I'd like to share with you about an amazing weekend we've just shared in Woodhouse Park...About 65 people were part of our recent 'Inspire' event inside St. Marks United Reformed Church; an alternative celebration of pentecost involving opening the building for all local people to celebrate and share in the spirit of hope, peace, life and creativity.
We transformed a shed together over 2 days into our Rainbow Prayer Room! We put the 'shed' on the area in front of the communion table and decided as we were putting it up that we'd leave it 3 sided with the back being the communion table! The prayer room has been open for a week and we'll soon take it down and give it a new home. Everyone has said how beautiful it is and how special. We also used our small meeting room and made it into a Quiet Room with water feature and storybooks and a few quotes about calmness, stress and Jesus. It was expecially popular with young people and young families. Our community cafe sold fairtrade refreshments & had a Traidcraft stall and people could generally come along and hang around for a couple of days to relax in a different place for their bank holiday which can be stressful for some families because of the extra day and lonely for people living alone.
Over the 'Inspire' weekend we were all kinds of people together - talking and sharing in different kinds of 'church body language' so we could all hear God in our own languages - whether young children, teens, single men, older women - whoever.
A group of 4 lads arrived together on Saturday sharing in the design of the prayer room and 2 visited briefly for about 10 mins the formal 'service' on Sunday morning and returned later Sunday afternoon with 2 more friends! They put in lots of time and energy marbling, painting, talking, giving support and leading others in painting the space and then decorating the worship area with beautiful balloons. They also all made red prayer flags and wove crosses together with wool and yarn.
Other people on the day wove a 'God's Eye' or 'All Seeing Eye' from wool and the shape of the church crosses that were around in the worship area. We used ribbon and satin in bright rainbow colours to hang for the weekend. John Canner helped make recycled wax candles with jam jars and old church candle stubbs which some decided to light and put on the communion table, others took to give away and some to keep for themselves. John May welcomed people at the door where we all got sticker badges whether we knew others there or not!
Church members mixed and mingled together.
One person said "I didn't know you did this sort of thing here" and was really positive about it. The group of lads who were there the whole weekend were very keen to have more things like this event and to add other activities like bouncy castles, paper mache, knitting and musical things.
We took about 10-15 mins in Sunday worship for all in the congregation to wander around, visit the prayer room, prayer tables, share together or to pray seated where they were in to say thanks to God for such a beautiful space and amazing people.
This is the third event this year at St. Marks when we have made a special effort to do things differently. We're trying to experiment, listen, respond, initiate and be flexible in these events. They are meant to be postivite, open specifically for people who are not regular Sunday morning worshippers and to be regular enough to form genuine relationships in our local community.
Please pray for us in this way of working. It is amazing and inspiring but also quite fragile and chaotic. The Spirit never ceases to move in silence and musice and conversation in these events and everyone, without exception, has said how much they enjoy and want/would like these kind of things to be more regular.
This is not so much a new way of being church but more like making new friends and listening to where God is in all of it. It is a mix of initative, sacred and making sure there is always a way of local people of all kinds to connect with God if and when they would want to. I feel very fortunate to be part of this courageous congregation who are willing to share space, power, money, food, God and creative life together. We are open to what next...
