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Pictures from re:fresh gathering on 'Creativity'

The latest re:fresh gathering took place on June 15th and looked at the topic of 'Creativity'. Rather than sit and listen to a talk from someone about creativity, we decided to get creative! Each re:fresh group was asked to prepare a prayer installation on one of the other six elements that make up the re:fresh community rule.

As you can see by these photos, the result was a terrific array of creative energy and imagination. These stations formed the core of our meeting, a time of what is called 'alternative worship', and was topped off with a meal provided by the local Subway restuarant, activities and a bible study on Psalm 104. So, here goes...enjoy!

Discipleship

 

Mission

Accountability

half of the Balance station!

...and the other half of Balance!

 

Presence

 

last but not least, Acceptance

Creativity @ re:fresh

The June Community Meeting for re:fresh will be happening on Sunday June 15th and for the first time ever we'll be meeting at Church. The reason is that we're going to be doing some - to coin the phrase - 'alternative worship' and we need a large space that we can adapt and move stuff around in. Each re:fresh group has been given one aspect of the Community Rule to work with, and asked to produce a prayer installation around that theme. We're hoping to see a lot of Creativity in this - which is, of course, the seventh element of our Community Rule!

Food has been organised - we will be catered for by Subway, who will be supplying  a varied selection of delicious 'Subs' together with yummy Cookies and Cakes. There'll be fun activities, stuff for the children and plenty of time to chat, as well as input about the biblical imperative for us to be creative. Should be a good evening - and it all happens at our regular (until recently) time of 5.00-7.00 pm at Church.

Balance Week #4

Not sure how many are still using the web resources on Balance, but this final week we are asking people to use the Daily Prayer cycle of the Northumbria Community. To save typing the URL from the sheet, here is the direct link - there are four services, depending what time of day you are praying you simply enter the appropriate bit.

It's worth taking a bit of time to look around the Northumbria Community site. They are a wonderful example of modern Celtic Community, drawing of ancient traditions- but with a real sense of being relevant for today. I've stayed at their Community House near Holy Island on a couple of ocassions and very much enjoyed the worship and refreshment of being there.

Balance Week #3

This week we are asking people to use the resource called Word for the Web, which is produced by the Church Army.

The studies this week are on the Book of Judges - and if you thought that sounded a bit boring, then look at what the author of the studies has to say, calling it 'probably the most ghastly and depressing story in the whole of the Bible, involving gang rape and murder, mutilation of a corpse, whipped-up vengeance leading to civil war, and hypocrisy leading to massacre and state-sponsored kidnapping'

With a write up like that, you'e just got to  use the resources....

Balance week #2

The second week of the Balance resources features a daily prayer feed from the good old Church of England itself - yeah, I thought we ought to try out the 'official' stuff!

The Daily Prayer feed can be found all over the Web - in fact, we could even embed it onto our site if people wanted it - but the Pray Unceasing site is one that I thought looked good. Again, you've got different services for Morning, the Evening and just before bed ('Compline'). Why not try them all on different days throughout the week.

Have fun with the different services, and don't forget to leave feedback on the re:fresh forum.

Looking ahead to "Creativity"

Next month's re:fresh community meeting will be on June 15th and will be held at Church. The reason for this is that we need lots of space to be able to be creative!  Each re:fresh group has been allocated one element of the Community Rule to present as an interactive prayer installation, and these will be set up throughout the Church for a time of alternative worship.

Those looking for ideas and resources that can spark your thinking might want to look at these sites. 

Jonny Baker's blog has a series of 'Worship Tricks', currently over 230 different ones to look through. Use the links in the right menu to navigate the collections.

Experiential Worship is a site with a lot of very good ideas - use the 'heart', 'soul' etc links at the top to get to the content.

One emerging church that has been walking the walk for many years is Visions in York, and their site has a range of resources and ideas. 

The Alternative Worship site has collected together a whole range of resources and links to stuff that might spark your ideas

The key thing here is not just to ape what others have done, but use the ideas here as a launchpad to your own thinking and creativity. Be daring and try something genuinely creative, and God will bless what you do! 

