Knitting (and Dorcas)

Back from my holiday I said I had some ideas to share with the women, and they were up-for-it.

I took along a decorated sheet with some prayers on it, the extreme knitting scarf that a couple of the women had previously had a go at, and the story of Dorcas. My thoughts were that the prayers would offer normality, they would engage in the knitting, and the bible story would be challenging (not so much for its content, but because I would be asking them to share their thoughts on it).

It was one of those days when Community Transport messes things up so beginning was higgledy-piggledy although the opening prayer brought us together well and enabled focus.

As I expected the knitting was a hit... but I was still surprised that everyone completed some. It is only some scraps of wool, and the enthusiasm meant it ran out.

I introduced the story while we knitted. This is an important part of my ideas - that we share the bible, and any other stories, in the midst of our activity. I wanted the women to share, but they found it hard. I had made the mistake of focusing on the concepts rather than the people in the story. I could see the links so easily I forgot to give the women the space to make them.

I'm not sure if we reached any shared understanding through the story, I suspect we made it through the knitting as we produced a shared creative work. It is not something of any real use but as we untangled the wool we spoke of the strands coming together, and as we looked at the knitting we tried to identify each persons contribution.

Somehow we did get to the seed of a conversation about blessing, but only as the structure took over with a panic about what time the bus was returning to collect people!

Goodbye Gospel 'n' Chips

I think Gospel 'n' Chips has had its day.

Our decision to meet if 3 or more people where available means we were initially dented by the holiday season. This was followed by people waiting for conversations with the new minister around his thoughts. The group was always going to be a summer group and the nights will close in before this time of indecision has passed. At the moment talk is of a prayer meeting taking over both this and another mission focused group I have been enabling. With the inevitable dark evenings I feel I am best to focus on the longer term work.

Is it sad?... perhaps...., but we have had good times and learnt about ourselves and God. More than a dozen people have spoken to us during the last couple of months and several have shared our physical food. The gospel reading has been highlighted in the wider church community due to the cards we have made. I vividly remember one member saying 'I feel alive when we get outside into the community, this is what being a Christian is really about'. We have grown together on this adventure, had fun, and gained insight into the importance of eating together.

I want to file this away as a good experiment. When we did something at the edge of the groups comfort zone we grew and had fun. We might plant a similar seed next year, but I hope we will plant a new one.

....and.... I was getting fed up of fish 'n' chips every week!

Planting experimental seeds

Living seems to me to be about adventurous experimenting, I hold to the idea that I grow at the edges of my experience and knowledge not in the comfort of my core ways of being. Sometimes, because at my core I'm an 'edgy' or 'liminal' type, that means my experiments can be way off track, but their are exceptions! Stating the blindingly obvious....  the need is to discern between the two.

This blog is beginning out of an intention to record and reflect on some of the experiments. Particularly experiments intended to support the emergence of relevant Church within the neighbourhood in which I live and work. Hope suggests the blog will (probably retrospectively) be part of the process of illumination and discernment.

The horizon contains whole realms of possibilities, and change has a tendency to be rapid and discontinuous, but there are two strands I am muddling around with at present. One combines talking about the gospel, eating fish and chips, and sitting on a patch of grass; the other combines a group of older women and their creative gifts. Both include the presence of Christ, and me..... I'm very grateful for the former, and the latter is who I have to offer! 

I think the best way to sum up what I'm about is to say: 'the goal is the kingdom of God, the process is shared, and everything else is open to creative opportunism!'