Category Archives: gathering

gathering: grace

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Yesterday the gathering got together again in the crypt of the cathedral. This time we looked at the topic of Grace and started by talking about the story of the Prodigal Son.

I was surprised again by what happened. Via email people from the gathering agreed to be responsible for stations for ‘open space’ which is a time we use to help people earth the discussion and topic in the flow of their everyday life. I was surprised, again, because despite lack of detailed planning between us all the stations challenged us in a different way in our thinking of grace and what that is all about. Everything linked, as it often does when we choose to allow God to influence us rather than attempt to control things ourselves.

The time together was varied and gave different experiences under the banner of the theme because the people bringing ideas are at different places on the journey of faith and, with that, bring different needs and interests with them. It was fun to join together to look at grace. I liked that we had a good discussion, but I liked even more that we did not come to any agreement. It showed the person who was there for the first time that Christians can flourish together in disagreement.

I also liked having my mind stretched by the stations as I contemplated what this all meant in how I live my life. On another station transforming the ugliness of my short comings and frustrations into a graceful swan while the words of The Ugly Duckling story rang in my ears was quite a powerful experience.

As I look back it is interesting to see how the gathering is taking shape. It’s interesting and I look forward to continuing to travel with this group of people in to the future.

pub theology

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The gathering are starting our first pub theology on Monday night in Rochester – if you are interested why not come along. More details may be found on the facebook page. The beauty of Facebook is that you can see who is coming already.

Pub theology is an opportunity to get together, have a beer or two, maybe eat some food and talk about theology – that being talking about anything we want really in relation to faith and spirituality.

Get in touch if you wish to know any more.

our celebration gathering

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the gathering gathered again yesterday afternoon in the Crypt. It was an encouraging time as three new people were there and seem to be interested and wanting to become involved in creating something.

Yesterday we considered the theme of celebration and Howard got us thinking on celebration of our diversity while thinking about the world cup and the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. We had a great discussion trying to pull out what this meant … and for the first real time I think we could not all agree which I take as a big positive. A lot of faith, surely, is bigger than our own personal beliefs.
Before and after our worship together there were good conversations happening and it w clear that we are slowly making that transition from group to community … I think the distinguishing element is a genuine interest in other people and what they are about, rather than an attempt to get people to change to fit.
A particular highlight for me was our celebration of communion. We stood around the altar and shared the communion prayer. Our youngest person stood on a chair so she could see over the altar. As we shared bread and wine, I played Paolo Nutini’s track ‘Pencil full of lead’ which I think talks a lot about the celebration of life. I think too often we have a sombre mood in church when sharing communion …. but communion should also be a celebration of what we believe God has done through Christ. 
Nutini is probably a first in the Crypt, and most certainly a first for a Eucharist in the cathedral.  It certainly intrigued tourists walking around. The image though, of people united around God’s altar enjoying the experience, sharing a meal in and of celebration will stay with me for quite a while! I think it was one of those ‘special’moments which comes along when you least expect them.
Sometime’s it is pretty cool to see what God can do with a bunch of people.

unique images of God

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I have had loads of conversations with different people in different settings with people recently and, amazingly, these conversations could be summed up in the question of: ‘what is christianity all about?’ The conversations have mainly been with those that have rejected Christianity, and maybe all institutional religions, but I have also found myself talking about this with a few Christians.

These conversations have quickly turned to asking the question of whether Christianity is about a set of rules to follow or more about a lifestyle or a journey. One such conversation was started by someone holding a postcard from the gathering. The person was intrigued that we should use a labyrinth as a symbol. As we chatted she shared her belief that Christianity was so obviously about a set of rues that had to be strictly followed. She shared that churches she had attended were all very clear on this. When I asked what she meant she replied something like ‘well to fit in you needed to agree with everyone else.’

