Tag Archives: alternative worship

Advent prayers rising…

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We are back in this evening after another day spent out on Dunoons West Bay, serving mulled wine, mince pies, and having lots of good conversations with folk as the came to collect Christmas trees.

We had also set up some meditation things, did some music (oh my fingers!) and were selling Sky lanterns with the intention of inviting people to write prayers/thoughts on them, and participate in a massed sky lantern launch.

Why did we do it?

  1. To encourage people to be reflective and conscious of the season of Advent- a way for people to become more Spiritually aware, and open again to the Spirit of God
  2. To support work to raise money for CLANN (Community leisure development) and Christian Aid.
  3. To make a lovely spectacle that will linger in people’s minds
  4. To bring people together- and allow community to flourish, in all it’s different forms

And it was great!

We had a mixed blessing with the weather- it was calm, dry, but the Clyde was masked in freezing fog, and echoing with the mournful fog horns as ships passed out to sea.

However, the sight of the lanterns going off up into the mist was wonderful- eery, moving and affecting.

What was even better was the numbers of people who came and took part this evening- from schools, community projects, families, individuals.

Michaela described one family who lit the lantern, then stood together around it as it warmed up, arms around one another in silence. Then they let the lantern rise up into the night sky. Whatever their prayers were, may they be blessed…

Here are the promised photos- Andy took some more, so I will hopefully get to post a few of his soon.

Advent thing day one, Dunoon West Bay- a few pics…

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Just back from a day out in the cold celebrating Advent whilst people buy Christmas trees. Tired but happy…

Here are a few pics-

Sky lanterns, and advent prayers…

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As previously mentioned,  Aoradh are doing a thing in Dunoon’s west bay next weekend- the 13th and 14th of December.

This will take the form of a partnership with some other community groups- the forestry commission, guides etc. The event was suggested by CLAN as a way of raising money/awareness for the development of the play park on the west bay. The forestry commission will be selling Christmas trees too.

Our bits will include an alternative worship thing, poetry, a Christian Aid BIG SING, mediation walk, and a mass sky lantern launch- this is the flier that we are including in the sky lantern pack-

The light keeps shining in the darkness, and the darkness can never put it out…

As part of our Advent festivities, Aoradh invite you to be part of a celebration of light.

Each year, we are plunged into a whirl of busyness around Christmas- all the presents we buy, the cards we send, the pressure of making ready for a feast. All these things are good, but it is so easy to lose sight of the Christ-child. We wanted to encourage one another to step aside, and reflect…

Our intention is to use these paper sky lantern as carriers of our hopes, expectations and prayers in this season of waiting, and so make our deliberate preparation for the coming Christmas.

You are invited to write prayers and thoughts on the lantern, and to be part of a MASS SKY LANTERN LAUNCH from the West Bay Dunoon, on Sunday the 13th of December, from 5.00 pm– weather permitting.

(NB We will need fairly calm, dry conditions for the mass launch to take place. If we are not able to launch on the Sunday, then we will go for 5.00 on Monday- then Tuesday and so on.)

The spectacle of a large number of sky lanterns rising over the Clyde together is something that we hope will live in our memories, as a visual reminder of the rising possibility of hope.

And of light flickering in the darkness…

Be careful as you write on the lanterns- they are fragile!

If you are wondering what a sky lantern is, or have never seen them launched, here is a clip. Imagine them rising up as prayers- powerful stuff!


Hope rises…

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We are planning (and I use the word loosely) a thing. An Aoradh thing. Around an Advent theme. We will be supporting Simon and CLAN as they sell some Christmas trees and raise some money for the play park.

It will be based on the West Bay in Dunoon, on the 12th/13th December. We will have a big tent, mulled wine, thinking stations, and… (we hope) be getting people to decorate sky lanterns for a mass launch.

Assuming we get permission.

And assuming it is not very wet.

Or windy.

So come along- let hope rise to faith.

We tried out one of the lanterns this evening in house group- so for those of you out looking for meteor showers, what you saw was not one of them. Nor was it an alien space ship.

It floated into a tree, then rose high in the direction of Helensburgh, where it was no doubt shot out of the sky over Faslane naval base.

