[ hold :: this space ]

Worship tonight at Healesville. It was fairly… um… deconstructed…

Mike might post pictures this week… because i’m going on holidays… as of now…

Says Mordecai to Esther, "Perhaps you were made queen for such a time like this"

There’s no mention of God in the story of Esther. We know she had loyalty to her people… we know she had loyalty to the things we associate with God - freedom, liberation and wholeness - but in this story her loyalty to God goes unmentioned. Maybe it was because her faith was so deeply embedded in her life that there was no need to mention it…

           Do you long for faith like that?

Remember a time when you have known your faith, really known it, felt embedded in it… when it’s been so much a part of you that there was no part of you separate to it… you didn’t talk about it because there were no words that could do justice to it… you just lived it.

            The God you knew then is still here…

Remember a time when you trusted your instincts and hunches… when you could step courageously because you knew yourself, and you knew your faith so well that questioning your response was unimaginable.

            Pray to the God you knew then…

Picture the people and places in the world right now that need to know freedom and liberation. Let the memory of your faith give you all the courage you need to respond.

             You too were born for such a time like this.

Greetings noble friends and journey-folk.
October 30 sees the fourth of our alternative worship events,
Each Time You Do

Esther’s Soir??e
           the means >> an end

yep - it’s a party!

This event is on a Sunday arvo - hope the shift is OK with y’all.
Sunday October 30
3.00pm flexi-start
57 Hodges Road
Healesville 5962 1153
No rsvp just bring something to BBQ!
Chances are we’ll drift into an early dinner.
Local wines will be provided.

the plan:
1. Eat good simple food, drink good wine and good coffee
2. Talk with interesting people
3. Do interesting things
4. Or not.
It’s up to you to measure your response.

No singing.
No walking down aisles.
No preaching heads.
No specific start or end times.

We don’t only have worship at Mike and Claire’s in Healesville because they have a data projector permanently mounted from their living room ceiling… but it would be poor stewardship if we didn’t use it since it’s there…

Last month worship was created around the story of the walk to Emmaus. It took a shape around the idea of Jesus telling the story of the world in a new way. In the living room space we projected the website 10 by 10 onto the wall. People were invited to imagine how Jesus’ presence might mean those stories are told in a new way, and to write or draw those thoughts onto cards which were then stuck onto the projected images on the wall.

One of the intentions of this alternative worship project is to map the journey of some new worshipping communities, so we can begin to build a picture of how the church can create a space where alternative worshipping communities might be given the best kind of support, and lots of air to breathe… The postings on this blog of communities like Healesville will be part of the way that we build that picture.

Healesville began as a vague idea over many long lunches… It didn’t arise from a desire to do anything particularly hip and cool - there was a slightly more desperate air about it. As Mike said, "I haven’t left the church because I’ve lost my faith… I’ve left because i want to keep it". We talked a lot about how we had to find worship that sustained and provoked our faith - transforming us to live differently in the world, speaking from and into the world and culture that we are absorbed in every day. And if we couldn’t find it, we’d create it. As soon as we started to speak about the possibilities, we found energy to begin stuff. And when we talked about it around the different circles we move in, we kept discovering people who felt likewise.

Interestingly, (and i suspect this is actually really important), Healesville hasn’t shaped itself as worship for the disenchanted or disenfranchised. In the first time we met, someone who had come to check it out kept saying that we must be doing this because we’re pissed off with the church, but that didn’t feel like what was happening at all. We’re doing Healesville because it seems like the most natural place and way for us to worship.

Mike and Claire host worship at their place in Healesville on a Saturday evening once a month. It’s an open house kind of affair, lots of food and wine around the table; different stations for interaction, conversation and reflection are set up around the rest of the house. We’re using a different meal story from the Bible each month - the last supper, the walk to Emmaus, Jesus’ meal at Mary and Martha’s house. Next month it’s Esther.

We make wine labels each month to stick on cleanskins. Mike does up a design, and the words grow out of the bible story. "A moment of clarity" came from the story of the walk to Emmaus.