check out the video bar

in the vid section there is a classic stand-up routine that we watched last night.

it feat. ricky gervais [brilliant brit comedian] talking about creation and reminding us that we should have a sense of humour about the discussion at hand: how literally should we read the bible?

warning: there is some cursing in this clip [yes, we listened to swearing last night...aren't you sorry you missed out now?]

there will be another posting later on but we are going to wait until some emails come in discussing last night's issue. since we ran out of time and the talks were still going [and building] we are going to do a part 2 this wed night but also keep the discussion going during the week.

thanks for some good/interesting/controversial points last night

walk on

there is a video of the last immersion which will be posted soon so stay tuned.

in essence the video will show a large group of people walking, talking and doing an assortment of different things like drawing, dropping walks into water, praying, lighting candles, looking at themselves in the mirror and even playing with a compass and magnets.

our first labyrinth service was designed to shine a light on the idea of walking with god. we talk about it but what does it mean? in the greek mindset [which we largely inherited] the soul and the body are separate entities. thus we believe that the body dies but the soul lives on. but jesus never said that, he talked about the resurrection of the body. interesting.

we approached this event with an understanding [hopefully] that what happens in the body also happens in the soul. thus, as we walked physically around the labyrinth, or to each station, or to get coffee, we held to the idea that the soul was doing likewise. in the physical realm immersion simply looked like a group of people wandering about and talking quietly to each other. in the spiritual realm there were numerous souls taking time to walk to god. powerful, simple, profound.

thus, we [hopefully] discovered that any action we take at any time can be used as worship. as we walk to class, work, the store, to get the remote, whatever can be an act of worship. what would our day look like if we sporadically offered the next ten steps to god? what if we said:

'lord, until i reach that room i am going to take every step as if i were literally walking to You.'

how would our days change? what would we see/feel/think/notice?

that is the power of the journey, that is the call of the pilgrimage. we do not have to go to jerusalem or to the local church [although both are a good idea] we simply have to get up, look to god, and take a step.

and before we know it we're walking.

what can we say?

speechless. that is one way to describe the power of last night's service.

gathered together, lit only by candles and only the sound of one piano and our voices the community brought praises to the throne room of god.

we sang, we sat in silence, we watched candlelight, we brought our struggles to the foot of the cross, we lit candles, we heard scripture, we explored who this person jesus was but more importantly, throught the silence and the music and the symbols we invited the risen jesus to touch us in our hearts.

those who spoke about it spoke of a feeling of peace, a feeling of happiness, a feeling of refreshment.

through songs that repeated phrases over and over again like:

"jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom"

or

"look to god, do not be afraid, lift up your voice"

we attempted to make these words take on a new meaning in our lives. the tunes were simple and the songs repetitive but they foreced us to look at these phrases and make them our own, personal prayers.

crying out to jesus to "hear us when we pray" as we lay our burdens at the foot of the cross and watching videos that taught us that worship is not about a dress code but about a relationship with the creator of the universe [see top video in video bar] and that god not only loves us but likes us too [a powerful distinction] were designed to touch our spirits and immerse them in the love and peace of god.

immersion has built a reputation for being a forum of discussion and dialogue about the faith as well as a creative place for art and music to be used to explore the character of god and what that means to us in daily life. however, this 3-part series re-discovering some ancient worship traditions has been rewarding as we gave over our own agendas and surrendered to the movement of the spirit of god. it felt good to just let go and seek the presence of the Divine.

next week we'll complete the series with an evening dedicated to the spiritual journey of the soul...it is called 'walking' and promises to be a powerful conclusion.

and the WORD was God...

we spent the past evening deep in the study of the word: word.

through monastic music we explored several bible passages. we watched bono sing and speak about the mission of jesus and the year of jubilee (see vids section).

we wrote down words that came to mind when the word "god" was said

we watched scripture verses appear on the screen and we wrote down key phrases that stuck out for us.

we closed our eyes, listened to the story of jesus healing the widow of nain's son three times and pictured ourselves in the story to see what we could learn and where the story moved us.

we discussed all these aspects and just took an hour to calm our hectic lives down.

so many woderful things happened and there were so many new people and there are just too many things to write so we will simply record that the chance to stop and meditate on the word of god in so many ways was incredibly popular. so popular, in fact, that we are going to repeat the process all over again in a couple of weeks with different passages and ideas.

this wednesday we are going to spend the time reflecting musically through our version of a taize service. we hope that you can join us as we explore the role of jesus in our lives through song and imagery and silence.

should be another memorable night.