Join us for a meditative and prayerful Christmas labyrinth, a peaceful evening before the hectic part of the season gets going.
There will be mulled wine and mince pies in the cafe afterwards.
grace saturday night (yes i know it clashes with football so we'll catch up in the cafe afterwards!). here's the blurb
If it's hard to see where God is in current events, and hard to feel hope for the future, imagine what it was like to hear nothing from God for four centuries. Centuries full of empires and atrocities, with only the long-unfulfilled words from the past to feed faith.
And then something happened (so small that hardly anyone noticed at the time).
Join us for a quiet reflective service on how that long Advent sheds light for today. Café afterwards as usual - mulled wine and mince pies of course.
we've had a lot of fun at grace with nine over the years - respinning the traditional readings and carols with nine readings and tunes. it will be live in ealing at st mary's but it will also be online - hybrid and all that. if you want to join online let me know and i can send the link.
i have added more photos to the nine elms advent trail album - jen and i cycled in for a view of things we missed - this time in daylight
jen and i cycled in on what turned out to be a wet and windy evening to go round the nine elms advent trail. it's quite a big area and due to building work not straightforward to work out where you are going so it is quite a trail. we probably managed half of it but enjoyed it and hope to go back. it's outdoors so it's socially distanced and all that. our walk was punctured by news that christmas in london is under tier 4 so it means our plans to see family and grandkids are scuppered - feels like a depressed london today. i definitely feel in need of a bit of light in the darkness. big thanks to betsy and others who put this together.
i have added a photo album here - as ever in the dark i had to work quote hard to get anything like a half decent photo but i do quite like that challenge.
betsy blatchley is a pioneer in nine elms which is a huge new housing area near battersea power station just south of the river thames in london. the focus of her pioneering is arts and community building. she has pulled off what looks like an incredible advent project no doubt with some others - nine elms advent calendar trail. every day through advent a new location is unveiled on social media which reveals a piece of art produced by an artist or community group or some sort of collaboration. but it sounds as though the whole trail is up already so you can go round it. i plan to cycle in at some point and wander round and take some photos. there is a really good instagram and twitter flow with images every day. this is such a good project for this year when you can only really meet outside. and it is an amazing project regardless of the year. a huge effort is behind this i am sure. you can download a map of the trail and follow round it. i really like the look and feel of what is happening through nine elms with the living room and other things - it's been quite a while since i last saw betsy and it looks like things have developed in really creative and good ways since we last spoke. i must catch up! great to see creative pioneering like this in london.
i am making this a worship trick - two in a row!!!???
ben bell loves advent! when he was a youthworker he always produced something creative and now he is a priest he is still up to his old tricks i am glad to say. angels over hoxton is a street art project where two churches have worked together to angel bomb the area and encourage photos to then be posted on social media using the hashtag #angelsoverhoxton - follow the instagram here
it's a very simple idea but it makes perfect sense to take advent to the streets this year perhaps more than any other year but i always like things like this that engage in public space rather than simply inside church buildings.
i am adding it as a worship trick. i'll blog about the other advent project that has caught my attention tomorrow.
several times at grace we have done our own take on nine lessons and carols - only it's unikely to be carols! nine people select a tune related to the traditional readings following the christmas story. come and join us from wherever you are in the world - sit back and relax. here's the blurb
The next Grace will be a Zoom gathering at 8pm on Saturday December 12.
9 lesson, 9 tunes - it’s a Christmas tradition! Even King’s College are going virtual this year.
There will be a cafe afterwards. We would have mulled wine and mince pies in normal circumstances - maybe get yourself some seasonal snacks and be the envy of your breakout group.
If you would like to join us please email [email protected] and we will email you an invitation link.
this advent i am going to read through this lovely little book the art of advent by jane williams which has a painting for each day of advent with a short reflection. it's full colour and less than ten pounds! i was delighted to see meg wroe's reworked rublev's icon is in the book.
i always love the season of advent. love this flyer from steve for our grace advent service this year which will consist of a series of reflections, prayers, meditations, songs brought by whoever comes. if you plan to come do bring something to share in that way. it will all be followed by mulled wine and stollen.
and i am not sure i should confess to this but if you look on the grace web site there is a link to a video from 1996 of grace on channel 4 which we dug out for the 25th celebration - it is fairly amusing/embarrassing!
go and see after dark at chiswick house gardens which is a series of light installations in the grounds - on until christmas
i have been meaning to add this since the last grace but don't know where the time has gone...
anyway it was a lovely grace advent service and i know next year is a way off but you could easily repeat this idea so tuck it away somewhere. grace was inspired by ian adams reflections for advent seeking light - which you can get from proost. we printed them off a3 size and suspended them from the balcony in the church space with nylon thread. we used about 20 in total i think. it was handy that having done an exhibition there before we still had the stuff from that. to straighten them out we just clipped a strip of card behind each sheet.
then apart from a central candle and a few candles highlighting the step at the far end the church space was completely dark - we had moved benches from the main space. a set of tunes played quietly in the dark around the theme of seeking light (see below). then the bulk of grace was 45 minutes where people were given a candle to take into the space and read the reflections by candlelight. they could sit quietly in the space or read through them all as they wished. we simply topped and tailed that with an opening and ending prayer/liturgy. these have been added to the grace archive here . it was very simple. the candlelight really made it a magical evening...
the playlist i think was:
lovebleeps - laura b
incense - andy thornton (from labyrinth)
o come o come emmanuel - sufjan stevens
blackout - heights of abraham
shine - dave gahan and soulsavers
a change is gonna come - the fugees live
anthem - leonard cohen
young death - burial
open the light - boards of canada
gathering light - detriot escalator co
searchlight - jon hopkins
the light - album leaf
a light to guide you - clem leek
near light - olafur arnolds
into forever - eat lights become lights
to believe - cinematic orchestra
jesus alone - nick cave
since i - jono mccleery
lighthouse - patrick watson
i have added this as a worship trick - no 68 in series 4
join us next saturday for a contemplative grace for advent on the theme of seeking light, inspired by and riffing on ian adams proost resource seeking light (thanks ian!)
for the first time in a while the advent grace was nine, where we take the traditional nine readings from nine lessons and carols and invite nine people to choose a piece of music and do something else - a reflection, ritual or whatever.
this year was great with a whole range of contributions. a favourite of mine was the first ever contribution from dave and helena who are new to grace. they made this wonderful film to go with the reading from isaiah 9 about 'the people walking in darkness'.
we have quickly added this to proost so it's available to anyone now - it may be a bit late for this year but tuck it away for next if so!
if you are around this saturday why not come along to grace at st mary's ealing. we take the christmas story as outlined in a traditional nine lessons and carols framework but rather than carols nine people will select a piece of music or art and something to reinterpret or tell the story. we have had some great times over the years. i am one of the nine and will be performing a song...
GETSIDETRACKED is an app on creativity with a series of 54 prompts. you get a random prompt when you shake your phone. think of it like a deck of cards. search getsidetracked in iphone or android app stores. see here for more info.
the latest book is a full colour coffee table type book which is the first published by new venture GETsidetracked - pioneer practice
