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)