Time

I'm aware that this is purely conceptual rather than an actual idea of how a service would be shaped, but I'd been thinking about Time. Advent Sunday is the beginning of the liturgical calendar, and the run up to Christmas often has a "here we go again" feel to it. I was wondering how we might juxtapose an idea of progression through time (The notion of 'salvation history', in which the incarnation is the most significant point) with the cyclical way in which we tend to measure and conceive of Time. It also occured to me to wonder about the juxtaposition of expectation and commemoration and how this tension(?) might fit with the rest of my thoughts.

Just a thought,

Bruce Forman

Frozen

I like themes that have an obvious 'hook' with respect to visual and written imagery, and 'Frozen' is such a title for me. Obviously there is no point however in making a service look pretty if it has no real content. So here are my thoughts so far...

• Frozen fits with the weather at the time of the service, so the imagery should resonate with people
• 'Frozen' suggests a sense of impotence and fear. A lot of our services are very inward looking; I think this could lead us in directions where we explore our response to some of the big issues facing our world
• Frozen can also of course describe the human heart, and its inability to feel connected to others. In the gospels Christ had the ability to 'unfreeze' hearts... are we receptive to that? Are we called to be part of that process for others? Do we feel too frozen with fear when it comes to sharing our faith with others?
  
• Other Scriptures that come to mind are OT characters too afraid to take on what they were called to do (e.g. Moses, Gideon); and the parable of the talents
• Elements could include melting ice (I have a lovely image of icecubes hanging on a washing line, gradually dripping throughout the service!); and I've got a great song up my sleeve! I know Ian is very keen on story telling playing a part, and certainly it could fit within this service.

So...what do you think, guys? Please post any positive comments, ask me a clarifying question, or post a new idea entirely!

Tracey

The way this works - read this first

The point of this is to stimulate a bit of creative thinking between services, involve those who can't be on planning teams and stop us wasting the first meeting or two of a planning cycle staring at a blank piece of paper. Anyone can make a new post suggesting a possible service theme, why they think it would be good, and the kind of ideas and activities that might make it work. Rather than us all having the login details for the blog and potentially messing up each others stuff, email your suggestion to thewheelybin@blueyonder.co.uk and I will paste it faithfully in as a new strand. Anyone else can obviously respond directly to the initial blog on any theme with thoughts, questions or creative suggestions (poems, songs, visual ideas, rituals, prayers, bible links etc.) that develop the theme. It would be nice if no-one made purely negative comments (apart from raising questions about how a particular idea/activity would work) as it is generally best to just wait and see which ideas take wings and fly and which don't without discouraging people from having ideas in the first place. Anyway - think bold, think free, enjoy.