Friday, August 05, 2005

colouring our worship

Context: I have been thinking about how to name the wide range of emotions and experiences people bring to church. I am going to try this on Sunday and am wondering if it could become a regular part of our Sunday morning congregation.

Environment: cross at front, colour paint chips in baskets around church.

resene.jpg


Words of introduction: We all come from different weeks; good and bad, busy and slow, major and minor. What colour would describe your emotions and experiences this week?

Action: In baskets at various places around the auditorium are a wide range of colours. Each colour square has a “hot dot” fixed to the back. As we gather as a community in worship this morning I invite you
a) choose a colour square that says something about your week.
b) peel the backing paper of the “hot dot” on the back and place your colour on the cross.
You can do this at any time before the service.

Prayer: We will start our service with the following prayer (written by Lynne . It is what we have been using to commence our espresso congregation.)

Leader: Arriving, we bring our current reality.
All: The good and the bad. The busy and the slow. The major and the minor.

Leader: We dare to believe that God is among us.
All: Among us as one who listens, holds, loves, heals, guides.

Leader: We dare to believe that we are safe here.
All: Safe among friends journeying together. Journeying to a deeper knowledge of, love for and service with God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Posted by steve at 12:15 PM

2 Comments

  1. Steve, I think this is a brilliant engagement with epople’s ‘reality’ and feelings and drawing who we are into prayer. I think it helps people move from sometimes sterile Sunday church prayers, something I’ve been working through having recently taken some threads through Lamentations and building towards being a ‘community of honest sadness'(Brueggemann) as a reality bearing with one another in the daily-ness of life and faith. I have lots of colour paper tiles having recently used in a somewhat ‘mosaic’ way. Would you mind if I tried this prayer angle too?

    Comment by Fyfe — August 5, 2005 @ 6:44 pm

  2. Fyfe, go for it. please let me know how it goes and if you twist or reshape it in any ways.

    Comment by steve — August 6, 2005 @ 2:59 pm

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