We wrote prayers on it- and watching the thing rise gracefully into the sky then disappear into the clouds was wonderful.

Hold: this space- new site…

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Congratulations to Cheryl and friends down under on their lovely new site– looks great!

Loads of alt worship stuff, and lovely writing…

This is on their front page-

Take the clay of our lives and shape it to love
Take the clay of the church and shape it to grace
Take the clay of the world and shape it to peace
Take the clay of today and shape it to hope

And then breathe your spirit into all
again

For ever and ever
Amen

Proost- free downloads!

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proostlogo

For those of you who are not familiar with Proost– here is the blurb from the site-

Proost has now been in existence for 10 years, it came in to being as a resource and a service to the church.

In a world dominated by large record companies and publishers, we believed there was a need for a broader range of creativity from independent artists, musicians, authors etc. We also saw the need for an outlet for creative individuals who also had the same desire as us.In the very early days, budget constraints, inexperience and a sense of feeling our way meant that we concentrated on one project at a time, usually an album of music or a worship ‘experience’… we found that people were finding many uses for what we were providing which was encouraging and spurred us on to do more.

Now, several years down the line, Proost has developed and grown. We have built good relationships with a large number of very creative people who share our vision and are happy that we help bring their work into a more public arena. Working with these people has proved to be a real joy and the standard of creativity which they are bringing to us means that we can now provide a whole range of products and tools for you to use in your own worship settings. It is our hope that you will find many things on this website that will be of use to you… and we also hope you will find us to be a helpful partner as you seek to worship in spirit and in truth.

THE PEOPLE
Jonny Baker
Religion has a great tradition of creative characters – prophets, tricksters, mischief makers, etc – that have remade their traditions so that they live again after they’ve become deadened. Jonny works with leaders and churches to help them re-imagine faith and tradition where they have become stuck. And he works with younger creative leaders encouraging their creativity and improvisation as they plant new christian communities in the emerging culture.

Jon Birch
Music producer, animator, illustrator, designer, writer – Jon spends his time trying to be as creative as possible. He describes himself as ‘a person who likes to be on the edge of things, who has made his life doing what he used to get into trouble for doing in the margins of his school books.’ He enjoys using his talents to inspire, challenge and encourage fellow strugglers in their faith journeys. If you can’t find him, he’ll usually be in his studio making something. Jon is a co-founder of Sanctuary, a christian community based in Bath, England.

Aad Vermeyden
Hailing from the land that gave the world Vermeer and Delftware, it is no surprise to us that Aad gets a real buzz out of enabling the artistry of others. When Proost first came into being he was an artist and events manager, responsible for the careers of many of the UK’s leading lights, putting on shows all around the globe and handling their delicate artistic sensibilities. Aad is equally at home in the world of databases and computer systems and has made admin an artform. Jon and Jonny are both very glad to have his wisdom and experience onboard… even if Canada does sometimes feel like a long way away.

Proost have published 44 movies, 22 albums and 11 books (including, a-hem, 2 of mine) and you can have access to the whole lot for a subscription of £60! Thats over £250 worth of stuff.

However, it gets better-

prrost freebies

If you register with Proost, you can access loads of free goodies- a chance to try out all sorts of bits and pieces from the site.

Bargain!


Aoradh at Greenbelt- Eternal Now installation…

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So I thought I would post a few photographs that Simon Mcgaughey took of our worship event @ Greenbelt festival.

We were one of the groups contributing to the worship in the New Forms Cafe, which is the venue for alternative worship events- the place where people can experience more experimental ways of communal worship- and perhaps pinch ideas and recycle them back into their own community. In truth, there is nothing new under the sun, and most of the events use ideas borrowed from other groups, or from more ancient practices, updated with the odd power point projection and a bit of ambient music.

Our event was something like this;

Our contribution was an installation called ‘The Eternal Now’, which was a kind of walk through time. We had stations representing the universal time, geological time, historical time, life time, NOW and the future.

People walked on white paper, and carried a pen on a stick that they dragged behind them in order to leave their own time line. The route was marked by ‘luminaires’- fire proof bags with sand in the bottom and a candle.

On projectors all around the room, we used a time lapse video that we were able to use by kind permission of John Martineau- check out his stuff here.

