. John 10:10

Most of the time, beautifully designed home furnishings are created for a small part of the population — the few who can afford them. From the beginning, IKEA has taken a different path. We have decided to side with the many.

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4

That means responding to the home furnishing needs of people throughout the world. People with many different needs, tastes, dreams, aspirations...and wallets. People who want to improve their homes and create better everyday lives.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 NIV

At IKEA, most furniture is made so it can be flat packed. Assembling furniture yourself means not paying someone in a factory to do it for you. And, although it can be difficult sometimes, it means you can have the furniture in your home straight away.

And the Word became flesh and tabernacled (fixed His tent, made a home) among us and we beheld his glory. John 1

Take it home today, enjoy it tonight. Because most items are packed flat, you can get them home easily, and assemble them yourself.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

We have a saying at IKEA, “We design the price tag first.”
So together we save money...for a better everyday life

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant, who when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it

The Narrator from FiGHT CLUB mused:

"Like everyone else, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct. If I saw something like clever coffee tables in the shape of a yin and yang, I had to have it. I would flip through catalogs and wonder, "What kind of dining set defines me as a person?"

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.
(Chapter 5, Chuck Palahniuk, 1996)

At the end of the story the Narrator confronts his hyper-reality alter- ego, Tyler Durden who says: “Interesting! Where you going with this IKEA boy?”

...Douglas Coupland’s 90’s novel “Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture” offered a dark snapshot of the highly fortressed inner world of post moderns -- landscapes peppered with dead TV shows, "Elvis moments," and “semi-disposable Swedish furniture.” Beneath the landscapes, deeper portraits emerge, those of fanatically independent individuals, pathologically ambivalent about the future and brimming with unsatisfied longings for permanence, for love, and for their own home."

Ingvar Kamprad the founding father of IKEA and presently the richest man in the world once said:
"It was our duty to expand. Those who cannot or will not join us are to be pitied. What we want to do, we can do and will do, together. A glorious future!"

Jesus once said:
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. John 14:1-2

Welcome to Urban Seed: church, where everything is IKEA save the cross.