Balance week #1

This month, the re:fresh groups are doing something a bit different - working with a different online resource each week and then discussing it and using it in their group meetings. It is an attempt to grapple with this section of our Community Rule

We wish to develop healthy spiritual disciplines such as daily prayer, meditation and contemplation, drawing on the ancient Christian paths

During this first week, all re:fresh members are being encouraged to use the daily prayers found on the rejesus site. These can be found via this direct link. One interesting thing about this prayer resource is that it automatically changes according to the time of day - here is the explanation from the site

Every time you launch the daily prayer you will get a different visual and textual experience. If you use it in the morning you will get the morning prayer with its readings and suggestions for that day. Later on is daytime prayer and after 8pm you will get night prayer. The images and colours change second by second throughout the year. The full screen background tint changes throughout the day

Enjoy interacting with this fascinating prayer resource - and don't forget to explore the rest of the site, there is a lot of terrific stuff there to read and enjoy....

The Wisdom of the Crowd

Forgive the rather bizarre title of this blog post (it's the title of the book I recently read for my MA!) - but this is a post that tries to pull together a whole load of email, paper and verbal feedback on recent re:fresh happenings.

• The general feeling was that the April re:fresh community meeting was one of the best yet – perhaps even the best yet! People were clear about what was being put across and what we mean by the term ‘mission’.
• People liked that there was much more input ‘from the front’ – although that then inevitably means that only a limited number of people feel able to deliver that kind of input. Several people enjoyed having the guest speaker (interview) and thought that we could other guest speakers, although – again –we need to get good ones!
• The venue was generally good – a venue that had credibility for inviting people, a good welcome from the staff, comfy seats etc. The layout didn’t make it easy for people to mingle, although we can maybe adjust that next time. There was a badly placed (fake) Yukka plant that obscured views for some people – little things that can be made better.
• Costa isn’t great for children – it means that we have to meet at a later time because it is open to the public until 6.00 pm. Also the automatic doors open if a child goes near, which might be a security concern. And we’re still not really getting the participation of children right.
• Now that every group has had a turn at planning a meeting, we need to re-assess. One suggestion is that, rather than lumping it onto the groups, we form ‘teams’ to oversee the various ‘areas’ i.e. upfront leadership, children, small group resources, practical / admin. That would enable people to use the gifts they have, rather than gifts they don’t…
• There are long term issues about things like venues, community meeting sustainability, finances for re:fresh. We need to have plans laid for the longer term – we have plans for June and July but not beyond….
• Generally, people are happy with their re:fresh groups and have found them helpful. There are unanswered questions about what we do when people leave re:fresh (e.g. Nasreen’s ‘group’) and how we could incorporate new people into the groups. If we are ever going be to missional, then we need to know how to bring in new people!

Thanks to those who have responded. This is hopefully a reasonably accurate summation of the various points raised. If I've missed anything, please add it in the comments.

'Balance' to be topic at next re:fresh

The next re:fresh will be on Sunday May 18th at our new venue of Costa Coffee in Forster Square Retail Park, we meet from 6.00 pm onwards with the organised part of the evening starting at about 6.15 pm.

We're having a bit of a swap around - so apologies for anyone expecting this month to be about the next part of The Community Rule which would have been 'Creativity'. The reason is that what I've got in mind for 'Creativity' can't really be done in the confines of Costa Coffee (oooh...mysterious!) so 'Creativity' will be in June, and we're looking at 'Balance' this month.

We aspire to live with integrity in God’s world, with a healthy balance between work, rest and play. We wish to develop healthy spiritual disciplines such as daily prayer, meditation and contemplation, drawing on the ancient Christian paths. We want to live within our means, living sustainable lives. We desire to not be simply consumers, but people committed to giving and receiving in all of life.

There'll be more of 'talking around the tables' feel about this evening with plenty of time for discussing, chatting and chilling out over some great coffee. Join us from 6.00 pm.