I shared that as the gathering we use the labyrinth on our card as we believe that Christianity is more about a journey and lifestyle than it is about set rules or doctrine. Although we travel the journey together we believe it is wrong to think we should all travel at the same pace or be in the same places or necessarily believe the same bits of doctrine as Christian faith is wider than any ‘tradition’ of church – there is freedom, too, to just dwell at certain places on the journey for as long as people want to. Jesus came to fulfil the law which means it is now something we respect but no longer governs what we do(a bit like a guardian/teacher figure – I preached on this a little more here last week in the cathedral). The focus now is on a relationship with God rather than a set of rules.

We also chatted about my belief that Christianity is about love and compassion rather than doctrine and that Christian communities, like the gathering and church, should be the ones that actually change as people join them, rather than the community expecting or giving the impression that people need to change before they can fully join. If we are all created in the image of God, then the very fact that we are unique human beings means that we all carry something unique of God within ourselves. If we expect people to leave their uniqueness at the door of our gatherings then we are merely depriving (1) ourselves of understanding more of the God that we say we are trying to discover and (2) others of helping us to understand more of the God we wish to follow.

This conversation with this woman was not a one off. Over the last few months, in various guises, it has been replicated time and time again in conversations with male and female, young and old. When the language turns to christian spirituality, acceptance, compassion and journey a spark of interest appears, but it soon extinguishes. Somehow the church, christians such as myself, have portrayed christian faith not as freedom to love and live as it is, but as a set of rules, of strict doctrine, that controls and directs. People have the idea that the church simply wants conformity as conformity is easy to control.

I’m not sure what we can do about this though … as there does seems to be some truth in this observation.

identity gathering

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This afternoon the gathering looked at Identity. I thought the session went fairly well but we do not seem to have become noticed by many people yet.

I think the creativity of the community came thought this afternoon.  After our welcoming liturgy we thought about Psalm 139. We watched a short film that some friends had made a few years back based on Psalm 139 and then looked at the language and asked ourselves what ‘resonated with us’. A good discussion on identity then followed and I had a proud dad moment as Tom shared some pretty good stuff.

We then moved into Open Space, a time for people to reflect on the theme, bible input and discussion with the help of various stations. Howard wrote the stations which were excellent – one called ‘mirrors’ asking us to look at ourselves in mirrors while looking at a list of truths and lies about ourselves. Another was called ‘exteriors’ where we felt different objects hat were different on the outside and inside and related that to how we wear masks. The third that Howard wrote was called ‘sweets’, which the children particularly liked, and asked us to taste a variety of sweets as we considered what type of sweet we might be. In addition to this there was opportunity to sit quietly in front of an icon and reflect.

After sharing from this time we had a time of prayer with incense and people added incense as they prayed for stuff that concerned them. This was followed by cakes and drinks.

The feel and direction of today seemed ‘right’ in many ways and I am really glad to be part of this … whatever this may be!

a combination of intelligence and feeling

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Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of leading the Taize service with Colette (a member of the cathedral who will be starting her ‘vicar training’ as Westcott in September) in the cathedral. We hold this service each month and people come from all over the diocese for this reflective service. I particularly enjoy the time as there is a lot of space for prayer or silence in between the repetitive chanting that the Taize community is known for.

The cathedral’s format for Taize follows a simple pattern of chant, bible reading, silence, chant, other reading, silence, chant, prayer, chant, blessing and then a glass of wine. The readings are always challenging in some way but the reading I was handed for this service resonated with me in a way that brought tears to my eyes. The quote is from ‘The Enduring Melody’ by Michael Mayne. I have not come across this but this Observer review causes me to view the reading even more poignantly than I did last night.

