October 9: Eleven adults and 2 children fronted up. Good worship was had by all.

October 16: The four organising team plus one other made it for what was by all accounts a very nice piece of worship. I was on leave and a group who had never put worship like this together before curated it. We are planning for them to do a rerun sometime soon.

October 23: Rachael had us using ‘pray dough’ all through the service. It was nice preaching while people let their hands do the talking. We laid our pray-dough shapes on the communion table when we were sharing the elements. Marcus made some good connections to the current arts festival in Melbourne. He had quotes written on the inside of origami boats that we opened up and reflected on during prayer of confession. Very nice. Six adults and 2 children. Good worship. I had been through a difficult week and was about ready to give it all up after Sunday night, despite the worship being good. Six adults is a pretty small group. Especially when you take out the two couples who provide the core.
The next day a newcomer emailed this ps to an unrelated email…’Just so that you are aware of it – Urban seed church is grand. It pulls me along, hems me in even…just in the few times I’ve come along. What you give to the wanderers and the stayers is life-giving, and I left last night surer that life is at hand and love is the end of it.’ Well what can I say! Of course I’ll turn up next week God. Whatever gave anyone the idea I wouldn’t? Another friend sent me a postcard, ‘ “I can’t take this shit anymore!” he said mistakenly.’ Story of my introverted life.

October 30: Looked like the four of us again. Turned out to be another 14 tramped up the stairs! 18 adults and 2 children. Needed to put out more chairs, more candles, more glasses, more water….The fluctuations are really hard to cope with. It’s an emotional roller coaster for me. Marcus picked up nicely on All Saints/All Souls. We need to be more aware of introducing ourselves when we lead a segment of worship.

Almost the end of the year. I’m looking forward to getting into Advent. Our series of ‘Advent in Art’ postcards are underway. I’ve also been working on a Lenten reflections pack for next year, and pushing on with preparations for a major Stations of the Cross event in a public building in Holy Week. I’m not sure if we can pull all this stuff off with the limited resources we have, but I’m driven to try. I’ve recently tried again to become less driven on this stuff, but failed. Maybe I could change my language to ‘God has told me to do this stuff’ and then I’d feel better. But I don’t mind feeling bad. One more Sunday of preaching and I’m back to curating. I enjoy both, and doing only one at a time has been excellent.

Mark Pierson November 02, 2005. www.urbanseed.org
(This column also appears at www.sacramentis.com )