We began by sharing with those newer to us, the events of our 10th birthday – do scroll back 4 years to see what was so special that day! And after thinking of the Holy Spirit pigeon’s affirmation of us, we used the following words before staying, then, with a deep silence which was very special:
We gather this morning in the name of the Creator,
who creates time and space,
galaxies and stars and planets.
In the name of Jesus Christ, born on planet Earth,
and in the name of the Spiritwho fills Earth with his presence.
Creator God,
in this time we call ‘now’
in this space we call ‘here’
we worship you.
Make your presence felt among us.
Steve then led us, speaking of what we might learn from Acts 4 – revealing some of the elements of the Early Church’s prioroities: Jesus, Resurrection, Evangelism, Miraculous events and Community.
On Wednesdays we are going to revisit the values of ThirdSpace and to help us think about how we might grow and change we read those values again:
Christ, Community, Justice, Celebration,Service, Journey, Connected.
Then we were invited to write on a sheet divided into 2 columns headed ‘Church with…’ and ‘Church without…’ (the latter being a sort of tag line for ThirdSpace). These are the things that we came up with:
Church with: Birdsong, Faith, Acceptance, Christ, Welcome, Festivals, Hospitality, Support, Genuine community, Doubts, A coracle! Nature, Flexiblity, Open invitation to bread and wine, Variety reflecting individuality, Open to other traditions, Creativity, Inclusivity…
Church without: Heirarchy, Walls, A 5-year plan, Prejudice, Certainty, singing! PCC! Preaching, Dogma, Qualifying rules, Religiosity, Power-plays, Bureaucracy’ Division between church/non-church/religion/non-religion, New disciples …
We used the words of our ‘Emerging Creed’ and finally, we shared bread and wine using those early ‘Companions’ words and named those who we knew who needed to be included in that.
It was a very special gathering and we are all so thankful for this place, this church and these people! Hoorah!
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