I read the following quote from the book:

‘So what must ‘being Church’ mean if it is to meet the needs of the age in which our grandchildren are growing up?  It will mean creating spaces in which people may catch a glimpse of the awesome holiness of God as well as the mystery of his vulnerability and compassion.  It will seek to express the traditional quintessence of the Gospel in ways that satisfy the intellect as well as the heart: using words and employing images and metaphors which speak to both but which also speak where reason runs out of words.  Like art and poetry and drama and falling in love, it will demand a combination of intelligence and feeling.  It will mean stilling the demand that we should sign up to some credal formulary, allowing people who have always found themselves in that borderland between faith and scepticism to go on exploring, but within, not outside, the worshipping community.  It will mean loving God’s world, but learning to stand obliquely to the traffic of values dictated by the media and the consumerist world of self-interest, learning to redress the balance with the Gospel values of forgiveness, reconciliation, empathy, equity and self-denying love.  The eucharistic mystery of bread as opposed to the satanic mystery of money.‘

I guess I was especially moved by this reading last night as it sums up in many ways our dreams for the gathering – particularly that sentiment of stilling the demand that we should sign up to some credal formulary, allowing people who have always found themselves in that borderland between faith and scepticism to go on exploring, but within, not outside, the worshipping community.

That seems very easy to say, or to write, but to achieve it … well I am finding that to be just a little more difficult … maybe because it does, indeed, need that combination of both intelligence and feeling. The trouble is, I think, too many people seem to think that intelligence and feeling, or head and heart need to be separate. Often we hear … ‘my heart says yes but my head says no’ …. but  – are not both, head and heart, created by God? And if both are created by God are both not equally capable of hearing God’s message and both equally at risk of mis-hearing?

I wonder whether, somehow, we need to understand how to be led more by our heart as well as our heads so that we can readdress the western slant for reason and intelligence with the heavenly slant of compassion and feeling. Maybe then we can achieve some better equilibrium?


where and how?

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The week has been a pretty good week as far as new links go and chatting and listening with a variety of wonderful people. It has also been a ‘landmark’ week in that our domain name (http://www.gathering.me.uk) has gone properly live. I’m pleased ans surprised that we were able to register that name … and the ‘me’ part both personalises us and locates us within Medway as ME is the postcode area. There are still things to add to the website when the time is right but the basic essentials are there for people who may be searching for like minded people to be able to find us.

In addition this week we have received our advertising postcards. Although it was a good idea to have these published (I got a great special offer deal!) I now have a problem. Where do I leave these postcards? That is also a general question about how and where we let people know about the gathering.

Our dilemma, as such, is that we do not wish to advertise in the ‘normal places’ that a church would advertise. If we do this, our fear is that we will either attract dissatisfied people who are already in churches or attract those looking for something different to attend to add to what they are already involved in. While there is nothing wrong in that if that need exists, we don’t feel this is what the gathering is primarily for. 

the gathering is for those searching, those who have never been to church or those that have tried church and want to create something new that engages with them and their questions. We don’t wish to build a new service or event, we are looking for people that wish to join us on this journey of birthing a new way of being church where people can journey together, question but accept each others views and discover God for themselves.

Currently our postcards can be found in a pub, the library and a couple of coffee shops in Rochester. I sense this is where spiritually questioning people tend to hang out. I may be wrong but I guess it is a start. I’m not sure where else to place them – any suggestions from practitioners out there – either on the whole awareness thing or the specific postcard thing?

waiting (again!)

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The gathering now has some form of web presence if you have missed out on that – there is a link to our facebook page on the right hand side of this blog page, and you can find an ‘in process’ web site here. As far as the gathering goes I am thinking through how we exist. As we only get together once a month at the moment it is easy to think of the gathering as merely an event, and that is definitely what we wish to avoid. We wish to be a growing community, a church, and to do that we need to do more than just ‘worship’ together.

I feel at the moment that I am missing something. I have taken some time out today to think and ponder over stuff in a prayerful way. I’d like to say that I had ‘a moment’ or ‘epiphany’ experience – but I didn’t! In fact, if I’m honest, the day has been ‘bloody hard work’ and I don’t feel that I have anything to show for it. To make it worse I really thought today would be a key day!