STATION ONE, STARS- Gazebo with muslin walls, fairy lights, stats hanging from ceiling, images from hubble telescope on laptop.

STATION TWO, ROCKS- Pile of stones, people asked to take one.

STATION THREE, TREE- Large slice of tree with tree rings showing. People asked to place pin around the tree ring corresponding to the year of their birth. Also asked to take a small slice of branch.

STATION FOUR, COLLAGE- Table with lots of art and paper- asked to leave a mark that relates to their own lifetime- what they are grateful for, who has brought them to where they are now.

HOLY SPACE, NOW- Another gazebo, with musiln sides, cushions and eternal flame. Poetry projected on an internal wall.

FUTURE- (Corresponding responses to earlier stations- in reverse order.)

COLLAGE/LIFETIME- postcard to remind yourself- we used words that had been offered as cues in a ‘Wordle’ image made into a postcard. People were invited to write on it, and we will post it on to them as a later reminder…

TREE/HISTORICAL TIME- people were asked to write a promise on their small slice of tree and either leave it behind, or take it with them. They were also asked to take a pine cone- as a reminder of being a carrier of seeds of the Kingdom of God.

ROCKS/GEOLOGICAL TIME- people built a cairn with the rocks they carried.

STARS/UNIVERSAL TIME- people were offered a shortbread star to eat as they left.

It worked really well!

You have one hour to set up the room, it runs for an hour, then you get out as soon as you can to leave room for the next group. When the doors opened we had a massive queue of people waiting to use the installation, and we all felt overwhelmed. There was a bit of ‘bunching’ around some of the stations, before people decided to sit out a little and wait their time.

Feedback was good, and the whole thing looked lovely.

Our intention is to use the installation in Dunoon too…

In the next few weeks we will meet up to chew on whether the effort and expense of the road trip was worth it, and what we can learn and reapply to our own context. But on a basic level, it feels that we achieved what we set out to do.

If you were there, feedback very much appreciated!

Worshiping with wood 2…

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As part of our worship installation for Greenbelt festival I have been working on a station called ‘history’ which uses tree rings to bring to us a sense of being part of a larger historical context. I mentioned this before- here, and the sense of worshiping God with my hands as I have worked the wood has been deep and powerful.

I obtained a slice of Scots Pine from Benmore Botanical Gardens– it had been cut with a chainsaw as part of the ongoing maintenance programme, and the slice I chose was a rough quarter of a larger tree section. It was heavy, rough and dirty, and was intended to be split for the fireplace.

I then spent many hours planing the surface as smooth as I could, then sanding it with different sandpapers in order to reveal the grain and rings of the wood. Later I oiled the surface with teak oil.

The more I worked, the more beautiful the wood became.

In counting the tree rings, the tree was planted around 1920. At that time, Benmore was owned by the famous music hall star Harry Lauder who planted and landscaped much of the land in the wake of personal tragedy- losing his only son in the first world war, then later his wife.

Walking below big old trees can be a wonderful peaceful experience- the shelter of their branches is almost parental. But they can also bring to us a sense of our own emphemeral mortality…

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I am (not) inspired by Pete Rollins…

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I have been reading another of Pete Rollins’ books on and off through this past year- this one- ‘The fidelity of betrayal’.

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It has some great stuff in it, but to honest, I have struggled a bit more than I thought I would to get through it. This surprised me, as I devoured his last book- ‘How (not) to speak of God’.

Perhaps I did not give it a fair crack of the whip, as I read it in something of a piecemeal fashion.

But I think too I may have seen a bit too much of his gig. It goes something like this-

The life of faith is a life of contradiction. Therefore all things we think we know about God, when we really stop and think- we do not really know after all.

All the tenets of faith we were given as absolutes are (not) true.

Faith is formed as we learn to become faithful betrayers of our inherited traditions.

Faith is formed as we  learn our status as (A)theists.

Now I kind of see where he is going with this, and I think the commentary on faith is important and thought provoking. But I can not help feeling just a little weary with the ‘let’s turn this upside down and then see how it looks from the other side’ kind of style. I find myself kind of seeing it coming, then chuckling to myself when it surely arrives.

