That reminds me…

Jodi’s comment on the previous post ended with “we didn’t burn the church down…:)” (and I’m not sharing the story behind that one online).  But this reminded me of when I was in charge of stewarding for some big Christian events.

A Saturday evening event was about to start and I was doing the stewards briefing with a group of volunteers who I had just talked through all that they needed to do.  We had checked the fire exits, the folk selling tickets, the money, set up radios, tested them and all that.  And I was closing our briefing in prayer…

What they didn’t know was the evening before had involved trying to keep drunks from crashing into a quiet and thought provoking drama, one call to the police and one call for an ambulance when a diabetic guy passed out and we couldn’t get him around.  Also, that day’s set up had not exactly gone to plan and then suddenly it was time to go and I was briefing a new set of volunteers.

At some point in my prayer was thanking God for the previous night and apparently said something like ‘thank you that no one died’.

The stewards were a bit more subdued and serious after that, but it wasn’t till someone gently asked me what happened and pointed out what I had said that I realized how it must have sounded. 

“At least no one died” became the moto for a while and now we have one for Deeper:  “we didn’t burn the church down”

 

… of course there was that famous ‘River’ event ;-)

November’s Deeper

I can’t figure out why but Deeper services seem to take more and more out of me each time. OK, so I had the ‘mad idea’ this week to make a large visual aid in the middle of the building – and making that happen added some stress. There were also a couple of problems that occurred during the service which kept me up last night worrying about, thinking about how I could have done things better or handled it differently. It made me review again ‘why do I do this?’ I still don’t really have an answer.

I do think that having a service like Deeper is exciting and a little bit of a risk as a church strategy. But I wonder how it is perceived by people new to the church who haven’t seen it grow and develop. How does it fit into a regular monthly slot among ‘all age’, ‘communion’, ‘evening praise’, etc. Does it confuse people who think they are coming to a ‘normal church service’ and end up wandering around a dark church, making clay models of themselves and sitting around a ‘burning bush’?

I think of Deeper as (among other things) ‘experiential worship’ as we generally try to get people to experience something. We try to stimulate different ‘learning types’ or different ‘senses’ to make people think about something.

So this month we had 7 stations with things to read, watch, listen to, participate in, eat and drink, etc. There was even an opportunity to make a model of yourself and a place where people had to kneel to see what was going on – so a certain physical posture was required (no influence here from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade of course), let’s just say “only the penitent man will pass”.

more photos on FLICKR

 

What I love about this is that people have to listen, watch, think, use their bodies, smell things, taste and touch. Not just passively sit and listen, or sing a bit.

I would never suggest we don’t have a preach or worship. Well, actually I have suggested both of these things in the past – however only for one off reasons not as a general principal. Having someone share a message is a good thing – I’m listening to Gordon’s talk from last night right now, as I don’t really focus well during a service.

However, even though I personally like Deeper type services I couldn’t go to a church that was like this all the time. I like the variety of services we have at St S and hopefully have the mix right.

I think I have come to the conclusion that IMHO Deeper is worth doing. So ‘why do I do this?’ well because I can and St Silas let’s me ::–)