leaky prayer room...

I haven’t blogged too much about our recent days of prayer. not sure why. They definitely seem to come and then go. A brief pause in the middle of hectic lives. we’ve been doing 24hrs of prayer once a month for a few months now, and last Saturday was the last of 2009, before we kick off again in January.

Strange, it seems like the break will do some good. to me anyways. We’ve already (helpfully, and maybe not so helpfully) found our little patches – a sequence of events takes place and we step into our roles each time to plan, prepare and participate in the day of prayer. these have been wonderful times, but its also interesting to see traditions arising. Not that that’s bad, of course, and good rhythms and ways of working are good and helpful. However, I never want this to become so easy that we forget what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, and that the ‘how’ should remain changeable.

But Saturday was especially unusual. I got a text at 5pm “I’ve put out 7 catching implements. The leaks seem to be multiplying, which is very Godly of them!”…the roof, or windows had fallen victim to the constant barrage of wind and pouring rain. The eye of the storm, our little prayer room was getting wet, and our prayer wall was dripping, making our prayers look like they were crying tears.

Clearly up later on, I wandered, and felt challenged – will our leaky prayer room crack and let our prayers go streaming out? After all, the verse we'd put up as people left was God’s call to Elijah to leave the cave and ‘go…in the presence of the Lord’. How can our prayers in the prayer room be embodied elsewhere?

I prayed, ‘God don’t let our prayers stay in this place, but let our prayers leak out of here, in drips, in streams, in rivers.’

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remembering...

(the first of todays post is further down the page - 'refresh kicks off')
So, thirdly…

I had to say something particular about the ordinands’ evening on communion. One thing is for sure, that this is a subject that you cannot ever begin to really understand. This was summed up brilliantly by a guy from Sweden, who said at the end that it was the mystery of the Lord’s supper that makes it such an important thing to do – it brings forth the need for faith in the Lord, and not a need to have all the answers…

Communion in symbolic. But not only symbolic, but it is one of the things that when done with a sincere heart of faith, it is actually a moment of encounter with God. Something spiritual happens. This is why Anglicans call the act of taking Communion a ‘Sacrament’ – a physical symbol of a spiritual reality. This is also why baptism is a Sacrament too.

Now, this is a contentious subject for many. But I was blown away at everyone’s willingness to not only be open with their own thoughts, but also open to others – not in a kind of ‘everything goes’ attitude either – but a genuine searching and seeking to find God in this ‘gift’, as some described it.

So we questioned why we do it at all, why our churches do it, what’s needed for communion to take place e.g. do we need a priest? do we need bread and wine? is it just a meal for the ‘baptised’?

Some interesting points made were: we don’t really need a priest, but you do need priesthood (of all believers). The importance of intention, when a priest does ‘preside’ – firstly, its good because someone needs to steward this who is not off they're rocker (assuming they're not!), plus - they are there to be a symbol of the community, and to serve community in order that they may all meet Christ (not, as many evangelicals would accuse, there as symbols of Christ himself), the potential for all meals to be ‘eucharistic’, and the difference of memorial and remembering.

Now, there’s much to be said, but this last one struck me and has stuck with me. I don't know if it's because this time of year is full of remembrance, or what, but...One lady said she felt it was important to not only remember Jesus (his death, resurrection and our justification) as a memorial, but also to remember as a verb – a doing word – to use communion as an opportunity to re-member ourselves to Christ. to recognise that we sometimes walk away, and we need to come again and re-member ourselves to Jesus, and also to become members again of his body (the importance of making good with the averse brother). I loved this. It moved me profoundly.

I need to process it all a lot more. But it was fascinating, and although I was tired from a long drive, I could have stayed and explored for hours longer.

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more tea, vicar?

Secondly, an update on my exploration of ordination…

We met with our vicar (our vicar? That sounds weird!) last week and had a big long discussion about how I could get involved with the life of St Pauls & St Stephens. As the weeks have gone by, we’ve been challenged, blessed and intrigued at some of the things and style of the worship there. We’ve been there (not every week) for about 6 weeks, and people are becoming familiar to us, and we consistently get invited for lunch. It’s not bad at all…

This is a ‘tradition’ of church that I’m not used to at all, and there are many things I admire. There are also things that bemuse me completely, so our time at St Pauls is going to important as I continue to explore Ordination. However, exploring ordination is one thing, but exploring pioneer ministry is another. And, although a stint at a fairly traditional church like St Pauls may seem a little odd, its actually proving insightful, and encouraging.

