• p.s. Just so that you are aware of it - Urban Seed church is grand. It pulls me in, hems me even...just in the few times I've come along.
• what you give of 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.
• I'm just wondering if I'm at Urban Seed because I'm tired of being comfortable and I know I need to stretch myself and maybe even overstretch myself to find out, but it seems like a safe place to be terrified.
• (It’s) a community of Christians who are intent on exploring the presence of Jesus in an involved, urban-focused forum.
• I am encouraged by this no-bullshit, non-threatening, creative approach to church...an approach which is so needed in cities such as Melbourne where superchurch=superman=big buildings and little space for people who don't wear gold watches and exegete leviticus every night before bed.
• The services are simple and unpretentious - the teaching holds together elements of old and new, ritual and new expression...
• hmmmm encouragement comes from seeing people struggling to hoping, I think? - that is what I see the leaders of this church doing. Hoping and causing us to worship; a place for people to hold up their humanity to God.
• I think it is healthy because: the teaching is well-rounded and inspires questions; the church is grounded in creative community work (ie advent art, stations of the cross etc); the church has attracted a diverse range of people.
• having said this, I think that USC church may be often hard and disheartening for its leaders. it is a bit out of the way at the moment, and its a lot of extra load for people who are already wrecked and tired from a week at urban seed in collins st. clearly, however, I am so excited to be involved with wherever it moves/grows/whatever.
• Urban Seed:church has been an important way for me to reflect on the mission work I do at Urban Seed during the week, to offer it in prayer, to discern about past actions and future actions, in a space with people who get this work.
• A new spin on communion has been refreshing for me.
• It’s been a significant spiritual discipline for me.
• I have found the location at docklands to feel isolated, and disconnected with the work of Urban Seed, in which it has as its roots (although I really like the Mission to Seafarers' funky building!!)
• On a personal level, Urban Seed:church has been an important part of the spiritual rhythm of my week. In doing the mission work at Urban Seed which is often draining, I have found Urban Seed:Church to be a place where I feel my faith and spirituality are nurtured.
• I have not felt a strong sense of a Christian community around me through church, and I think this is because of the transience of the attendees. There are obvious challenges that go with this. However Christians often find themselves heavily tied to a church community with very little involvement with communities outside the church, which is unhealthy. Urban Seed:Church is a place where I have both felt and observed people to feel free not to be "religiously tied" to the church and attending every week and committing to every single activity as though it is the only thing in their life.
• It has been freeing for me to be part of a church that recognises that you don't have to attend church every single week to be a Christian!
• I have found it interesting balancing my desire to be committed to Urban Seed:Church and support it because it is important for me spiritually and also for the sake of the church, with the freedom I feel to not make it my whole life.
Stuff like that makes it tough to think about giving up.

Mark Pierson 28 December, 2005. www.urbanseed.org
This column also appears at www.sacramentis.com