Well the first one is over. And went suprisingly well, I think. It turned into a little bit more of a pub gig than I expected but that was cool. There was loads of people there though not many of them specifically for the 'service' but that gave it a nice feel. Most joined in the carols (occasionally with alternative words!) but was a really good atmosphere. It was mainly singing carols and other Christmas songs such as 'have yourself a merry little Christmas' and 'Snow is Falling' which it was. I had made a big stollen cake which was passed round and I had got loads of christmas crackers and put a christmas blessing in with the joke and hat. We had a couple of poignant poems and two readings from the street bible. I did a short two minute talk about counting our blessings at Christmas. Over all seemed to go down very well. The guy who played bass and isn't a christian really enjoyed it as did the owners who are sort of nominal christians. Catherine who is the artist who has all her nude paintings in the Bar had even painted a madonna and child which is the first non-nude she had painted in years.

I'm not sure this will be the model for future months it was a bit too front led but I think that was appropriate for this one. There were not as many people involved as I would have wanted but hopefully that will increase with time. One question I have is how we build community? I'm not sure I have any answers just yet. I 'll just have to see how it progresses in the new year.

The
Bare
Arts
Brewery





Here are a few pictures of the art gallery/ bar where we are launching the church on Wednesday. It is a great opportunity to do something so near Christmas as people are a bit more open to spiritual stuff at this time of year. Some of the team had a meeting over breakfast in a local cafe and were discussing how best to picth it. We are going to use a mix of Carols and charty christmas music. Some of the musicians I gig with are going to play including a couple of non-christians. I've invited people from the choir I run and an article has gone in the paper as well as the bare arts sending stuff out to all their regular punters.

One issue that we discussed was how to include prayer in a non-threatening way. We decided to have bits of paper on the tables that people could fill in if they have any prayer requests. Also, it's a little cheesy but hope it will work, having crakers on the tables - in with all the normal stuff you get in there slip in a christmas blessing.

It is interesting that I was really cautious about calling it a service (what we are hoping to achieve is far more of a community than a service) not to put anyone off or make it sound too churchy. But the owners of the bar were perfectly happy calling it a service on their promotional stuff. I think sometimes we can be a bit too apologetic about what we're doing.

Well we see how it is goes

Well here is the tree that we used to start planning the church.
Roots = Vision and values
Christ Centered Spirituality
non religious
Inclusive
Community
Honesty
Creative
To reach non-church people with the gospel relevantly

Trunk = Context + Style
Bare Arts Bar
Arty
Music
middle class (the people who already go there)
non-church
Simultaneous Expressions
Less directed

Branches = Activities
'Worship'- painting
poetry
music (chart well known)

Teaching - Story
Discussion

Response - ? not worked out yet

The final part is the leaves which are meant to be the outcomes but we didn't want to start by being pescriptive. We wanted the people who came along to determine it's direction.

Our opening night is 23rd December which is getting very close. 'Help'.