But then again, I do think this man is an important contributor to the theological and philosophical debate in our time. Let me quote a passage for you to kind of illustrate my dilemma with this book…

In a chapter called ‘forging faith communities with/out God’ (there he goes again- get it?) he has this to say-

…once this is understood, and people are invited to begin to deconstruct their religious systems, individuals will either be brought to a deeper understanding and appreciation of their faith, or they may find they never really had faith in the first place. In the former case the deconstruction will enable the individual to delve deeper into an appreciation of his or her faith, while in the latter the individual will leave such things behind. Both of these are preferable to either mistaking the true miracle of faith for a system of thought or of using that system as a way of hiding from oneself a lack of faith.

Well I guess… I certainly have found myself to be in the former case most of the time, although I have to acknowledge that some of the time I perhaps slipped towards the latter.

Rollins goes on to give some consideration to the creation of spaces that allow people to explore and deconstruct.

Following on from this there is a need to continue the long Christian tradition of forming spaces in which we collectively invite, affirm and celebrate the miracle that lies behind the miraculous, beyond magic, beyond the sacred, and beyond the secular. We need to continue forming places that can render these ideas accessible at an immediate level- a level that does not depend on the contingencies of one’s education or the ability to think in abstract ways (this from Rollins?!)

The question here is not “how do we make these ideas intelligible”, for the miracle itself can be rendered intelligible only as unintelligible. What this means is that the miracle of faith is a happening, an event, that defines reduction to the realm of rational dissection…

…In contrast to forming space that will make sense only to people who are highly educated, we must endeavour to form spaces that make sense to NOBODY, regardless of the level of education- spaces that rupture everyone and cause us all to rethink

Right.

Again- I get it. Faith discovered/encountered/inspired/agitated through performance art. Or as Rollins calls it- Transformance art.

And then I think of my own community, and our experiments with worship curation. The process that Rollins describes seems so far beyond us. It is too hip, too serious, too absorbed in it’s own rhythm somehow… and I find myself slightly and surprisingly alienated.

And I find myself longing for something much simpler- where deconstruction is not the only language we use, but we also construct things that are small, but beautiful.

But I still think we need Rollins- and I am looking forward to what Ikon have to offer at Greenbelt festival this year…

Alt worship thing for GB takes shape…

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Greenbelt festival beckons!

Our family have very mixed feelings. Michaela does not particularly enjoy crowds, or festival camping. Emily is just dying to get there, and me, I feel both a tingle of anticipation and a pang of dread. (William is not going this year- he was too young last year, and decided that he would rather spend the weekend with his best friend, up here in Dunoon.)

My own slight ambivalence is related to a few things…

There are so many things/people that I am looking forward to seeing/hearing. But I know that I will miss many because I will be busy, and there will also be the dreaded anticlimax in the light of the day…

Aoradh are putting together a worship installation, around the theme of TIME- geological time, historical time, lifetime, NOW then future. A few of my best friends are traveling down to the festival together to put together the installation, and this makes me very happy. (If you are at GB- this will be in the New Forms Cafe, Saturday @ 1.00. Come and say hello!)

We tried out some of the ideas a couple of weeks ago- it was lovely…

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I know from experience that doing things like this is a mixture of great fun, along with quite a lot of tension and stress. The POINT of doing it is to make a creative worship offering, in which people can engage in a journey of their own with God.

But there is also another driver- and to be honest, I think this might be a more important one as far as I am concerned. The creation of such spaces involves lots of planning and discussion and sharing within our small community. It is at this point that the life of the Spirit is visible within us. The event itself- with it’s pressure and it moments of triumph- these are a celebration of community, but not the point of it. The point of it is that we should learn to live lives of live and service, and that we should be open and real with one another.

And that is not always an easy thing to do.

Creativity can put more pressure on this too, as ego’s are involved even more fully- ‘my own little slice of expansion’ becomes very precious!

Going to Greenbelt is no small undertaking and there is a real question as to whether it is worth the time, expense and energy- as it is so far from the town and context within which we live and work here in Dunoon. However, I hope that it will offer adventure- a road trip- to those of us that go, and a chance to connect with others doing similar things- exchanging ideas and building supportive contacts.

But it will not be plain sailing- these things never are. Grace and peace be with us, Lord knows we always need it…