Sunday, July 12, 2009

winter spirituality week 2

“It’s not every church you get to play twister while singing the final hymn” was one piece of feedback on our 10:30am service.

We’re into our second Sunday of s-l-o-w-i-n-g down, winter spirituality. We Kiwis tend to hurtle from February to December and then collapse in January. So we’ve suggested to our congregations and small groups that they take 2 slower weeks in early July. So at 10:30 am the focus was on winter spirituality and along with a winter call to worship, dedication, baptist and a winter spirituality sermon, part of the worship was a time to “sabbath.” People “sabbath” in a variety of ways, so a range of options were scattered around the church:
– lego
– “kicking tires” of the building project
– card making
– browsing church library
– checking out spiritual practice resources
– helping put together our flu packs (seen over $750 donated for these in last 2 weeks)
– reflecting on winter visuals
– catching up with people
– twister!!
ending with Great is thy faithfulness. It was great looking around, seeing the spread of generations, the mix of people, the laughter and care and creativity, hearing the conversations around what sustains and nourishes our inner life.

If we’d had more energy and the new foyer cafe that is part of the building project had been completed, it would have also included hot chocolates all around. But what we did was enough, slowing the pace, reminding us of a whole-person spirituality and our diversity as a group of people.

Posted by steve at 10:50 PM

2 Comments

  1. Steve,
    I love this idea of slowing down winter spirituality. It is a little more challenging here in North America however where winter coincides with Christmas. Thanks too for contributing to my What is Spirituality series
    Blessings

    Comment by Christine Sine — July 16, 2009 @ 4:37 am

  2. thanks Christine. i’m enjoying trying to read the seasons a bit more in terms of church rhythms of life. yes it is challenging, but is any spirituality not challenging in some way?

    steve

    Comment by steve — July 16, 2009 @ 7:32 pm

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