I’m stuck!
I’m waiting!
I’m fairly frustrated!

After yesterdays services a thought did strike me and I wondered if this situation is similar in some ways to those disciples who were stuck between Ascension and Pentecost. They were told to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. They are living in the excitement of seeing the resurrected Christ and his ascension; and then they have to wait. Looking at the first few chapters of Acts as I did today I think it becomes pretty clear that the disciples here were just blindy obedient.

By that I mean that they followed the instruction to wait, but that they did not really know what this ‘Holy Spirit’ was that they were waiting for. In some ways they just accepted that they had to ‘wait and see’ as they had been instructed. I wonder of they were frustrated too?

I look to those early chapters of Acts with more frustration if I am honest. They seem to be saying I have to wait more. The one action I can see here is that the group ‘met continually for prayer’. So I guess that is what we have to do. As a community of the gathering who living apart in the 21st century with different work and lifestyles, rather than living in 1st century Palestine quite close together, then we need to think how we can pray continually as meeting in the same place is not going to be possible. Maybe we need to agree to pray at set times wherever we are, adopting a kind of monastic approach to prayer through being united in prayers together at a time so that we can be united in our absence from each other. Or is that just fancy words to try and sound like I know what I’m doing?!

MY conclusion? : I’m still stuck – but I hope this waiting thing moves on soon.

we gathered …

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Yesterdays gathering was a great experience and one that I think was encouraging for us all.

We thought a little about Pentecost. After our gathering liturgy, James led us in some trust games which flowed well into watching a short video clip of the scene in Acts 2. After chatting about ‘what all this meant’, particularly to us in the 21st century in Kent, we them moved into Open Space.

Open Space is a practice I saw at COTA which has stayed with me. During this time we have ‘space’ to think about or dwell on what we have been talking about and heard from each other. For some, this could involve sitting in front of an icon, watching a video that asked more about the theme, or praying in a creative way – on this ocassion by using anointing oil or sitting in front of a fan to feel the spirit upon your face.

We came back together to pray before Sarah got us making ‘tassles’ made up of 3 different colours to symbolise the Trinity. We had quite a laugh doing this and my tassle has been sat in my pocket all day and each each time I touched it my mind wandered to think about the Trinity. We finished with our sending/eating liturgy and shared cakes together in the crypt.

This was an encouraging time for a number of reasons – we had 2 new people come to the gathering  which is exciting to see. Seeing James lead us at the start showed how seriously we take children within this community. This was a gathering where people were free to explore and create as they try to make sense of their faith journey.

The joining of new people and the chat we had afterwards leads us to think that we are moving in the right direction in the format that we have. Sarah mentioned to me that I have become ‘churchy’ in my language and so that is something that we, or I, need to be aware of in the future. I guess the frustration now is how do we let people know who are searching and on this ‘faith journey’ that we exist?

Although this is all exciting – there is a frustration for me. I feel something is missing – a key person to work alongside me, to bounce ideas off from within the community, to set up with me. At the moment I am ‘taking a strong lead’ with the gathering in ensuring our monthly gathering happens and at the moment because of another key family lots of great things happen…but I think this should be more organic and decentralised rather than resting with one, or even two, people or sets of people. To be decentralised, however, we need more people and so I feel we are in this frustrating chicken and egg scenario! We have great people in the gathering but we need more.

So if you are the praying type – please pray that I bump in to some other people soon that I can bounce things around with regularly or that they find us.

YOu can also find the gathering on facebook.

The gathering Sunday 415pm

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This Sunday see’s the second of our gatherings in the crypt of the cathedral.

We are starting to have a web presence and you can find us on facebook and temporarily in an early draft form at this site so that people that may be interested can find out more. If that is you please message us, or of it is someone you know please tell them about us. Feel free to pass the links on to others so that people can discover us for themselves.

This months theme is looking at a mixture of truth and Pentecost and I am looking forward top seeing what the community creates as we continue our journey together.