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Mark Pierson
Mark Pierson is the Executive Director of Urban Seed (otherwise known as the Receptionist).
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An intuitive introverts guide to starting a church 7.
June 21, 2005
Sunday 12 June 2005.
No service tonight as it was a holiday weekend and Marcus took a group to State Youth Games (2500 teenagers living in tents in the rain and playing various competitive sports and games) where they ran the Sacred Space prayer tent.
Sunday 19 June 2005.
It’s winter and the nights come early and cold. This doesn’t help how I feel about life. So I arrive at the venue with a full shopping trolley and two carry bags of gear, tired and struggling for motivation. The set up is starting to look pretty good and to have some pattern to it now. The room is about 6 metres wide and 12 long with a higher than average ceiling.
Entrance and exit is at one corner. I pull the curtains shut on the windows and turn on one wall light on each of two walls. I light the other side wall with two 150 watt floor lamps that shine up the wall. It’s low lighting but enough to read by. I’m aware that I may be re-creating what I have criticised in the emerging church movement – of not being able to do worship unless it is in candle lit darkness. Twelve years of bright sunlit morning worship at Cityside (www.cityside.org.nz) must have earned me some slack! It’s pitch black outside by the time we start worship at 5.30pm anyway.
The space is laid out with a table/altar at the opposite end to the entrance. Green fabric covering for the current season. Central large candle, smaller lighting candle, wooden table cross, communion bread and plate are on this. In front of it are two low tables covered by white fabric that also lies on the ground linking the tables. One has tumblers and water jug for communion, the other a large sand tray for prayer candles. These are becoming our standard layout. The offering jar is yet to be purchased and placed. At present we use my shopping trolley. Off to the side another table holds laptop, stereo system and data projector (when I bring it).
After waiting the allowed maximum of five minutes after advertised starting time, Sarah leads the ten of us in a Call to Worship using cutout paper hands on which we write what we bring to worship – the pressures, experiences, joys of our days past and ahead. She reminds us that we don’t need to leave anything of who we are at the door. I play the U2 track Yahweh during this. Next,as often happens, when I lead the group in a Prayer of Confession there are many links to what has just been done, despite there being no collusion. Each part of our order stands alone. I read Psalm 139 and use a nice little flash animation from Anne Marie Goodrich in the USA (I met her on an email list last week). We watch in silence as we reflect on the sad, humorous, and painful parts of our life that no one else knows about but which God knows about and loves us despite knowing… and we make our own confession.
Marcus rants about I Peter, ‘Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation, Seedy Mob’. We share water and bread (I re-ran the video loop as visual wallpaper during communion while people took the elements, lit candles as symbols of their prayers, filled in participation forms, offered their ‘hands’ from the Call to Worship, made an offering). Then Concerns, Prayers, and Benediction.
By the time we finish there are 19 adults and two children present. It feels good. I feel good. The ultimate test is how many people participate in packing up. It feels even better!
Mark Pierson June 21, 2005. www.urbanseed.org
(This column also appears at www.sacramentis.com )
Posted by markp at 02:53 PM | Comments (5)
An intuitive introverts guide to starting a church 6.
June 07, 2005
Sunday 29 May
Still transporting gear to the venue on the tram. This week it was a shopping trolley full plus some suitcases. Not having a car has it’s drawbacks. But then we arrived last week just as workers were removing the signage and pay booth from the carpark behind our venue. It’s being turned into an open public space, which will be great. But it means no longer any easily accessible, cheap carparking. There are also major roadworks on Flinders Street until November so we have to get a different tram that doesn’t go as close to the venue. We’ve only been here three weeks!
Probably our most interesting service so far. I allowed for 14 people and eventually 22 adults and two children trickled in. So the space became rather messy as we hadn’t expected that number. It’s tricky knowing how many to set up for. If I’d put out 25 chairs and only 4 people turned up it would have felt a bit hollow. I curated and seven other people were directly involved in the service. That felt good. We did everything in our order of service except the sermon and the songs/meditation slots. For Prayers for Others I had planned to use a video loop (carried the data projector down on the tram) of an orthodox priest swinging a thurible as background, with a bowl of incense burning on a table and the text of Psalm 141 verses 1 and 2 printed out. People were to come forward, make their prayer request and toss a grain of incense into the bowl. I would then finish by playing the beautifully haunting track ‘Incense’ off the Labyrinth CD ( http://www.proost.co.uk/labyrinth.html ) to finish. (I start it 5 minutes in) Unfortunately I discovered that the room we use is filled with smoke and heat sensors so lighting incense was a no-no. This was the second time in a week I’d had to go for virtual incense.
In the week after the service I negotiated some storage at Mission to Seafarers, so that will help with setup. Especially since we bought four more IKEA tables this week. Love them. Our Oasis Team from the UK went out on the tram to the store and carried them back. Chris generously took a station wagon load of gear down during the week. We now have tables, fabrics, candles, lights, power cords, sand, sand tray etc stored on site.
Sunday 05 June
Our first full-blown communion service. The space looked good with four low white IKEA tables down the center for stations and a higher IKEA table for the ‘altar’. I decided to set up for 22 people even if only four turned up (often a big night one week is followed by a thin one). At some point we need to commit to what we want things to be like, and tonight was that time. I carried another overfull shopping trolley down on the tram so I could have a decent sound system to play music on. The iPod system is a bit marginal with the full space being used. Being our first-Sunday-of-the-month communion service we had a ‘sermon’ slot that led in to communion as a response. (Our first sermon. John 8:23) Four stations provided punters (fifteen adults and two children tonight) with the opportunity to light candles as symbols of their prayers, write on and make paper darts as part of their confession (this connected loosely with the biblical text used earlier), eat bread, drink water, make an offering ($10 tonight, our first!), fill in a participation/contact form. The space looked good. Four different voices contributed to leading the service. People participated well, especially considering this was their first time for this style of participatory worship. It felt good to me. The depth of creativity and participation and therefore ownership will increase as time goes by. I am a little frustrated that this isn’t instantly possible. Afterwards we retired to the Mission to Seafarers main room and played pool, cards, shuffle board and drank beer with the Seafarers. It felt very good.
There is no Urban Seed:church service next Sunday due to it being a holiday weekend and some people are away, and I need to recharge a bit.
Mark Pierson June 07, 2005. www.urbanseed.org
(This column also appears at www.sacramentis.com)
Posted by markp at 07:42 PM | Comments (1)
