On the Sundays we have the person who chose the piece introduce it to us in the sermon/rant slot. Last year I did it in conjunction with the Collins Street Baptist Church in Melbourne, and this year with Opawa Baptist Church in Christchurch, New Zealand as well. This helps keep the costs down, although it’s not a hugely expensive project. Responses from people have been very positive. It not only provides a portable devotional tool for people, it has a huge promotional benefit for the church. Louise Giles did a fantastic design job for us, and that’s very important to me. If we’re serious about encouraging artists and having a commitment to the arts permeate through our values then our practice needs to be high quality too. Not necessarily expensive, but good quality contemporary creativity. These postcards have to be capable of picking up people who have no idea about art or design, right through to designers and artists. I think we achieved that very well this year.

Because Lent starts in late February next year, I’ve also been working on our Lenten Reflections and the text and design is finished ready to be printed in January. If Jesus had died in July or August it would have made life in the church so much easier (dying ‘landscape’ rather than ‘portrait’ would have made projecting images of the cross a lot more straightforward as well!). We work with what we’ve got.

November 27: First Sunday in Advent.
Annette told the story through memorising the scripture passage. Nice. I introduced Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca (1467) and got to talk about pregnancy and other favourite topics. I love that painting. Lost my count of numbers.

December 04: Second Sunday in Advent. Grant did a great job introducing us to a painted mural of Mary and Elizabeth from Malawi. Tearing out and hanging newspaper headlines that grabbed us on a clothesline as our prayers worked well again. I dominated the service as curator after a couple of people rostered to participate didn’t turn up. Eighteen adults and four children made up the congregation.

December 11: Third Sunday in Advent. At the last minute I lost from my laptop the American Beauty clip that I had written a Prayer of Confession around – something about being overwhelmed by the ugliness and violence in our world and not seeing the beauty and goodness that was around us. So I read the words without the video. Found the video the next day. Hate that.
Our Advent liturgy stuff is shaping up nicely. The art tonight was Madonna and Child With Saints in the enclosed Garden. A couple of RC nuns and several more RC’s turned up again. Nice. They came for the art. Due to a lovers quarrel our presenter didn’t show so we had an open discussion of the art. It was good. Wide range of participation. Having Claire, an art historian, and a few other Catholics among us kept it all lively. Lost the numbers for tonight too. They were strong.

December 18: Fourth Sunday in Advent. Ray Simpson – Holy Island, Lindisfarne – was with us today. Good seminar in the afternoon about what Celtic spirituality and history has to say to the emerging church, then he spoke in the service on journey and pilgrimage. John La Farge’s Halt of the Wisemen was the art. We sang two songs, including a carol! Most unusual for us. Twenty eight adults and 2 children. It was a good service. Good worship, and a good way to end up the year. Marcus curated.

Great sigh of relief from me at the end. No more services until February 5. Summer break! I love what we do. I think we often do it very well. But for me it comes on the end of a full week and takes time and energy I struggle to find. The last few weeks have been particularly difficult at work, which has made church even harder to sustain. On top of that the venue has been in a mess each week when I’ve arrived and setting up has taken more time and energy. January is a good time to re-evaluate what we are doing.

Mark Pierson December 20, 2005. www.urbanseed.org
(This column also appears at www.sacramentis.com )