So, what was the result of the meeting? Well, because I’m so new to it all, we thought it would be best if I get a taste of as much as possible, rather than focussing on few small bits. Scarily, this means going to see almost everything that the vicar does, which by the way – is a lot! Funeral visits, the funerals themselves, baptisms, weddings, services at care homes, hanging out at the primary school, early morning prayer, preaching, leading intercessions, giving communion (have to get special permission, yay!), and getting involved with worship.

If I thought I was busy already, things are gonna change.

Last Sunday (after an awesome birthday time with my nephew – woop!) I managed to make it in time to an evening for local ordinands, in the same awesome place where I had the vocations day in Tewkesbury.

It was great to meet people in the same boat as me, and even better to know Dan already. We spent the entire time questioning, challenging and mulling over what we thought about ‘Holy Communion’. And, as I’m sure you can imagine, it was a fascinating evening.

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re:fresh kicks off again...

Haven’t had much chance to blog recently, although there’s been a fair bit to blog about and think about.

Firstly, an update on re:fresh…

re:fresh exists to “grow and nurture a sense of community amongst Christian young people in Gloucester”…”so they can change the world”…I’ve been writing this down a lot recently, as I’ve been sending many emails around the group, reminding them and letting them know what re:fresh is about. In fact, I need to do this a whole lot more. Anyway, one reason for this was that we experimented a little and invited everyone to a new ‘open space’ – inviting youth leaders / workers together for a big meal. No catch, no organising, no agenda; except being together and growing friendships. We have to model what we long to see in the young people themselves.

We used the wonderful space at Beauchamp House. About 9 of us came together, ate and drank and hung out with each other for the evening, with a bit of prayer later on. It was a good time, and something we’ll probably do once a term or so.

In the background a looped a powerpoint summarising the values of re:fresh, which are worth posting (again):

R elational
E very day
F un
R evealing Christ
E xperimental
S incere
H oly

The following Saturday, we hosted our first re:fresh worship gathering of the new academic year. This was an exciting time. again, small in number, but big in vision and heart. Awesome time of worship and togetherness. We’re spending the whole year looking at ‘who is this Jesus’, inspired by Michael Green’s book – finding out who Jesus is, what he was like, what he did, what he claimed, what about today?

Young people are ace sometimes – we asked them to put their ideas on a big piece of paper, and we got some extraordinary answers, drawings, and even a rap!!

Really looking forward to seeing this develop.

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flicker: oct '09

last week was busy. really busy. My diary was packed mostly with planning for flicker, which was less than a week away. I'd gone through a whole load of different options. Even cancelling. Most people who'd been in touch had let me know they weren't coming. Was it worth it at all?

Well, on the encouragement: 'at least prayer is happening in the cathedral', I decided to go for it. And, two days after flicker itself, I don't regret it at all.

It miraculously came together during the last week, with a lovely thread of 'loving God, loving each other and taking the gospel to the world'...we set up various stations in the chapels dotted around the cathedral, focussing on different expressions of prayer, ranging from creative, traditional, contemporary, praying in groups, interactive and a chilled out café to finish.

And, people actually came! Volunteers included, we had 70 people. And I know it's not about numbers, but numbers help when you're trying to 'make an opportunity for young people in the whole county to come to their cathedral and pray'...in fact, had we had any more, it would have been hard to cope. Especially for the interactive zone - a brilliant prayer installation called 'breathe'.

We hired 'Breathe' from our friends in Worcester. And I highly recommend it. It's a massive parachute type matt thing, split into 12 sections. Each section is somewhere to stop, think and interact with something hands on or visually. Each person gets an ipod shuffle, and the tracks talk you round different sections of the parachute, getting you to think about how you relate to and think about - yourself, others, the world, and your relationship with God.

Highly recommended. And overall, the atmosphere of peace and God's presence, on such a night as Oct 31st, was quite incredible. I'm so full of gratitude also to everyone who came and helped on the night - Ben and Nai were especially awesome, but everyone just being there was such a blessing. It was a very special time.

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